The Engine Room A blog about language use, misuse and abuse, brought to you by two sub-editors (copy editors) on a weekly magazine. If you have questions about words, grammar, spelling etc, why not ask us? Statistics Unique Visitors: Total Unique Visitors: Outgoing: Total Outgoing: 0 0 14 4929

Articles from The Engine Room

Machiavellian, draconian and quixotic 2007-08-24 07:58:00 A bit of a puzzler today.The adjective 'Machiavellian' (meaning "cunning, scheming and unscrupulous, especially in politics or business", OED) is derived from the name of the Italian statesman and writer Machiavelli (1469-1527) - the chap pictured on the left.Similarly the adjective 'draconian' (meaning "(of laws) excessively harsh and severe", OED) is also derived from the name of an individual - in this instance the ancient Athenian legislator Draco.So why is it that Machiavellian takes an upper-case 'M' but draconian doesn't take an upper-case 'D'?I tried to think of some other examples to see which camp they fell in but didn't get much past 'quixotic' - which is derived from the name of a fictional character anyway. Obviously I am discounting adjectives such as Jacobean because they relate to the individual's life and times rather than their personal qualities. Anyone help? ...

PR speak 2007-08-23 11:32:00 Spotted in a press release by one of the writers in our care before it reached the engine room: "Vehicle maintenance can be a headache for small businessmen and women." Funny, you'd think vertically challenged businessmen, or women, would be less likely to bang their heads when crawling beneath vehicles than their taller colleagues.The PR person responsible for this howler can almost be forgiven – if a business is run by a businessman (or woman) then a small business...What's more worrying to those of us trying to hold the line against a tide of sloppy usage is that the release came from a large company, which presumably employs large PR people, and certainly has a large PR team. Someone should have noticed.But spare a thought for the PR person, of whatever size, who sent in a release from an oil company which described the author of a report as the "heavy duty marketing manager". Yes, it's logical that the person in charge of marketing lubrication products for heavy-duty vehicles ...

All too easy to miss 2007-08-23 08:51:00 A story that dropped in through the engine room hatch today concerned the funding of two industry sectors and concluded that "...one shouldn't be penalised at the expense of the other."JD and I had both seen it; so had two of our magazine's writers. And just as he was about to pass the page JD mooched over and asked: "What do you think of this phrase?" Knowing he wouldn't ask such a question unless there was something amiss I read it, read it again, and finally the penny dropped – the phrase was glib, but gibberish. It was duly modified to read "...one shouldn't be subsidised by the other."Remember this phrase had been written by a pro and read by four people. It goes to show that an extra read is never wasted! ...

Some other language blogs 2007-08-23 06:52:00 Today we have some other language-related blogs you might want to look at.Firstly, Apostrophe Abuse, which is a photo blog recording inappropriate apostrophes. Or, should I say, apostrophe's.Secondly, Literally, a Web Log, a blog dedicated to tracking down misuse of the word 'literally'. It's something that literally makes me pull my hair out in frustration. Or do I mean metaphorically?Thirdly, The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks. Again, lots of photos – this time of "unnecessary" quotation marks in signs and so on. ...

Moments from death in McDonald's 2007-08-22 07:22:00 Today I'm continuing with the food theme - perhaps I shouldn't always blog around lunchtime! I spotted this story in the Daily Mirror recently:A man with a serious food allergy is suing McDonald's for £5m after he was given a cheeseburger instead of a hamburger. Jeremy Jackson... suffered a severe reaction to the cheese... and "was only moments from death" or serious injury by the time he reached the hospital.Jackson, 20, from West Virginia, made it known to staff five times that he could not eat cheese because of his condition.I can just imagine this. Jeremy goes into his local McDonald's and tells the person behind the counter five times that he can't eat cheese: "Give me a BURGER... but with no CHEESE... don't give me CHEESE... I can't eat a CHEESEBURGER, I have an allergy to CHEESE. So that's a BURGER, no CHEESE please."The McDonald's staff hear 'cheese' and 'burger' and that's what Jeremy is given. He would have done better not to mention the cheese thing at all. Or ...

Typo of the week: very fast food 2007-08-21 07:00:00 The pub near to the office where Apus and I work is selling an all-day breakfast that includes "fired eggs". I presume they launch them at you from some sort of shell-firing cannon. ...

A rubber by any other name... 2007-08-20 11:20:00 The magazine whose engine room JD and I inhabit is part of an international company which has just appointed a senior exec to look after purchasing. Which would be a big 'so what?' were it not that the lady in question is an American.No, this is not going to be an anti-American rant, it's just that she might have some problems when handling stationery orders from the UK and our colleagues Down Under.For example, a Brit might ask for rubbers, which is the accepted Stateside usage for condoms. Once that's sorted out and she's realised we actually want erasers the good lady might well have a request from the Aussies for sticky tape. No problem, unless she asks them if they want Sellotape which, in Ozspeak, is a brand of condom.It could be an interesting learning curve in the upper echelons of international purchasing. ...

