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 47 4513

Articles from The Engine Room

Pair of footwear 2007-12-10 08:33:00 I was doing some Christmas shopping yesterday when I noticed a sign in a shoe shop promising a "free gift with every pair of footwear".I know what this means, but 'footwear' isn't a countable noun, so a pair of footwear – no way. What would be a good alternative?'Free gift with every pair of shoes' – but the shop might also sell boots.'Free gift with every purchase' – but the shop might sell accessories (such as shoe polish) which don't come with a gift.'Free gift with all footwear'. I think this could be a winner. After all, no one is going to buy a single shoe – are they? Or would someone buying a pair of shoes (for example) try to claim a pair of gifts?On another note, I am no longer an itinerant sub so will soon be able to dig out my digital camera and start posting photos of offending signs such as this one. In the meantime here is a generic photo of a 'pair of footwear': ...

Hey bro, is this the 17th century? 2007-12-07 10:35:00 Thirty years ago as a young motorcyclist with more hair and less avoirdupois than is currently the case, I followed the fashion of calling close male friends bro; a term we copied from American magazines and films. It sounded horribly dated for some years but now a new generation of youngsters seems to have adopted it.We thought it was up to the minute; so no doubt do they. In fact I'm indebted to a colleague with a passion for social history who has found the term being used as far back the early 17th century.I bet they thought they were being cool too. ...

Racer mag and Europeans 2007-12-07 10:26:00 On our publication, Apus and I make sure our writers don't use phrases such as 'the UK and Europe' – after all, the UK is part of Europe. Instead, we prefer them to use 'the UK and mainland Europe' or similar.Flicking through Racer, which is a UK magazine devoted to the world of remote control cars, I was amused to see that a certain event on the Continent was described as accessible both to Brits and "mainstream Europeans"... ...

Quotes: there's nothing like... 2007-12-06 10:34:00 Today's copy contained a rather unfortunate quote from a health inspector:“There’s nothing like going on to a site and seeing a dead body and then going on to their family and telling them they won’t be coming home.”Is it me, or does the wording make the inspector sound like he really enjoys telling people a family member has died? "There's nothing like a nice cup of tea and a biscuit." "There's nothing like going on to a site..." ...

On the trail of a caravan 2007-12-05 13:39:00 It's hardly news that we Brits continually adopt American usage but last night the reporter in a TV crime documentary took it to new levels by telling us that a fugitive from justice "ran into a trailer park and hid under a caravan".Maybe this was an attempt at (in)elegant variation - condemned in the first (1926) edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage as a weakness of "second-rate writers" and "young writers". But would it really have been so offensive to the ear had the reporter said the fugitive "ran into a caravan park and hid under a caravan"?In any case, as he was speaking on a British programme, the reporter might have considered that while a "trailer" is a large and generally static caravan in the US, it has a different meaning on this side of the pond. UK eyebrows would elevate sharply at the suggestion that the athletic suspect "ran into a caravan park and hid under a trailer".The contrasting status of a trailer park and a caravan park is a matter for sociologists and ant ...

I love my Bushisms calendar 2007-12-05 07:31:00 It's coming towards the end of the year, which means I need to think about replacing my 'George W Bushisms' desk calendar. This great little gift from my father has provided me – and the rest of the magazine staff – with a year's worth of unintentionally amusing quotes from the US president.Today's entry is particularly fine:For every fatal shooting, there were roughly three nonfatal shootings. And, folks, this is unacceptable in America. It's just unacceptable. And we're going to do something about it.-Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; May 14, 2001I know, I know – the quotes are given out of context; everyone makes mistakes when speaking in public; it's just Democrat propaganda. But it's still pretty funny, especially as I'm not American. ...

Feeling tense: sequence of tenses 2007-12-04 12:27:00 Here's an obscure bit of usage that has me in two minds; it's from a newspaper report on military spending.Admiral Lord Boyce said the Prime Minister should recognise the armed forces were over-committed and he should ensure they were properly resourced.JD points out that the verbs have (had?) to be in the past tense to agree with the "said". Nonetheless the use of "were" rather than "are" seems to put the problem in the past, rather than the present and indeed the future.Would I have substituted "are"? I'm not sure. I do feel it would make more sense, but rules, after all, is rules, in grammar as in everything else.Comments, anyone? ...

