Ingersoll Rand or Ingersoll-Rand?

Whenever I'm unsure how to spell or punctuate a company's name, one of my first ports of call (after checking our house style guide) is the company's own website. After all, if I write the name how the company itself writes it, I can't go far wrong – can I?

Recently, however, I have been frustrated with (and by!) companies that use their own names inconsistently. Take this screengrab from Ingersoll Rand's website:


So is it Ingersoll Rand or Ingersoll-Rand? The former, not that you would know that from the corporate website.

I wonder whether Ingersoll-Rand is hyphenated in the above example because the writer is treating it as a compound adjective? Not common practice with company names!

Stating the obvious with Barack and Britney

According to a current BBC News story:

Of the billions of searches carried out on the portal, Yahoo.com, over the last year, Mr [Barack] Obama was third behind [singer Britney] Spears and World Wrestling Entertainment.

Mr Obama was, however, the most searched-for politician during 2008.

Isn't that second par rather obvious, seeing as neither Britney Spears nor the WWE are politicians?

BBC News: Britney more popular than Obama

The perils of daytime TV

Apus here. As a retired wordsmith I'm no longer dealing with solecisms in an engine room. But having spent so many years looking out for them I find it hard not to spoil Mrs Apus's enjoyment of her favourite house-hunting TV programme by repeatedly pointing out that the presenters deserve prosecution for language crimes.

The following ARGHHHH-inducers were noted in no more than five minutes, at which point Mrs A took my pencil away and sent me out for a walk to calm me down:

• "peaceful and tranquil"

• "they have lengthy criteria"

• "it's a place full of local shops"

• "future plans"

• "unexpected windfall"

The walk helped.

Office jargon: 'oven-ready' and 'staff buy-in'

A friend of a friend of The Engine Room works at the Home Office, and she was recently told at a conference of managers to ensure that all policy delivery was "oven-ready before getting staff buy-in".

What does oven-ready mean? That something is "ready for people to work on immediately rather than being a work in progress," according to our mutual friend.

And staff buy-in? "Getting people to support any new policies rather than having them do something they think is stupid."

Note from a small island: cyberchondriac

Apus here, JD's retired former fellow stoker, now living on the Isle of Wight, with one of those portmanteau words that JD is so fond of.

This one surfaced on a Radio 4 health programme and describes anyone who has decided they have a dreadful disease after logging on to a self-diagnosis website: "cyberchondriac".

Apologies to my esteemed colleague for not blogging for so long; to avoid confusion I'll sign off future blogs so readers won't blame JD for my ramblings.

"Indians of all races - Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs"

On Friday, foreign secretary David Miliband was quoted by Metro as saying: "The majority of people killed [in the Mumbai attacks] were Indian – Indians of all races – Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs."

"And I thought those were religions," says Jason, who alerted The Engine Room to the quote.

Miliband, right, with an Indian (race unknown)

Metro: World condemns Mumbai terror attacks

Friday roundup: watching me watching you

The Engine Room may only be the 118th best language blog out there, but it's the 53rd most clipped Blogspot blog - at least according to UKNetMonitor.

Who is it that has such an interest in what I write? Perhaps the London Lite, thelondonpaper and Metro are planning their revenge...

In other news, The Engine Room has been chosen as one of blogs.com's '10 Great Blogs about Grammar, Writing & Language'.

Most of the others blogs in this list are already in my blogroll but two new ones on me are Talk Wordy to Me, by a young* copy editor on a US paper, and Regret the Error, which "reports on media corrections, retractions, apologies, clarifications and trends regarding accuracy and honesty in the press".

Actually, I'm going to add both of these to the blogroll.



*By which I mean younger than me, of course.

Time for a terrible magazine-related pun

After my post earlier in the month, the burning question is: who would like their Asphalt Now?



And no, it's not one of our publications!

(Thanks to our web editor for this truly awful pun.)

Help! Multiple meanings to 'milking parlour'?

Can anyone out there help an Engine Room regular? Roz has written in with the following query:

Recently my work supervisor asked me whether I knew what 'milking parlour' meant. She thinks it could be a euphemism for some sort of tax dodge or other criminal activity. We don't even use the term 'milking parlour/parlor' in Australia – it's a cow shed! I was wondering whether you and/or your readers would have any idea.

I haven't been unable to unearth anything except the obvious "shed or building specially equipped for milking cows" (OED Online). Nothing about tax dodges or criminal activities, anyway.

Udderly stuck...

'Objective' opinion on Strictly Come Dancing

There was a brilliant letter in yesterday's Metro newspaper regarding the recent John Sergeant / Strictly Come Dancing fiasco. I say brilliant, because it ended:

And before anyone comments, I don't watch the show so my opinion is objective – neither am I a dance purist.

Objective? That's like saying your opinion on a novel is objective because you've never read it, or your opinion on a political party is objective because you don't know what its policies are.