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 'vocabulary'
Shill and squelette
A couple of recent finds:First, a BBC News Magazine article on 'shill reviewing'. I've never come across the AmE word 'shill' before but I have encountered a few shill (or false) customer reviews in my time. The article also lists some other striking...
Chocs and cigs and ripping and topping
I blogged about Books v. Cigarettes, a collection of essays by George Orwell, a few weeks ago - but there's one more passage I'd like to share with you. Here he's writing about the years immediately preceding the First World War:It was the age when ...
Compendium of Curious Words
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. ...
Spendthrift: not what I thought it was
A confession: until very recently I thought a spendthrift was someone who was careful (thrifty) with money.In reality, as I'm sure you know, a spendthrift is the very opposite - "one who spends money profusely or wastefully; one who wastes his patrim...
Words of the day, 1755
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...
