The 1950 Manchester Guardian stylebook’s warning against cliches,inappropriate and outworn metaphors listed Mecca (as in ‘Ashton is the Mecca of tripe-eaters’)nowadays I’m talking tripe. Literally. whether two things were important to life in north-west England in the middle of the last century, they were the Manchester Guardian and the tripe industry. (Not necessarily in that order.) And a tongue-in-cheek comment by a reader set me off on a journey into the past exploring the links between them.
The exercise of 'mecca' to mean 'a place which attracts people … with a particular interest' dates back to the 1800sContinue reading...
Source: theguardian.com