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 50 4672

Articles from The Engine Room

The sign of the relieved canine 2007-10-25 12:26:00 I've just re-read Interesting Times by Terry Pratchett in which he makes a (to me) delightful reference to his days as a sub, before he introduced a grateful public to the delights of Discworld. Interesting Times is set in a fantasy version of medieval China, complete with complex pictograms. One of his characters is puzzled by an oft repeated pictogram that seems to show a dog urinating. As any sub of my advancing years would recognise, Mr P is sharing an in-joke with with the likes of JD and I because 'dog's cock' is time-honoured engine-room slang for an exclamation mark. Good to see the great man hasn't forgotten his roots! ...

Visuwords vs Erin McKean 2007-10-25 09:02:00 A while back I wrote about a speech by Erin McKean, editor-in-chief of the Oxford American Dictionary, in which she talked about the future of the dictionary. One of the things McKean said was that the current crop of online dictionaries did not live up to their potential; apart from being searchable and having a few links, they were just the same as their print equivalents.Evidently McKean hadn't come across Visuwords, which is the fantastic 'online graphical dictionary' pictured here (although in practice I've found it works better as a thesaurus). Type in a word and Visuwords graphically shows any related words in an expanding spidergram. Parts of speech (noun, verb etc) are indicated through different colours, and hovering over a word brings up a definition.If nothing else, it's incredibly pretty (it even impressed one of our designers), although words with many associations tend to bring the web browser on my Mac grinding to a near halt.I'm adding Visuwords to our list of pr ...

The logistics space 2007-10-24 07:30:00 One of the stories I subbed this morning talked about:clerical and administrative roles in the logistics space Um, 'the logistics space'? Surely 'the logistics sector' or 'the logistics industry' or simply just 'logistics'...But maybe I'm wrong. Googling 'the logistics space' throws up quite a number of hits – and I even found one site that talks of a firm "acquiring a global footprint in the logistics space".Horrible, or acceptable? ...

Len Jones' double burglary 2007-10-23 06:47:00 I was a little bemused by a story in the UK newspaper the News of the World at the weekend. Here it is, in full:World War II veteran Len Jones, 80, was burgled TWICE while in hospital after a fire at his home.Former soldier Len got back to Colaton Raleigh, Devon, and found thieves had stolen his £12,000 record collection and then returned for his cameras.My question is: when Len returned home, how did he know he had been burgled twice? The thieves could easily have taken the records and cameras in the one burglary.Of course, Len's friends or neighbours could have been watching the property for him, and simply told him when he came out of hospital that he had been burgled twice.But if so, those friends or neighbours did an exceptionally awful job of looking after his house, despite knowing it well enough to be able to identify which items were stolen in each burglary. And they evidently didn't tell Len about either burglary until after he was out of hospital. I am sure they would say ...

A bigger engine room 2007-10-22 11:11:00 JD and I labour in the hot and sticky engine rooom of a trade magazine, but it's good to know that our exalted counterparts who pace the gleaming engine rooms of the national press are also no more than human. Last week one of the tabloids informed its readers that a man had been found hanged from the bannister of his (presumably single-storey) bungalow, and on the following page was the revelation that the Tory party had been denied a surprise windfall. As distinct, presumably, from an eagerly awaited windfall. But it goes to show how easy it is to forget the exact definition of the words we all rely on. ...

Album titles: Shut up and sub... 2007-10-22 07:19:00 I recently mentioned that I've been reading a biography of musician Steve Earle. However what I forgot to add is that I was very taken with the title of a Steve Earle live album: Shut Up and Die Like an Aviator (pictured).This got me thinking about my all-time favourite album titles. I have a soft spot for Welsh band Mclusky's: My Pain and Sadness is More Sad and Painful Than Yours is probably the best, although The Difference Between Me and You is That I'm Not on Fire is also a belter. (As you can tell, long album titles appeal to me.)Any favourite album titles out there? ...

Here's to the beer! 2007-10-19 12:28:00 This being a Friday evening, beer is on the engine room agenda and on the all-too-rare occasions when our esteemed editor takes the team drinking he refers to going for "a couple of scoops". JD was intrigued enough to research this use of "scoop" and discovered it has an Irish derivation. No surprise there then, as Mrs Editor hails from Erin. But while this is doubtless a well established phrase, some of our younger charges refer to going for a Britney (from Britney Spears = beers). It's good to see that rhyming slang had not been consigned to history, but we were wondering if anyone out there has their own local phrases for this time honoured pastime. Cheers! ...

