Owner: The Engine Room URL:http://engineroomblog.blogspot.com Join Date: Fri, 18 May 2007 06:53:16 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: A blog about English language use, misuse and abuse, as well as words in general. Brought to you by two sub-editors on a weekly UK magazine. If you have a grammar or spelling conundrum, why not ask us? Site statistics:Click here
Really turning on the metaphorical sixpence 2008-06-04 11:05:00 Some copy recently submitted to the subs' desk contained a sentence that has been messing with my head:You really can turn this vehicle on the metaphorical sixpenceAs opposed to what, being able to metaphorically turn it on the metaphorical sixpence? But isn't that what the writer actually means? After all, you can't literally turn the vehicle on either a literal or a metaphorical sixpence. Surely Read more:turning
Typo of the week: trading on toes 2008-06-03 08:34:00 I'm fairly relaxed about people making spelling mistakes in everyday life – mainly because I do it too – but I have less tolerance for people littering their CV (or résumé, if you prefer) with errors.After all, you never know whether the person reading it and considering you for a job is a stickler for correct spelling. One prominent typo could cost you that dream position.And if it is impor
Running over cyclists with truck = bad thing 2008-06-05 09:49:00 Found a news story with a great example of stating the obvious – or rather, quoting the obvious. In the story, the technical manager of a major insurer is quoted as saying:“Apart from the moral obligation to more vulnerable road users, killing or injuring cyclists can seriously damage truck companies’ reputations.”So if you mow down cyclists with a truck, people will think less of you. Tha
Friday roundup: cow poison and The Proclaimers 2008-06-06 10:51:00 My adventures with photo-sharing website Flickr are continuing – I've now joined GrammarBlog's Grammar Bloopers group and even added a couple of my pictures to it. If you like "photos of spelling errors, apostrophe abuse, dangling modifiers and malapropisms", I recommend you check out the group.To be honest, signs with misplaced or missing apostrophes are 10 a penny where I live in south London, Read more:Friday
Can you really have an all-day breakfast? 2008-06-09 06:47:00 Gingerous has emailed in with an interesting question:Can you really have an 'all-day breakfast'? After all, as far as I'm aware, the word 'breakfast' means the first meal of the day or a meal eaten in the morning. So is an 'all-day breakfast' not just a fry-up or scrambled eggs on toast etc?This is probably just me being pedantic, but it's something that bothered me the other day. I'm guessing th
Verbs: mandate 2008-06-10 08:14:00 One of the news stories in our publication today used a familiar verb in an unfamiliar way (unfamiliar to me, at least). The clause that included the verb in question went something like this:The EU directive mandate
d ongoing trainingI was familiar with 'mandate' meaning "give (someone) authority to act in a certain way" (Concise OED, first sense given); I wasn't familiar with it meaning "make man Read more:Verbs
Platypus: a good name for a web platform? 2008-06-11 11:05:00 The company I work for has just announced that we will be moving to a platform called 'Platypus' for our community websites.According to Wikipedia, the platypus baffled naturalists when it was first encountered, was considered by some to be an elaborate fraud, was poorly understood for many years, is "capable of causing extreme pain to humans" with its venom, and is sometimes referred to as "proof
Line breaks and Blogger 2008-06-12 06:06:00 Hmm. Spotted something odd with Blogger
.If you leave one blank line after a blockquote in a Blogger post (ie two line breaks
), that one blank line isn't displayed when you 'Show Original Post' in the Comments section for that post. In other words, the bottom (but not the top) of the blockquote butts up against the rest of the copy, as this picture shows:However if you leave two blank lines after a
House style: job titles, positions and ranks 2008-06-17 07:34:00 We're currently overhauling our house style so that it is consistent across two print publications and one online publication, and the issue of job titles has come up. Currently, on one of the print publications at least, we use lower case for job titles but initial caps for "positions
of public office and police ranks", for example:senior reporter John DoePrime Minister John DoePolice Constable J Read more:House