Word of the day: rowdyism 2007-08-20 06:44:00 Today's word of the day comes from a story in one of my local papers, the Wandsworth Guardian:The Asparagus pub in Battersea is to add between 10p and 15p per unit to the cost of its drinks, in response to "rowdyism" complaints from Latchmere residents'Rowdyism'? As far as I was aware, the noun from 'rowdy' was 'rowdiness' - but no, the OED lists both 'rowdiness' and 'rowdyism'. However the former is four times more common than the latter, according to a Google search. (Incidentally, the Asparagus pub story comes up as high as fourth in a Google search of 'rowdyism'...)Anyway, my question is: any difference between rowdiness and rowdyism?Alcohol: may lead to rowdyism(or even to rowdiness) ...

Write route; rout's wrong 2007-08-17 12:58:00 If writers could spell JD and I would have little to blog about, but is it too much to expect civil servants to have at least a basic grasp of English?A press release just in from the Department for Transport (a multi-million-pound rebranding of the Department of Transport... don't get me started!) refers to the rout of a major road.Following a battle, there could indeed be a rout along a major road, although the road itself could hardly be said to have joined the rout. A joiner might even rout the edges of wooden signposts along the road. But if they mean route, why not write route?And on the subject of civil servants' shortcomings, did you know there's a committee with wide powers over transport in case of emergencies? Fair enough... but because it sometimes meets in Cabinet Office Briefing Room A, it is known as COBRA. Remember, this name was, presumably, selected by the same senior civil servants who are entrusted with our safety following a national disaster.Someone ought to ma ...

Feeling tense? 2007-08-16 10:25:00 The writers in our care do come up with some eye-crosssing phrases – today's input included "a figure that still stands in perpetuity". The more you look at it, the better it gets. ...

Don't make it personal 2007-08-15 03:11:00 Like JD one of my major roles is to serve as a filter; yesterday I filtered the following introduction to a news story: "One of the largest motorway services on the M25 has defended its decision..."Would our readers understand it? Yes. Can an inanimate object defend a decision? No – or not on our watch.To be fair to the writer concerned, organisations can be considered as legal entities in that a company can be said to make or lose money so maybe each case should be judged on its merits. All that intro needed was the insertion of "The operator of..." at the beginning.Yes, one inanimate subject has been replaced by another so the rule is not a simple one. Maybe I'm happy with "The operator..." because the operator is a company (of people) but unhappy with "...motorway services" because the service area comprises steel, concrete, glasss, plastic and dodgy food at high prices.Comments, anyone? ...

News stories: dodgy sentences 2007-08-14 03:58:00 A couple of dodgy sentences in news stories I've spotted recently. The first, from a recent BBC story on the M40 biker shooting:The shooting bears similarities with a similar incident in 2001Well, if the incidents are similar, of course there are similarities... Secondly, something from our own publication. The story is about exam passes:Even those who failed the grade are already applying for a retestThis implies that those who passed are also applying for a retest - don't worry, the sentence didn't make it into print. ...

Red tea: giraffe identification 2007-08-13 06:49:00 Another post on packaging today...I like to drink red tea, or rooibos, and recently tried a new brand - Clipper organic rooibos.As you can see from the image to your right, the Clipper box has a large picture of a giraffe on it. This is presumably because both rooibos and giraffes come from Africa, not because rooibos is made from giraffes. A tenuous connection, but fair enough.What you probably can't make out, however, is the small writing along the side of the picture of the giraffe. It says 'Giraffe', for anyone who is unable to identify the strange, long-necked, yellow animal. Thanks, Clipper.Not only that, but it then gives the Latin name for the giraffe, 'giraffa camelepardolis' - perhaps to assist any red-tea drinking, non-English speakers with a grasp of Latin out there who cannot identify a giraffe from a picture alone. Marvellous. ...

Portmanteaux: foodswing and doga 2007-08-10 07:37:00 Further to Apus's post yesterday on portmanteau words, here are a couple I've come across recently and actually rather like:Foodswing - if you get cranky when you are hungry, then like me you suffer from foodswings. A blend of 'food' and 'moodswing'. Amusingly there's an American food manufacturer called FoodSwing...Doga - simply, yoga for dogs. William Berloni wrote a book called Doga: Yoga for Dogs, but I'm not sure whether he coined the word. There's also, inevitably, a Yoga for Cats book and even a rather tongue-in-cheek Yoga for Chickens book (by different authors), but the words 'coga' and 'choga' seem not to have entered the language pool. Yet.Lynn Brunelle's Yoga for Chickens (sadly not known as 'choga') ...

Portmanteau words... ugh! 2007-08-09 11:34:00 During my summer holidays I spotted a job ad in the local rag which invited readers to apply not for an 'application pack' (in itself a rather naff phrase) but for an "applipac".It would have ruined my entire morning, were it not for the fact that I was demolishing a large 99 at the time.JD, it's good to be back in the engine room... ...