Recent Posts
The Engine Room
Return To Blog Listing
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 'television'
Why is the TV show \'SMart\' called \'SMart\'?
There's a long-running BBC TV show called SMart. It's about art and it's aimed at children. So why the name 'SMart'?Well, obviously, the word 'smart' contains within it the word 'art'. So far, so good. It's just that capital 'M' that bugs me.I would ...
Eastenders and the \'Beale-L-T\'
It looks like the Eastenders crew has been having some fun with language.The cafe in the BBC soap opera is owned by a character called Ian Beale. And instead of the traditional BLT, Ian's cafe offers a 'Beale-L-T'.I've even managed to get a screengra...
Vorsprung durch cockup
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...
You can't hear a hyphen
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...
This one's on the house
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!
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 ...
Thursday roundup: MasterChef, NUJ, old words
A Thursday roundup rather than the usual Friday one.It's the final of cookery gameshow MasterChef tonight here in the UK, and anyone who's a fan of both the programme and language use might briefly enjoy the 'MasterChef: the best lyrics' gizmo on gua...
Don't forget to make sure you don't miss...
The BBC's between-programme voice-over man came up with the following a couple of days ago:Don’t forget to make sure you don’t miss Mistresses on BBC One tomorrowWhatever happened to 'don't miss' or 'remember to watch'? Or the even more laconic '...