Word of the day: hubodometer 2008-06-16 11:01:00 Just wanted to share a word with you: hubodometer.Wikipedia seems to favour 'hubometer' but I prefer the longer version simply for the way it sounds. My Concise OED doesn't give either.So where does the stress fall in 'hubodometer'? Probably on the third syllable (following the pattern of 'odometer') but possibly on the first. And possibly either, as with 'necessarily'. At least, I hope that's the
JD hülstas with a furniture compendium 2008-06-18 11:10:00 Here's a scan of part of a letter I received from furniture manufacturer hülsta. I love the way it refers to 'furniture compendium' as opposed to 'furniture catalogue' – sounds much more inviting, don't you think?I'm not sure about the second half of the highlighted sentence, though – am I being invited to hülsta? In other words, is the company using its own name as an intransitive verb?And
Friday roundup: roadmap, bottom out, architect 2008-06-20 10:27:00 This week's Friday
roundup is all about office jargon, inspired by an excellent BBC News Magazine article on '50 office-speak phrases you love to hate' (thanks for spotting this one, Sarah).In addition to the 50 in the list, our web editor at work has reported overhearing the following recently:"We're roadmapping it""I'll bottom that out with the guys"I'm not even sure what the second of those mea
Traffic warden, parking attendant, CEO 2008-06-19 10:09:00 I'm amused to learn that parking attendant
s (formerly known as 'traffic wardens'*) now go by the official name of 'civil enforcement officers'. There are two reasons that this amuses me:The acronym for civil enforcement officer is CEO, which obviously is already used for 'chief executive officer'. Are parking attendants trying to sneak themselves some kudos?Parking attendants are, in my limited e
Michele with an accent 2008-07-06 13:01:00 Yesterday my girlfriend and I were guests at Michele
and Ian's wedding.While waiting for the bride to make her entrance, I was flicking through the order of service and noticed that Michele was actually Michèle."I didn't know Michèle had an accent
," I whispered to my girlfriend."Yes, she's from South Africa," she replied."Is that how they spell Michele in South Africa?" I asked.Cue much confusio
Forget LiLo, Boris Johnson is BoJo 2008-07-04 11:01:00 I've just noticed that the Daily Mirror occasionally refers to London mayor BorisJohnson
(pictured) as BoJo, in much the same way as some other publications refer to Lindsay Lohan as LiLo.BoJo - just brilliant. It reminds me of Bozo the Clown, with added connotations of 'bodge'. Some would say that's very appropriate...I've written about Boris Johnson on this blog before.
Right repercussions across the industry 2008-07-03 10:28:00 So even subs need subs. Somehow I managed to write this on one of our work blogs:There are a wealth of legal stories on the site at the moment, several of which are bound to have right repercussions across the industry
Of course I'd meant 'repercussions right across the industry', but the mistake made me sound like I was writing in a regional dialect...
Read more:Right
Anyone want an "Israel GPS Navigation System"? 2008-07-01 13:18:00 The Engine Room received a great junk/spam email yesterday - offering us an "IsraelGPSNavigationSystem
" with "Interface & Voice Guidance in English" for only $349. It's not exactly an impulse purchase. After all, to buy this product I assume I would have to:a) be an English speakerb) be planning a trip to Israel in the near futurec) be planning to drive while in Israeld) know beforehand tha Read more:Anyone
, Navigation System
The House of Kitty Ussher 2008-06-30 14:22:00 As regular readers of this blog will know, one of our preoccupations is names - company names, product names, project names and especially personal names.On that theme, this morning I was tickled to learn that the Labour MP for Burnley and Padiham is called Kitty
Ussher. What a brilliant and unlikely name for a politician - to me it seems very 1920s. And I love that double 'S'. Anyway, here's a pi Read more:House
Invacuation photos, beverisation and so on 2008-06-28 09:15:00 Just a little update to say: finally got those photos
of the 'invacuation' sign up. Thanks again, Gareth.While I'm here, I'd like to share the following Times Online letters on new words. Andrew Rogers sent me the links ages ago and said at the time: "I'm torn between 'beverisation' and 'underelevatorisation' for me words of the month."Thanks, Andrew - I personally like 'groundfeed'.://www.timeson
