[78-L] Albums

[D P Ingram]

Interesting point. To me the album refers to the "case" in part, so you can have one disk in an album.  Certainly as a child growing up using British English one might ask mother to "fetch the latest (group) album from the record store".

Perhaps 78 rpm disks were not generally referred to as albums as they were clearly one disk with an (often) open hole in the sleeve, just like many but not all 7" 45 rpm. disks and had 1 / 2 tracks, yet the 33.33 rpm disks had NORMALLY many tracks even if they were on one disk. In the 80s we referred to 12" singles and 12" albums to differentiate also.

The Oxford English Dictionary also looks at the derivation of album with several entries that can lead to the natural conclusion of the use of album within sound recordings.

Mind you, the last entry referred to below has nothing to do with sound recordings directly, but one can see an indirect link to less popular artists' latest outpourings.

From the OED, 2nd ed. 1989

2. A blank book in which to insert autographs, memorial verses, original drawings, or other souvenirs. According to Johnson ‘a book in which foreigners have long been accustomed to insert the autographs of celebrated people.’

1651 Reliq. Wotton (1672) 30 Was requested by Christopher Flecamore to write some sentence in his Albo. Ibid. 69 In his Album of Friends after the German custome. 1652 E. BENLOWES Theoph., Who in Loves Albo are enrol'd Unutterable Joyes behold. 1757 CHESTERFIELD Lett. 319. IV. 87, I do not mean a German album, stuffed with people's names and Latin sentences. 1848 THACKERAY Van. Fair lxiii. (1853) 533 Grignac..made caricatures of Tapeworm in all the Albums of the place.

4. A book for reception of photographic cartes and views, or of postage-stamps, crests, or other things which are collected and preserved; a scrap-book. Also attrib.

1859 All Y. Round No. 30. 79 An album full of photographs. 1878 Paper & Print. Jrnl. xxv. 11 A still greater novelty is an album containing twenty-four Welsh costumes. 1936 C. J. WEST Bibliog. Pulp & Paper Making 612 Changes in the composition of thick album paper and oiled paper. 1937 E. J. LABARRE Dict. Paper 97/1 Album papers and boards are cover papers, or double thick pasted board..intended for photographic albums.

6. A long-playing gramophone record or a set of such records.

1957 Gramophone Apr. 427/2 That he was too little appreciated in his lifetime makes this memorial album (another record is to follow) even more..important. 1963 Oxford Mail 28 Jan. 6/6 Many jazz album covers have little connection with the contents. 1967 Times 16 Dec. (Advt.), A four record album with illustrated colour brochure.

From the OED additional series ed. 1997

    album, n.2

    Add:    3. album graecum (grakm, gri-) [L. graecum, neut. sing. of graecus Greek], the excrement of dogs, hyenas, etc., after it has dried and whitened, formerly used medicinally.

1607 TOPSELL Foure-f. Beastes 189 The dung of dogges (called by the Apothecaryes Album Græcum) because the white is best,..is verye profitable..against inflamations in the brests of Women. 1804 SOUTHEY Let. 5 Mar. (1965) I. 355, I have called him [sc. Malthus] a dog by implicationhaving mentioned his album græcum. 1877 Encycl. Brit. VI. 353/1 Buckland's conjecture that they were of fæcal origin, and similar to the album græcum or excrement of hyænas, was confirmed by Dr Prout.



(Cited from the Oxford English Dictionary, their copyright reserved).


Rgds, Darren



On 9 okt 2010, at 05.22, DAVID BURNHAM wrote:

> I'm afraid common sense is in the minority now. Any CD release is called
> an "album" these days, whether it has one disc or multiple discs. The
> "album" label was put on LPs almost from the very beginning of their
> existence. So this egregious and nonsensical error is fully engrained
> into the public's lexicon and there's nothing we can do about it.
> 
> Cary Ginell 
> 
> 
> 


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