ABSTRACT
Applied to a writer of poor quality stories and other works. The word compares such a writer with a hackney horse, one whose services are for hire to anyone. It often collocates with Grub Street, a street in London which was later re-named Milton Street. Dr Johnson said of this street that it was ‘much inhabited by writers of small histories, dictionaries, and temporary poems, whence any mean production is called grubstreet’. It was Johnsonian modesty, or self-deprecation, one hopes, which made him include dictionary writers amongst the grub street hacks. The Occupation, by David Caute, has one writer calling another ‘you horny headed son of toil, you grub street hack’.
