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I love my Bushisms calendar
2007-12-05 14:31:00
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.
More About: Love , Calendar

Feeling tense: sequence of tenses
2007-12-04 19:27:00
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?
More About: Sequence , Feeling

Headlines: cop office
2007-12-04 16:15:00
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 ...
More About: Office , Headlines

AdSense: no sense
2007-12-03 17:45:00
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
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It's been a long week
2007-11-30 18:55:00
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.
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Minutiae can drive you nuts
2007-11-30 18:09:00
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 rep...
More About: Drive , Nuts

Writers... doncha love 'em?
2007-11-29 18:55:00
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......
More About: Love , Writers

Parcel consumers
2007-11-29 16:15:00
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.)
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Infinitesimal error in the Mirror
2007-11-28 14:01:00
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.
More About: Error

Hyphens: strong staff
2007-11-27 16:51:00
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
More About: Strong , Staff

At death's door... potentially
2007-10-31 18:46:00
Last night while listening to BBC Radio 4, which is normally the home of good English, I heard a doctor say: "To resuscitate or not is a potentially life and death situation." Potentially? Nope, I reckon once you're heart's stopped there's nothing potential about it.
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Worldwide wondrous words
2007-10-31 18:27:00
JD and I take delight in the idiosyncrasies of English, but a recently published book serves as a reminder that weird and wonderful words are uttered wherever people speak. The book in question is Toujours Tingo: More Extraordinary Words To Change The Way We See the World, by Adam Jacot de Boinod (published by Penguin). Here are some examples: Pisan Zapra (Malay) – the time it takes to eat a banana Tartle (Scottish) – to hesitate when about to introduce someone whose name you can't recall Jayus (Indonesian) – someone who tells a joke that's so awful you have to laugh Kaellig (Danish) – a woman who stands on her doorstep screaming obscenities at her progeny *Rombhoru (Bengali) – a women with thighs as shapely as banana trees *Baffona (Italian) – an attractive moustachioed woman And from Cameroon, a phrase that's almost too nice to be believable: Wo-mba... the smile of a sleeping child. Aaaaaah...* PS Baffona Rombhoru makes an interesting name which would be perfect fo...
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Triple mixed metaphor strikes back
2007-10-31 14:56:00
I blogged a while back about a triple mixed metaphor from one of our senior writers.The same writer has done it again!Operators will be buried under a mountain of data, glued to their PCs trying to unravel the mysteries of their operationIt would be difficult to unravel anything while buried under a mountain and glued to a PC... And I wouldn't mind all these metaphors so much if they weren't such cliches.
More About: Back , Mixed , Triple , Mixe

Bloody coincidental
2007-10-30 15:12:00
Giving blood the other day I was amused to note that the air-conditioning unit in the blood van (sorry: mobile unit) was called a 'Fujitsu Plasma Clean'. Perhaps it's not just the air that it conditions?Yes, I know it's a strange thing to spot but then there wasn't a lot else to look at...And on the subject of giving blood, I am always a little concerned when the nurse tells me to 'make a fist to get the blood pumping'. I thought that's what my heart was for. Still, good to know I have a couple of back-ups...
More About: Coin , Bloody

Typo of the week: tea-hee
2007-10-29 17:00:00
A small but amusing typo in a Times Online article about afternoon tea in London. Here's the relevant paragraph: Afternoon tea is served daily at 2pm and 4pm (plus a noon sitting at weekends) and costs £31.50pp, or £38.50pp with a glass of bubby: book on 020 7420 2669. You've got until December 15, when the Savoy closes for a 16-moth, £100 million refurbishment.It seems that 16 moths can do a surprising amount of damage...
More About: Week , Typo

Obscure but satisfying: quota and quotient
2007-10-26 19:38:00
An obscure solecism helped me finish the working week on a high note.One of our techies remarked in a feature that a number of otherwise similar vehicles "varied in their poshness quota". A rather clever phrase, I thought approvingly, and moved on. But something wasn't right. I looked again, reached for the OED and confirmed that he meant quotient, rather than quota.Which is the first time I recall that word dropping into the engine room. Small victories... but as subs and copy editors out there know, in the engine room that's all you can expect.Here's to the weekend!
More About: Obscure

The sign of the relieved canine
2007-10-25 19:26:00
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!
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Visuwords vs Erin McKean
2007-10-25 16:02:00
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...

The logistics space
2007-10-24 14:30:00
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?
More About: Space , Logistics , Logi , Logistic

Len Jones' double burglary
2007-10-23 13:47:00
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 ...
More About: Double , Burglary

A bigger engine room
2007-10-22 18:11:00
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.
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Album titles: Shut up and sub...
2007-10-22 14:19:00
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?
More About: Album , Shut Up , Titles

Here's to the beer!
2007-10-19 19:28:00
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!
More About: Beer

Pronouns: ambiguity
2007-10-19 16:48:00
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 16:27:00
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?
More About: Hola

Don't worry, it's not your eyes
2007-10-17 10:18:00
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.
More About: Eyes , Worry

Surplus words: it's worth noting that...
2007-10-16 14:56:00
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.
More About: Words , Worth , Wort , Surplus

Shotgun house
2007-10-15 14:06:00
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...
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Blu-ray: not so clear?
2007-10-12 14:55:00
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...
More About: Clear

Smithisms
2007-10-11 16:41:00
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