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 0 4980

Articles from The Engine Room

Spelling can be (pomer)grate 2007-10-09 03:24:00 My local Sainsbury's supermarket is currently selling a type of fruit called, according to the printed labelling, a 'pomergrate'. I can only assume that it's like a pomegranate, only better.Just a shame the pomergrates aren't pomergratis...And no, they aren't part of the SO RAS range.They're grate... ...

Impossible quiz question 2007-10-08 04:52:00 Found in the book Total Trivia: Over 2,000 Zany Quiz Questions:Q. What percentage of British Engineers, to the nearest five, are women?A. Two and a half per cent.Umm... ...

Recent gems 2007-10-05 11:55:00 Jut to end a long working week on a high note, here are a few gems that have oozed under the engine room door:"But now motor insurance readers last week agreed" "The company began in humble beginnings" "This agreement is expected to result in 5,000 units being produced annually per year" "In a statement the company says" And they wonder why JD and I sometimes growl at our charges.Right that's it; my turn to hide in Spain for a week. Hasta la vista! (what does that mean, anyway?) ...

Headlines: children job seekers 2007-10-05 09:51:00 A couple of dodgy headlines today. The first, from yesterday's Daily Mail (October 4):Agony of the children job seekers leave in RomaniaThe first time I read this, I wondered who these children job seekers were, and why the headline didn't appear to make grammatical sense. Of course, the Daily Mail has elided a 'that' between 'children' and 'job', presumably for reasons of space. Very confusing.And Gingerous sent in the following headline from the BBC News website:Liverpool captain Steven Gerrard has been involved in a car accident with a 10-year-old boyHe asks: "Why was a 10-year-old driving a car?"Wikipedia says that "sometimes a 'car accident' may refer to an automobile striking a human or animal" but I agree that it's not the most common use of the phrase. It does have the benefit of not implying that Gerrard was to blame, unlike a lot of alternative phrases. ... Children

The Engine Room: a mystery explained 2007-10-04 06:44:00 You may be wondering why sometimes Apus and I refer to 'the engine room' (no caps) and sometimes to 'the Engine Room' (initial caps). After all, it's not like subs to be so inconsistent, is it?Well, Apus and I work for the production desk of a particular publication. Long before I joined the publication, Apus had developed the habit of referring to the production desk as the engine room of the magazine, for obvious reasons. I picked this habit up from him, and when we came to start the blog, it seemed the perfect name.So when we refer to 'the engine room', we mean the production desk on our magazine; when we refer to 'the Engine Room', we mean the blog you are reading. Of course, you may ask why we don't cap up the 'the'... ...

Australian business-speak 2007-10-03 07:17:00 It looks like business-speak isn't limited to the US and the UK: Roz has written in with some examples heard during a one-hour 'Dialogue Day' session at the Australian Taxation Office. Here they are, with Roz's comments in brackets.Key driversKey deliverablesKey strategies (why can't they use some synonyms for 'key'?)...sessions around delivery plans (whatever happened to 'about' or 'regarding' or 'concerning'?)At the end of the dayCascade down corporate messages (well, cascades don't often go up do they?)Efficiencies made to business (how do you 'make' an efficiency?)Big ticket itemCo-design sessionImpacting on all the messages out thereHip pocketValue-addingA deliberate service model (what – as opposed to an accidental one?)Sophisticated profiling and riskLevel playing fieldThe tax agent community (yeah, there's probably an axe-murdering community too. Everything has a community these days)Principles-basedPenalty 'safe-harbour'Grass-roots issuesBase tenants (I th ...

Spanish: dos servicios 2007-10-02 07:16:00 Biggest language blunder while on holiday in Spain: confusing 'dos cervezas' with 'dos servicios' – yes, I went into a bar and asked for two toilets instead of two beers.I then compounded my error: attributing the barman's look of confusion to my poor Spanish accent, I repeated my request several times, each time slightly more loudly and clearly.I never did get my 'dos servicios'.Two please – large onesIt's just fortunate that, before I left the UK for Spain, one of our reporters took me aside and warned me not to confuse 'pollo' with 'polla'... ...

Blog update 2007-10-01 06:47:00 I'm back from my holiday now, so thanks to Gingerous for uploading my posts for me.The blog has gone from strength to strength in my absence: last week was our busiest ever, in terms of both hits and visitors. Partly this is due to another good mention on BuzzFeed – this time it was Apus' post on the OED dropping hyphens that hit the limelight.We've also had a fair smattering of blog cross-pollination: see this post on Villa Grammatica, or this one on Roadput.com. Although who jessihempel is, I don't know.My next task is to persuade Apus to install Firefox so he can put pictures on his blog posts (at the moment he is posting solely through the power of righteous indignation). ...