Headlines: cop office 2007-12-04 09:15:00 Was quite taken aback by a headline in yesterday's London Lite free newspaper:Boy, 14, stabbedto death outsideempty cop officeThere is something incongruous about the headline for such a horrific story including the uncommon yet jaunty phrase 'cop office'. I understand that it was chosen for reasons of space – being several characters shorter than 'police station' – but still.What would I have used instead of 'cop office'? I'm not sure. 'Cop shop' has the advantage of being an established phrase (at least here in the UK), but is possibly even jauntier than 'cop office'. And if you went with 'police station' you would have to lose some of the other information in the headline. For example:Stabbed deadoutside emptypolice stationHere I've had to drop 'Boy, 14' – but as the story was accompanied by a photo of the victim, I think that's acceptable. What do you think?Correction: I've just discovered (by actually reading the story properly) that the police station in ...

AdSense: no sense 2007-12-03 10:45:00 This blog, like many others, uses Google's AdSense to provide relevant advertisements (see the two little ads above). However a couple of recent AdSense offerings have stopped me in my tracks.One was an ad for cheapo British pub chain JD Wetherspoon - presumably AdSense picked up on my name for this one (and possibly my post about pub rowdyism...).The other questionable advert was for, and I quote, "The Engine Room CD" on Play.com – it was news to Apus and me that we have ever released a CD. But it's given me the idea of an 'Engine Room Greatest Hits'. Watch this space.If you spot any other inappropriate or plain bizarre AdSense adverts, on this blog or others, please let us know...My other post about AdSense ... Adsense

It's been a long week 2007-11-30 11:55:00 A news story landed on my desk yesterday including the information that a felon had been jailed in July 2006 but is due for release on 20 December.Nothing wrong with that but I found myself wondering why the month gets an 'in' while the day gets an 'on'.Then I thought, Apus old chap, it's Friday evening. Go home. ...

Minutiae can drive you nuts 2007-11-30 11:09:00 Good news on the eco front, according to a London free-sheet: Europe could meet its carbon emission targets "simply by planting more trees in forests".I'm left wondering if only trees in large groups absorb carbon. In fact wouldn't it make sense to avoid planting trees in the middle of forests, where presumably there's less light reaching ground level? But then if you planted solitary trees in large enough numbers they'd become a forest anyway.And if the engine-room denizens who allowed that phrase through had simply cut out "in forests" I could have read the story and got on with my life.While I'm in ranting mood, there's an advert on the same page for "premium down jackets".Down-filled, certainly, but a down jacket? Think how long it would take to sew all the feathers together. What's more they're available in "15 unique colours". Technically every colour's unique unto itself but is the manufacturer implying that nowhere on earth will you find any of its chosen shades replic ...

Writers... doncha love 'em? 2007-11-29 11:55:00 It's been a long day in the engine room. Among the copy that came our way was:"the failure rate at annual test was 65.96%". A clear example of a writer switching off his common-sense module and writing whatever his calculator told him. Assuming the vehicle fleet didn't number in the thousands, 66% would make a lot more sense... or better yet, two out of three."the infectious energy extolled by the business development director..." The writer meant exuded, of course, though JD, being in his usual argumentative mood, pointed out that the director could have been extolling someone else's infectious energy..."the sliding drawer". As any engine room denizen would delight in telling the author, if it don't slide, it ain't a drawer (which reminds me of the schoolboy joke: Q–what do you call a boomerang that doesn't come back? A-a stick).Sometimes, after all, an object is defined by its function. For example, is a broken-down car still a car? Say you removed the wheels and engine...I t ...

Parcel consumers 2007-11-29 09:15:00 A news story submitted to us recently contained the phrase "commercial and domestic parcel consumers".What exactly is a 'parcel consumer'? I can only assume it is someone or something that eats parcels. I am especially impressed that this can be done on a commercial basis...(We changed the phrase to 'customers of parcels firms' or 'users of parcels services' - I forget which.) ...

Infinitesimal error in the Mirror 2007-11-28 07:01:00 Bit of a blooper in the Daily Mirror today.In a one-page feature, the paper "asks columnists to imagine what their lives would be like in a parallel universe". Nicola Methven of 'Nicola Methven's TV Land' (pictured) starts her answer by saying:Apparently we could all be living an infinitesimal number of parallel lives in an infinitesimal number of universes.Em, I think you mean 'infinite' rather than 'infinitesimal' (extremely small).The Mirror also has the same article online, complete with error. ... Error

Hyphens: strong staff 2007-11-27 09:51:00 A news story by one of our writers today highlighted the perils of omitting hyphens. It contained this phrase:The majority of the 200 strong staffObviously the company only employs muscular people! I inserted the missing hyphen, giving:The majority of the 200-strong staffBut then I decided to keep it simple:Most of the 200 employees ...