Recent Posts Tagged With 'apus'

• Minatory? It's elementary

  Posted on Tuesday June 16th, 2009 at 07:34 in apartment, sherlock holmes, apus, language change, a study in scarlet, minatory, bleared, simious

  We all know that English is constantly changing. Chaucer (14th century) is all but indecipherable without specialist knowledge; many of Shakespeare’s words and phrases (16th century) need explanation to 21st century readers. But reading some of my ...

• STBO

  Posted on Wednesday June 10th, 2009 at 07:48 in signs, ferries, warnings, isle of wight, apus, stating the obvious, insolent

  It's good to see the operators of the ferries that ply the Solent take safety seriously, even at the risk of stating the bleedin' obvious (although if the ferry took on a list the warning might become inaccurate).By the way, Douglas Adams' excellent ...

• Vorsprung durch cockup

  Posted on Tuesday June 9th, 2009 at 08:19 in Marketing, television, audi, regenerative, apus, recuperative

  Audi, to the best of my knowledge, produces a fine range of cars, but the skill of the company's engineers is not matched by the skill of the copywriters in its advertising agency.In its current TV ad campaign much is made of the technology that div...

• A tale of two neologisms

  Posted on Monday June 8th, 2009 at 18:53 in pwn, own, neologism, apus, fasety

  Son of Apus (who coincidentally plies his trade at a computer adjacent to JD's Engine Room) recently celebrated his quarter century, so it must be some 15 years ago that I heard him using the word 'fasety' for 'aggressive in a non-violent way'. Frien...

• X marks the spot

  Posted on Monday May 25th, 2009 at 16:45 in word of the day, apus, papula, papulliferous, papuliferous

  While reading a 1960s science fiction anthology this afternoon I came across the adjective papuliferous. It stopped me dead in my tracks but my OED Concise revealed that a papula is a pimple. A quick check via Google took me to wordsmith.org which ha...

• You can't hear a hyphen

  Posted on Monday May 25th, 2009 at 06:54 in property, television, apus, deathnest, de-flowered

  Mrs A's favourite property programme is a constant source of delight. Referring to removal of flowery wallpaper one over-excited presenter gushed: "The kitchen's been de-flowered!"However one exhausted self-builder in the show coined a portmanteau wo...

• Hot news from South Island

  Posted on Thursday May 21st, 2009 at 19:02 in firefighters, local newspapers, apus

  Mrs A and I enjoy a relaxed lifestyle in our seaside retreat, but there's no shortage of blues-and-twos action in the local weekly to keep our pulses racing. These examples were culled from the two latest issues:Firefighters were called to a chimney...

• Beware the escalator of death

  Posted on Sunday May 3rd, 2009 at 16:26 in spain, airport, escalator, signs, apus

  Having spent the past week in Spain I could pass on examples of silly solecisms but I won't because it's hardly fair to sneer at our multi-lingual Continental cousins when so few Brits are prepared to learn foreign languages (my droog JD is an except...

• Nicolae Ceausescu and the newspaper sub

  Posted on Friday April 17th, 2009 at 16:32 in newspaper, romania, subbing, apus, nicolae ceausescu

  Back in 1989 (when I'd already been in the engine room for a year or two) I took no more than passing note of the popular uprising that led to the overthrow and execution of Romanian Communist head of state Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife, Elena.It's ...

• We're going over the top...

  Posted on Monday April 6th, 2009 at 03:25 in fantasy, novels, apus, anile

  I'd like to share a sad experience. On Friday I picked up a used copy of a fantasy trilogy I'd failed to get to grips with when I first encountered it in my teens (no, not Lord of the Rings, although some of JRR's later work was way over my head).But...

• This one's on the house

  Posted on Friday April 3rd, 2009 at 15:25 in property, television, apus

  Oh the pleasures of daytime TV. Here are some more gems from Mrs Apus's favourite house selling programme:“Have I got to drag you out of there with a coach and horses?”"He’d do the interior and I’d do the... outerior.""There's a downstairs ba...

• Let me through – I'm a proofreader!

  Posted on Saturday March 14th, 2009 at 17:12 in Advertising, jobs, television, proofreading, protect, apus, nappy cream

  One of the adverts that adorned the Engine Room this evening read: Make £500pwk Proofreading For 100's Of UK Publishers.Ok, per week or pw, but pwk? Why is every word capped? Why is there an apostrophe in 100's?So the ad should read: Make £500 per ...

• Compendium of Curious Words

  Posted on Saturday March 7th, 2009 at 12:09 in vocabulary, words, definition, apus

  Here in The Engine Room, Apus and I have written about all manner of unusual and intriguing words, from 'applipac' to 'zero'.I've just put together a Compendium of Curious Words, which lists them all - and links them back to the original blog posts. ...

• Words of the day, 1755

  Posted on Friday February 20th, 2009 at 16:10 in vocabulary, dictionary, samuel johnson, apus

  Here's a challenge – see how many of these word's from Dr Johnson's dictionary you can work into conversation this weekend...bedpresser a heavy, lazy fellowfopdoodle a foolkicksy-wicksy a word in disdain or ridicule of a wife (but not Mrs Apus, obv...

• Did Joe ride a Harley?

  Posted on Wednesday February 18th, 2009 at 13:06 in noggin, apus, loper, johannes gutenberg, dwangs, nicot

  As an insular pensioner I'm denied the stream of solecisms that keep JD amused in the engine room we used to share, but now and again new (to me) words do enliven my retirement.For example, while spending an enjoyable day labouring for a pal who's a ...