Verbing: how to social network 2007-09-28 11:41:00 Recently I spotted an unusual, if ugly, example of verbing (creating a verb from another part of speech) on the front page of the Independent: "How to social network"This is interesting because 'network' is already commonly both a noun and a verb; what the Independent has verbed is the entire noun phrase 'social network'. (Compare with 'how to socially network'.)I suspect the Independent has verbed the noun phrase because of severe space limitations on the cover – otherwise it may have preferred something along the lines of 'guide to social networking' or 'how to use social networks'.Hmm, I can't find any reference to 'how to social network' on the Independent Online, but here's someone else using the phrase (good article too). ...

Great Wall Wingle 2007-09-27 07:37:00 Unfortunate vehicle name of the month: a Chinese pickup called the Great Wall Wingle.The 'Great Wall' part is the name of the manufacturer; 'Wingle' is a portmanteau of 'wind' and 'eagle'.The manufacturer's website says the "Great Wall Wingle is just like a brave and fierce lion from the appearance" - as I am sure you can see from the picture. ...

Feeling tense(s): launch of a new product 2007-09-27 06:57:00 All the subs I know have grown used to writers reporting "the launch of a new product" and, until they become worn down and cynical, have taken the time to explain (gently or not) to the writers concerned that if it ain't new you can't launch it.All the writers for the magazine whose engine room JD and I inhabit (and why doesn't 'which' have a possessive form, by the way?) have been lectured on this silly redundancy. But bless 'em, they can't resist it – the latest example arrived today, fresh from the keyboard of our generally admirable editor.Will I explain it to him again? Will I remind our charges yet again that "making plans for the future" also contains a redundancy as you can't easily make plans for the past?JD certainly would, but he's half my age and has yet to become as worn down and cynical as me (but you will, chum... you will). ...

More hyphenation frolics 2007-09-26 10:32:00 Following my recent mention of hyphens, a story by the most senior writer in our care rams homes the importance of these often confusing punctuation marks.Referring to a campaign group that was active in our industry some years ago, he revealed that it is to reform. I duly asked him for details of this reformation so we could enlighten our readers. No, he said, it isn't being reorganised; the group had actually closed down and is to be relaunched or, as he intended to write, it is to re-form.So remember, a humble hyphen can change the meaning of an entire sentence. ...

History's greatest sub-editors: Alan Eaglesfield 2007-09-26 08:17:00 Interesting find on Wikipedia.Gravelly Hill Interchange - Junction 6 of the M6 here in the UK - is better known as Spaghetti Junction. There are several Spaghetti Junctions around the world, from Florida to Melbourne, but Gravelly Hill is the original. Incidentally it was voted as the favourite landmark of frequent motorists in a recent RAC survey.But who was it that first coined the nickname 'Spaghetti Junction'? Alan Eaglesfield, sub-editor (copy editor if you will) on the Birmingham Evening Mail in the 1970s when the interchange opened.Mr Eaglesfield, as one sub to another, I salute you. ... History

Not averse to verbing 2007-09-25 07:45:00 One of our charges has a habit of 'verbing' – using a noun as a verb. We don't object on principle; after all no one objects to gerunds, which are verb participles used as nouns. Recent examples dropping into the engine room include the eye-watering 'professionalising' and the less painful 'depolluting', both of which took the place of relatively clumsy clauses.But just to keep us on our toes, yesterday the same writer came up with "a view with which we would confer".Writers. Can't leave with 'em; not allowed to bury them under the patio. ...

Careers service bloopers 2007-09-25 07:22:00 We recently received the following email from an individual who wishes to remain anonymous.My colleagues and I in the careers service were thinking we should start a book of all the funny mangled English we get from the foreign students in interviews and on CVs. One girl replied to the question "Why do you want to be an accountant?" with the answer "because my mother did an accountant". I suspect she meant because her mother is/was an accountant – but maybe not?! Quite how the interviewer kept a straight face I have no idea.There's also one hilarious Chinese guy who always puts on his CV/covering letter that he wants to join companies to "make many friends" and that he is "very popular"...quite why he thinks this is such an important point to make to an investment bank I have no idea. We really don't stand a chance of finding some of them jobs! ...