Make Your Point > Archived Issues > MUCKRAKE
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MUCKRAKE:
Say it "MUCK rake."
To hear it, click here.
connect this word to others:
If you're a muckraker, you dig up a bunch of lowdown, dirty facts--often about businesses or governments--and publish them. It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.
And if you're a sc___almonger, you dig up gossip, not facts. That's an even dirtier job. Don't do it!
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definition:
"Muck," of course, can be dirt, mud, poop, or any other kind of goopy waste.
And here's a muckrake:
It rakes muck! That is, it helps you gather up all kinds of goopy waste. Like the word "rake" itself, "muckrake" can be a verb, too, as in "I have to go muckrake in the barn."
When we use the word "muck" in a figurative sense today, we usually mean "dirty, nasty, unpleasant, or criminal things people say or do."
And so, today, to muckrake, or to muckrake details or people or governments, is to go looking for all the bad, nasty things that certain people have said and done, and then share that information publicly.
And if you're a muckraker, you're an investigative journalist: you rake up the muck, and you publish it. You gather up evidence of crimes, scandals, injustice, and corruption.
That's the gist of it. But if you're interested in the history of this word, read on.
It's worth knowing that, for hundreds of years, "muck" also meant "money, wealth, worldly goods: all the earthly treasures that we play around in down here, as opposed to the celestial treasures that some of us believe the afterlife promises."
In that old English allegory The Pilgrim's Progress (1684), there's a man with a muckrake who constantly looks down, instead of looking up to accept a celestial crown. Meaning: he's so focused on gathering earthly riches that he's ignoring both God and his own salvation. Check it out:
...the Interpreter...has them first into a Room where was a Man that could look no way but downwards, with a Muck-rake in his hand. There stood also one over his head with a Celestial Crown in his hand, and proffered him that Crown for his Muck-rake; but the man did neither look up, nor regard, but raked to himself the straws, the small sticks and dust of the floor.
...Interpreter: "His Muck-rake doth shew his carnal mind. And whereas thou seest him rather give heed to rake up straws and sticks and the dust of the floor, than to what he says that calls to him from above with the Celestial Crown in his hand, it is to shew that Heaven is but as a fable to some, and that things here are counted the only things substantial...the man could look no way but downwards, it is to let thee know that earthly things when they are with power upon men's minds, quite carry their hearts away from God."
Thanks to this Muckraker character, we started using the noun "muckrake" figuratively to mean "a way of gathering earthly wealth." As in, "Look up from your muckrake...and go to church!"
But that's not the meaning we use today. Today, to muckrake is to dig up dirt, usually dirt on businesses or governments.
Here's how the meaning changed.
In 1906, Teddy Roosevelt gave a speech where he compared the Muckraker from Pilgrim's Progress to the journalists who were busy digging up dirt. He praised their work, but warned them not to take it too far:
You may recall the description of the Man with the Muck-rake, the man who could look no way but downward with the muck-rake in his hands; who was offered a celestial crown for his muck-rake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor... The men with the muck-rakes are often indispensable to the well-being of society; but only if they know when to stop raking the muck.
Journalistic dirt-digging wasn't new when Roosevelt said all that, but from then on, we've called it muckraking.
grammatical bits:
Part of speech: these days, usually a verb, and usually the intransitive kind: "they're willing to muckrake," "all they do is muckrake."
Other forms: muckraker(s), muckraking.
how to use it:
Most often, we use this semi-common word in its noun and adjective forms: "muckraking journalism;" "a muckraking journalist;" "This muckraking is out of control;" "It's yet another muckraking book;" "I've had it with all these muckraking articles; let's read some happy news."
As you can tell, the tone is often negative.
But it doesn't have to be: after all, someone has to do the muckraking, or else we let crooks get away with whatever they want. Muckraking is dirty work, but its results can be illuminating, leading to progress and reforms.
examples:
"This company is a part of the United States Steel Corporation, and in the old muckraking days it was thoroughly raked."
— Julian Street, American Adventures: A Second Trip Abroad at Home, 1917
"It's practically a patriotic duty to hate Big Oil, no matter your political persuasion. Big [Agriculture], I suspect, is much less unpopular, even after muckraking works like Fast Food Nation and Food Inc."
— Bryan Walsh, Time, 27 March 2012
has this page helped you understand "muckrake"?
study it:
Explain the meaning of "muckrake" without saying "dig up dirt" or "publish dirt."
try it out:
Talk about a muckraking book, article, documentary, YouTube video, or other piece of media you've read or watched.
