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The Engine Room
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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
Recent Posts Tagged With 'subbing'
The future is not guaranteed
Today was quite a big day for me: my last press day, at least for the foreseeable. After working on a weekly magazine for 180 issues or so, I'm about to start a new role as web production editor.For the past six months my time has been fairly evenly ...
Subbing for sense
From a truck-related feature that one of my colleagues was subbing today:Only use the air-con for a few minutes to cool the cab. Once you’re on the move, don’t run the air-con if either the doors or windows are open.Er, why would anyone "on the m...
Edible oil tanker operator
Today I subbed a story that mentioned an "edible oil tanker operator". That could be:An operator of oil tankers that are edibleAn edible operator of oil tankersAn operator of tankers of edible oilI presumed it was the last... ...
You say 'teat', I say 'peat'...
Recently I was subbing a news story about a major drugs bust, in which 684kg of cocaine was discovered on a truck headed from Spain to England. The raw copy contained the following paragraph:The drugs were found in plastic bags packed around cash reg...
Subbing and how it impacts you
I took this shot in my workplace (using my camera phone, hence the poor picture quality).The message to take away from this is: be careful what signs and posters you put up around subs. And no, those corrections aren't mine!'Impact' is, however, one ...
Nicolae Ceausescu and the newspaper sub
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 ...
