Blog Detail

The Engine Room

http://engineroomblog.blogspot.com

A blog about English language use, publishing and the media in general – brought to you by a sub-editor (copy editor) on a weekly UK magazine and his former chief sub.

If you have a question about vocabulary, grammar or punctuation, why not ask us?

Added on: May 15th, 2007
Country: United Kingdom
Language: English

Author: James Clark
Listed in: Journalists Writing
Tags: media publishing grammar vocabulary Etymology spelling

Recent Posts

Synonym: 'Oozing charm like a runny sore'

Posted on Sunday July 5th, 2009 at 13:20 in linwood barclay, no time for goodbye, novels, synonyms

Here's a short extract from the novel No Time For Goodbye, by Linwood Barclay:Paula Malloy was there and she greeted Cynthia like an old friend, oozing charm like a runny sore.Maybe it's just me, but I don't think the second synonym works. After all,...
Trivia: Google PageRank

Posted on Saturday July 4th, 2009 at 04:50 in algorithm, google, pagerank, personal names

A bit of Saturday morning trivia: Google's PageRank algorithm, which scores web pages on their importance from zero to 10, is actually named after the chap who developed it: Larry Page.It's a good job he wasn't called Larry Bottomley, as I'm not sure...
Denise 'White Van' Outen

Posted on Friday July 3rd, 2009 at 11:01 in denise van outen, image library, search

At work, we often use stock photography from online image libraries. Recently I was searching one of these libraries for a picture to illustrate a news story about the 'white van man' stereotype.What did the image library give me when I entered the s...
Tube 'too hot for cattle'

Posted on Thursday July 2nd, 2009 at 15:06 in billboard, commuters, cows, evening standard, the guardian, tube

According to today's Evening Standard, the London Underground is currently "too hot for cattle":That's a shame, because cows love travelling on the Tube.Incidentally, a couple of the broadsheets ran a similar story back in 2002. At least The Guardian...
Old story about tea is one of BBC's 'most popular'

Posted on Wednesday July 1st, 2009 at 07:43 in bbc news, most popular stories, tea, twitter, web story, widget

Here's the BBC News website's 'most popular stories now' widget from the start of the week:What's interesting is that story eight, "Tea 'healthier' drink than water", actually dates from August 2006:For it to resurface as one of the Beeb's most popul...