In this muckraking piece, what facts or claims shocked you? When did you say, "That's SO wrong," "That's SO corrupt," or "That's SUCH an abuse of the public's trust"? Ultimately, do you find this piece of muckraking to be reliable or unreliable, a public service or a public disservice? Why?
For example, I'd talk about this piece from the Tampa Bay Times. Here's the subtitle: "As it built an armored truck empire, GardaWorld took dangerous shortcuts. Its workers and unsuspecting motorists suffered the consequences." As I learned about the deaths GardaWorld caused, I felt shock, grief, and outrage. The piece seems reliable, a public service that may lead to positive changes in the armored truck industry.
I'll list some other muckraking pieces you may have read or watched. (Have I left off one that's important to you? Please let me know and I'll add it here!)
Films:
Kirby Dick's The Invisible War
Michael Moore's Sicko and/or Fahrenheit 9/11
Articles:
"Ten Days in a Mad-House" by Nellie Bly
"Harvey Weinstein Paid Off Sexual Harassment Accusers for Decades" by Jodi Kantor and Megan Twohey at the New York Times
Books:
The Jungle by Upton Sinclair
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser
Unsafe at Any Speed by Ralph Nader
Hell's Angels by Hunter S. Thompson
Putin's Russia by Anna Politkovskaya
All the President's Men by Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein
before you review, play:
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
This month, our game is called "Recollections."
In each issue, I'll share a quote from some work--it might be a song, a poem, or a book--and you'll come up with that work's title. You can assemble the title, highlighted in the vertical blue line below, by recalling words to fit into the puzzle. Scrap paper might help!
From the previous issue:
"Listen for the sound,
Of the dusty train that's comin',
To sweep us all away.
I can hear the rails come rattlin' against the hectic fray so,
Set the bone with a cardboard splint,
And strike the nail against the flint,
And set the fields on fire."
Those words appear in the song "End of the Line," by Murder by Death.
If you'd like to review any of the words from the puzzle, give them a click: ebb, Xanadu, dally, vacillate, ubiquity, abeyance, jaded.
Try this one today:
"The night stared me in the face, amorphous, blind, infinite, without frontiers. Not a single star relieved the darkness behind the glass."
In what work does the quote above appear?
1) noun: "a person who damages or ruins something on purpose"
2) noun: "a person who is so enthusiastic about something that it's extreme or crazy"
3) verb: "to remove something from talks or from consideration" (the US meaning)
4) noun: "a dumb, clumsy mistake in a social situation"
5) verb: "to talk or complain for a long time, often loudly"
6) noun: "a bad position or situation that's hard to get out of"
7) proper adjective: "scary, bizarre, and dreamlike in a way that reminds you of stories like The Trial, The Hunger Artist, and The Metamorphosis"
review this word:
A. BALANCE.
B. WHITEWASH (to gloss over bad deeds).
C. EXCORIATE (to criticize extremely harshly).
2. According to Reuters, a certain publisher "specialized in muckraking books on the _____ of China's top leadership."
A. history and traditions
B. private lives and business dealings
C. artistic, aesthetic, and architectural tastes
a final word:
I hope you're enjoying Make Your Point. It's made with love.
I'm Liesl Johnson, a reading and writing tutor on a mission to explore, illuminate, and celebrate words.
From my blog:
36 ways to study words.
Why we forget words, & how to remember them.
How to use sophisticated words without being awkward.
To be a sponsor and include your ad in an issue, please contact me at Liesl@HiloTutor.com.
Disclaimer: When I write definitions, I use plain language and stick to the words' common, useful applications. If you're interested in authoritative and multiple definitions of words, I encourage you to check a dictionary. Also, because I'm American, I stick to American English when I share words' meanings, usage, and pronunciations; these elements sometimes vary across world Englishes.
If you're a muckraker, you dig up a bunch of lowdown, dirty facts--often about businesses or governments--and publish them. It's a dirty job, but somebody's gotta do it.
"Muck," of course, can be dirt, mud, poop, or any other kind of goopy waste.
Part of speech: these days, usually a verb, and usually the intransitive kind: "they're willing to muckrake," "all they do is muckrake."
Most often, we use this semi-common word in its noun and adjective forms: "muckraking journalism;" "a muckraking journalist;" "This muckraking is out of control;" "It's yet another muckraking book;" "I've had it with all these muckraking articles; let's read some happy news."
"This company is a part of the United States Steel Corporation, and in the old muckraking days it was thoroughly raked."
Explain the meaning of "muckrake" without saying "dig up dirt" or "publish dirt."
Talk about a muckraking book, article, documentary, YouTube video, or other piece of media you've read or watched.
Try to spend 20 seconds or more on the game below. Don’t skip straight to the review—first, let your working memory empty out.
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