Funk & Wagnalls (芬克&瓦格諾) is a publisher based in New York City known for its reference works, including an encyclopedia, content from which became a part of Microsoft's Encarta digital encyclopedia.
歷史
Isaac Kaufmann Funk (艾薩克考夫曼芬克)founded the business in 1876 as I.K. Funk & Company. The firm's first publication was the Metropolitan Pulpit. In 1877, Adam Willis Wagnalls, one of Funk's classmates at Wittenberg College, now Wittenberg University, joined the firm as a partner. The two changed the name of the firm to Funk & Wagnalls Company in 1890.Prior to 1890, F. & W. published only religious-oriented works. The publication of The Literary Digest in 1890 marked a change for the firm to a publisher of general reference dictionaries and encyclopedias. The firm followed in 1894 with its most memorable publication, The Standard Dictionary of the English Language . 1912 saw the publication of the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia .
In 1953, the firm began to sell its reference publications through a supermarket continuity marketing campaign, encouraging consumers to include the latest volume of the encyclopedia on their shopping lists.
In 1965, the company, known as Funk & Wagnalls, Inc., was bought by Reader's Digest Association. By 1971, it had been sold again to the firm Dun & Bradstreet. In subsequent years, the publication rights to the company's reference works (aside from the encyclopedia) were acquired by other firms. The publication rights to the encyclopedia were spun off by Dun & Bradstreet in 1983, and were bought up once more in 1990 by K-III Holdings Inc.
In 1984, Dun & Bradstreet sold Funk & Wagnalls to a group of Funk & Wagnalls executives.
In 1988, the company was purchased by Field Publications, a division of the Field Corporation.
In 1998, as part of the Information division of Primedia Inc. (renamed K-III Holdings), Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia became the web site. This short-lived venture was shut down in 2001. The encyclopedia exists today only as Funk & Wagnalls New World Encyclopedia, an electronic reference provided to educational institutions by the World Almanac Education Group.
Funk & Wagnalls is now part of Weekly Reader, a Reader's Digest Company.
Some content from the encyclopedia became a part of Microsoft's Encarta digital encyclopedia.
流行文化
In the late 1960s through early 1970s, Funk and Wagnalls became part of one of the iconic jokes on the ground-breaking show Laugh-In, where a frequently-made reference was "Look that up in your Funk and Wagnalls", a play on the perceived profanity when speaking the word "funk".
Johnny Carson's Carnac the Magnificent sketches frequently made reference to the 'answers' being hidden from Carnac as "kept in a mayonnaise jar outside Funk & Wagnalls' porch since noon today".
In the South Park episode "Cancelled", Cartman asks: "What the Funk and Wagnalls are you talking about?"
In the Buck Rogers in the 25th Century 1979 episode "Planet of the Slave Girls," Buck, argues with fellow pilot Major Duke Danton in-flight, "If you call that interference, there's something wrong with your Funk & Wagnalls." Danton, unaware of the centuries-old origin of the statement, replies, "I don't know what you mean by that, but how'd you like to repeat that in the flight hangar?"
出版物
unknown - The Pulpit Commentary
1890 – The Literary Digest
1892 - The Preacher's Homiletic Commentary on the Old Testament
1894 – The Standard Dictionary of the English Language
1896 - The Preacher's Homiletic Commentary on the New Testament
1912 – Funk & Wagnalls Standard Encyclopedia
1927 – The World's One Hundred Best Short Stories (Ten Volumes)
1949 – Funk & Wagnalls standard handbook of synonyms, antonyms, and prepositions
1949 – Funk & Wagnalls standard dictionary of folklore, mythology and legend
1958 – Standard Dictionary of the English Language (International Edition)
1962 – Poetry handbook; a dictionary of terms
1973 – Funk & Wagnalls Guide to modern world literature
1983 – Funk & Wagnalls new encyclopedia
1996 – Funk & Wagnalls new world encyclopedia (electronic database)