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 4622

Articles from The Engine Room

Compare to or compare with? 2007-09-24 11:03:00 The engine room is not here to teach English but I really, really wish the writers in our care would get the message that there's a rule governing the preposition that follows the word "compare", and it's this: if you're comparing two things to show that they are similar you say "compare to". If you're comparing two things to show they differ you say "compare with".The usual reference for this one is Shakespeare's phrase: "Shall I compare thee to a summer's day".It's easy. But after repeated reminders some of our charges simply can't get their heads round it. Anyway, I do feel better for getting it off my chest – which is what this blog is really about... stress relief for knackered subs! ...

Hyphens... doncha love 'em? 2007-09-21 11:02:00 My 3rd edition of Fowler's Modern English Usage has a lot to say on the subject of hyphens, but it lacks the honest admission of the 2nd edition that resides on JD's desk: "No attempt will be made here to describe modern English usage in the matter of hyphens; its infinite variety defies description."Both editions offer pages of advice on hyphens, but this is an area where usage is constantly changing. Reflecting this, the latest (6th) edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary has dumped no less then 16,000 hyphens, many of them from compound nouns. Traditionally, paired words start separate, gain a hyphen and finally merge. An example close to my heart is motorised bicycle which became motor bicycle, motor cycle, motor-cycle and finally motorcycle.But in many cases those nice people at Oxford have reversed the traditional process by reverting from a hyphenated pair of words to two separate words. Thus fig-leaf becomes fig leaf; other separated pairs include hobby horse, ice c ...

Word of the day: puntillious 2007-09-20 12:58:00 Anyone familiar with that commendable book The Meaning of Liff, by the late and much lamented Douglas Adams, will know that it comprises an alphabetical list of place names which he coined to describe familiar situations, emotions or objects that no one had previously named.In case you've missed it here are the first three entries:AASLEAGH (n.)A liqueur made only for drinking at the end of a revoltingly long bottle party when all the drinkable drink has been drunk.ABERBEEG (vb.)Of amateur actors, to adopt a Mexican accent when called upon to play any variety of foreigner (except Pakistanis - from whom a Welsh accent is considered sufficient).ABERCRAVE (vb.)To strongly desire to swing from the pole on the rear foot plate of a bus.A colleague recently coined a word that deserves to survive, even though it isn't a place name:PUNTILLIOUS (adj.)The shared expression on the faces of a group of people after someone has made a pun and everyone else is frantically trying to think of another w ...

Lunchtime: Waterstones and Morrisons 2007-09-20 11:42:00 This lunchtime I popped into a Waterstones bookshop (to buy the latest Terry Pratchett, since you asked) and noticed a collection box on the counter for Waterstones' pet charity – the Dyslexia Institute. How's that for healthy self-interest?Next stop was a Morrisons supermarket which had one of those machines that swap your loose coins for notes. It was below a large poster proclaiming: "swap your coins for cash".It was good to get back to the engine room. ...

RAS syndrome: Sainsbury's organic 2007-09-20 07:26:00 RAS syndrome: I am sure you know what this is even if you have never heard the term before. Let me give you some examples and see whether you can work it out (and sorry if this is patronising!).PIN numberHIV virusATM machineCNN networkGot it? Well, 'PIN' stands for 'personal identification number' so it is tautologous to say 'PIN number' - you are in effect saying 'personal identification number number'. The same is true for the other examples (swiped off Wikipedia).In fact, Wikipedia has some good information on RAS syndrome, including why the name 'RAS syndrome' is itself an example of RAS syndrome.Anyway, the reason I am talking about RAS syndrome today is because I came across a good example myself recently (as you can see from the image): 'Sainsbury's SO Organic' range of food – the SO itself stands for 'Sainsbury's Organic'. Is this a double RAS?If you come across any further examples of RAS syndrome, double or not, do send them into us. Cheers. ...

Word of the day: greenwashing 2007-09-19 06:28:00 The OED's definition of 'greenwashing' is:the dissemination of information by an organisation so as to present an environmentally responsible public imageFor example, a company that donates a small amount of money to an environmental charity, in return for a large amount of positive publicity, is guilty of greenwashing. Just think of the number of adverts that promote a company's 'green credentials' - a lot of them are 'greenwash'.The term 'greenwashing' first appeared in the early 1990s and is a portmanteau (yes, another one!) of 'green' and 'whitewashing'. ...

