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broadside

ryjy2012

New Member
chinese
from 'Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption' by Stephen King

"By then three days have gone by. The facts of the case have been broadsided in all the papers."


Can someone please explain the meaning of 'broadsided' in the sentence? I kind of expected it to be 'made public so everyone knows', but that is not in dictionaries.

thanks
"Broadsided" in this example should mean something like "attacked" or "severely criticized".
A "broadside" originally was the side of a ship where the artillery was fired "all at once." The oldest use, however, was a newspaper which was printed only on one side and used to attack an opponent. See etymology online.
A "broadside" originally was the side of a ship where the artillery was fired "all at once." The oldest use, however, was a newspaper which was printed only on one side and used to attack an opponent. See etymology online.

oh. might be this one. let me quote more from the novel

[[<< Excessive quotation deleted. >> By then three days have gone by. The facts of the case have been broadsided in all the papers. Maybe they ganged up on the guy, five or six cops, plus the dick from the Attorney General’s office, plus the DA’s assistant. << --- >> If enough people want you to remember something, that can be a pretty powerful persuader. ]]


so it might be 'printed on one side only'
it is 'The facts' that were printed so the clerk might saw them before he came up to testify.
Last edited by a moderator:
I think the meaning is the one you guessed from the context: 'made public so everyone knows.'

Broadside is a verb derived from this meaning of the noun:
Also called: broadside ballad a ballad or popular song printed on one side of a sheet of paper and sold by hawkers, esp in 16th-century England.
​
Here, the emphasis is on the idea of publicity: Newspapers have taken one version of the case and published it widely. It's difficult to go against this public view.
thanks a lot and sorry for the excess quotation
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