Corporate speak extraordinaire 2008-06-27 17:34:00 My colleague - in fact, Apus' successor, whom I have been trying to talk into contributing to this blog almost since the day he joined - came across this piece of corporate-speak
within a quote in some copy submitted to our magazine:It represents the coming together of two dynamic organisations with a shared vision of creating an imaginative and vibrant remarketing group with the skills base that
Word of the day: Tudorbethan 2008-06-26 16:20:00 I've just finished a short evening course on architecture, which I've found to be a wonderful way to discover new words. One that came up in our final session is 'Tudorbethan', obviously a portmanteau of 'Tudor' and 'Elizabethan'. At the time I thought it was just a slip of the tongue by our tutor or perhaps just part of his idiolect - but then I checked Wikipedia and it turns out that 'Tudorbetha
Lower developed countries 2008-06-25 10:59:00 I came across this phrase in copy recently:lower developed countriesTyping it into Google gives around 1,200 results so it is in occasional use (less common is 'lower developed economies'). But the phrase seems ugly to me. After all, you wouldn't refer to 'low developed countries' (unless you meant the Netherlands, perhaps, which is both low and developed). Even with a hyphen, I don't like it.But Read more:Lower
Neighbourhood Swim Centre 2008-06-24 06:39:00 Spotted this on the Argos website (click the image for a larger version):It's not a paddling pool, it's a "Neighbourhood
Swim Centre
". But bearing in mind that it's only 60cm deep, I have to wonder how much swimming a neighbourhood could actually do in it.
Project Platypus and Project Prometheus 2008-06-23 07:32:00 Last week I wrote about Platypus, a new web platform that we've been promised at work. Now it turns out that Platypus isn't the name of the web platform itself, but the project that is putting the platform into place. That's right: Project
Platypus. Well, I think it's cute.One of the other projects we have going on here is Project Prometheus. I don't know anything about this project other than the
Photo special: Paine Funerals 2008-07-19 03:00:00 OK, a bonus photo seeing as it's a Saturday and I'm assuming that I'll be in a good mood after my holiday:Well, it made me laugh. Kind of suggests that the people they're disposing of aren't quite dead yet.Back to the (slightly more) serious stuff next week.
Read more:Photo
, Paine
, Funerals
Photo special: Golters Gift Set 2008-07-18 03:00:00 So the last snap before I return from my hols:If the writing in the photo is not very legible, then please take my word for it that this "Golters Gift Set" is half price. Yes, "Golters Gift Set". The lack of apostrophe doesn't surpise me; the spelling mistake, on the other hand, is rather impressive.No wonder the gift set is on special offer.I spotted this in a London branch of Wilkinson.
Read more:Photo
Photo special: water pistol warning 2008-07-17 03:00:00 I'm still relaxing in the sun, so here's today's photo:So it doesn't have much to do with language use and even less to do with journalism, but I think it is quite striking as a sign of the times. For anyone who can't see, the photo is of a pack of children's water
pistols (is there any other kind?) with a warning
underneath reading: "It is an offence to sell imitation firearms to anyone under the Read more:Photo
Seriously decapitated 2008-07-16 17:05:00 While JD's sunning himself in Portugal I'm still enjoying summer at Whitecliff Bay (pictured at the height of an English spring) where I while away the days building sand castles and reading the local papers.Among the normally cheerful stories of fetes and flower shows I have just read the ghastly tale of a suicide by decapitation with a chainsaw. And in the midst of the awful details a reporter Read more:Seriously
Photo special: working with Sainsbury's 2008-07-16 03:00:00 Yep, your blogger went on holiday, and all you got was this lousy photo:This is another snap taken in a Sainsbury's supermarket. I was struck by the sign's use of 'working
with' rather than (as you might expect) 'working for'. I think Sainsbury's is trying to promote the idea of one big, happy team. No bosses here!On the same note, I've noticed that the supermarket calls its employees 'colleagues' Read more:Photo
Photo special: which way Lower Sydenham? 2008-07-15 03:00:00 I'm still on holiday, so here's another photo from my camera-phone:Go right for Lower
Sydenham and Ladywell, or go left for Lower Sydenham and Ladywell. Brilliant.This photo was taken somewhere near Lower Sydenham and Ladywell, in London.
Read more:Photo
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