You can't argue with that! 2007-09-19 06:16:00 This sentence appeared in a feature that dropped into the engine room recently: "It is not possible to plan for every eventuality but spotting potential problems early and taking appropriate steps and, where necessary, advice is essential." In context it sounded rather wise (though not wise enough to make it to the printed page). But if you stop and think about it, not only could that sentence be used in almost any feature – it works as a pretty good rule of life. ...

Gems from our charges 2007-09-18 10:15:00 My habit of refering to the writers whose work passes through the engine room as our charges might seem patronising, but consider the following gems: "…which can only exasperate the problem.""…boasts impressive credentials on paper.""…but at the end of the day it’s not an overnight solution.” "...roughly identical specification.""...will not revert back.""...like life assurance, you never know how valuable it is until you have to use it."Our charges... bless 'em! ...

Headlines: surrogate mother of 11 2007-09-18 10:03:00 Ambiguous headline of the month goes to the Daily Mail with the following effort:Expecting kids, the surrogate mother of 11The story focused on a surrogate mother of 11 children, rather than an 11-year-old surrogate mother. In the paper's defence, the photo accompanying the story did give a large clue as to the correct interpretation of the headline.The Mail used a different headline for its online version of the story, but the same image. ...

Turkish politican with unfortunate name 2007-09-18 06:03:00 I meant to publish this a while ago – the following news story concerns a Turkish politician with a rather unfortunate name.www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=78467Thanks to Gareth for sending this in. ...

Schpelling: accommodation, judgement 2007-09-17 10:27:00 As JD would confirm, spelling isn't my strongest suit; hence the well thumbed OED on my desk.But while everyone makes spelling mistakes, some are less excusable than others.Last night, for example, I caught a TV documentary about a hotel during which, with great fanfare, a new, and no doubt expensive, sign was erected announcing that the hotel offered 'executive accommadation'.In a former job as a writer I had cause to write about accommodation on almost a daily basis. The sub editor who sat opposite me finally lost patience; every time I misspelt the word she reached for her 18-inch steel ems rule and whacked me on the wrist. I learned fast.And this morning a national magazine reported that a court had reserved its judgement. Nothing wrong with the spelling of judgement, except that in English usage it drops the first 'e' when used in a judicial context.Both these errors, trivial in themselves, are noteworthy for their context. A hotelier should be able to spell accommodation (an ...

Off to sunny Spain 2007-09-14 03:12:00 Tomorrow I jet off to Spain for two weeks. But don't worry – Apus will keep the blog ticking over in my absence.As well as that, I've written some spare posts which Gingerous Humerous Maximus will be posting on my behalf. So it will be almost as if I haven't gone away.A couple of you have been asking how my Spanish is progressing. Well, the latest invaluable phrases I've been taught by my 'Instant Spanish' book and CD set are:* My wife is crazy* I have seen some blue shoes* The sales assistant was handsome like Tom Cruise* The toilets are greatI've set myself the goal of dropping these into conversation with unsuspecting Spaniards. Bonus points for getting them all into the same conversation. Wish me luck! ...

Pointless padding 2007-09-13 11:03:00 It's been a long day, made longer by the following phrases in stories that dropped through the engine room hatch: "a recently opened production facility" (replaced by "a new factory") and "all the aforementioned elements can be configured to tailor to the individual needs of the customer" (replaced by "these elements can be tailored to suit the customer's needs")When in doubt, keep it simple. ...

Quotes: ministerial oversight 2007-09-13 09:17:00 One of our recent news stories quoted an individual talking about the importance of "ministerial oversight". I found the ambiguity here quite amusing – of course, the speaker was stressing the importance of government ministers overseeing a particular project, not the importance of those same ministers unintentionally failing to notice or do something.This raises an interesting question about the use of quotes – is it acceptable to reword a quote slightly to prevent interviewees looking foolish or being misunderstood? In this instance, we left the quote alone, as the correct meaning was evident from the context. ...

Trademarks: hole in the wall 2007-09-12 02:35:00 Seeing as we have been talking about trademarks...Back in June, I wrote on this blog about the number of different terms there are for ATMs. One of the ones I mentioned was 'hole in the wall' - and I've just found out that 'hole in the wall' is a trademark of Barclays Bank. Or rather, 'Hole in the Wall' as Barclays would have it.Interestingly, 'hole in the wall' is listed in the OED – but as 'informal, British', not as a trademark. I wonder when Barclays trademarked it? The bank only started consistently using the term 'hole in the wall' instead of 'ATM' last year – but then it did install the world's first 'hole in the wall', in Enfield, North London, 40 years ago. ...