Pronouns: ambiguity 2007-10-19 09:48:00 Today I have a good example of how dropping pronouns in copy can lead to ambiguity. The following was taken from one of the questions submitted to our regular 'Readers' Q&A' page:I have children who are under 18 and would like to work flexible hoursOf course, it's the author who would like to work flexible hours, not his or her children – although the lack of an 'I' before 'would' makes this ambiguous.This example was written by a reader, not by a journalist, so I can't be too critical. But perhaps it shouldn't have reached the subs' desk in this state... ...

Hola 2007-10-18 09:27:00 Sensible people, the Spanish. When greeting each other we Brits routinely shorten good morning/afternoon/evening to morning/afternoon/evening.Spaniards do it the other way round and truncate buenos dias/tardes/noches to buenos at all times of the day or night. It does make life that bit easier for visitors to their fine country and there's something delightfully optimistic about people meeting and simply saying "good", don't you think? ...

Don't worry, it's not your eyes 2007-10-17 03:18:00 Yes, I've been tinkering with the blog – apologies for any disruption experienced yesterday. The Engine Room is now decked out in more autumnal colours and hopefully is more legible to boot.You may also notice that we now have a poll on the panel to the right. If you think of any good questions for the poll, don't hesitate to send them in, as quite frankly 'This is a test poll...' isn't going to set anyone's pulses racing.We also have more social networking functionality (ugh) than ever – you can share posts on Facebook, add them to your Technorati favourites, or even use Sphere to search for related content. I'm not sure how many Engine Room readers use this sort of thing, but it's there if you want it.A late addition – a summary of recent comments, again on the panel to the right. There's quite a lot of stuff on the blog now, so let me know if it's taking too long to load up for you. Thanks. ...

Surplus words: it's worth noting that... 2007-10-16 07:56:00 My first day back from Spain and the first story to come my way contained the phrase "it's worth noting that...". If it's in a news story JD and I have to assume it's worth noting. One thing's for sure: this is a phrase that will never make it into our magazine while JD and I lurk in the engine room.It's good to back. Honest. ...

Shotgun house 2007-10-15 07:06:00 Reading the biography Hardcore Troubadour: The Life & Near Death of Steve Earle, by Lauren St John, I came across the following:Like most of the houses of Steve's youth, it had three bedrooms, a bathroom, and a living room, all arranged in shotgun fashion off the main passageShotgun fashion? As a Brit, this was the first time I had encountered this American English term. Wikipedia explains that a shotgun house is "a narrow rectangular domestic residence... consisting of three to five rooms in a row with no hallways", and discusses the etymology of the term. I even found some plans for a shotgun house on an architectural website. And, of course, there is the lovely picture you see here.But a bit of a discrepancy: the house described in the book has a "main passage", yet a shotgun house has "no hallways". Was St John using the phrase simply to mean that the rooms were arranged in a row? Can any American readers help? And how well known is the term Stateside? Any Brits come across it ...

Blu-ray: not so clear? 2007-10-12 07:55:00 I just saw an advert on the side of a bus for the latest Spiderman film – "available on Blu-ray". Blu-ray, of course, is one of the new optical disc formats (the Playstation 3 is shipped with a Blu-ray drive).However as the word 'Blu-ray' was capped up and written in an unfortunate choice of font, it looked for all the world like Spiderman 3 was "available on BLU-RRY'. Not really the format to be watching high-definition video on... ...

Smithisms 2007-10-11 09:41:00 One of our sales reps is renowned for his interesting turn of phrase and ability to mangle idioms. For your pleasure, here are a few his best expressions from over the years:A bit old in the tooth and green behind the earsHe's ruffled my cageHe's as sharp as a buttonWhat's the point in shooting yourself in the back?I wouldn't trust them with a bargepoleI bet he's spitting chips ...

Bugbears: SVO,O,+VO 2007-10-10 10:22:00 Taken from a recent BBC News technology story (which appears to have been taken down, but you can still Google this phrase if you don't believe me):A gadget for the blind reads labels, audio books and plays music.I see this type of sentence construction a lot, even from professional journalists, and I believe that most people don't have any problem with it. But I do.This gadget reads labels and plays music, but what does it do with audio books? 'Read them', I hear you say. But, except as a headline, you would never write:A gadget for the blind reads labels, audio books.Instead you would write:A gadget for the blind reads labels and audio books.This suggests the original construction needs another 'and'. Giving you:A gadget for the blind reads labels and audio books, and plays music.I suppose the comma is optional, but it helps indicate a change of verb is coming. ...