Here's to Mrs Malaprop!

Following JD's reference to a Dutch correspondent's use of "exceedings", here's a malapropism that made me smile from an English writer who should know better:

It’s led to a shortage of 12 to 36-month-old vehicles, exasperated by people holding on to them.

Yes, of course the author meant "exacerbated", but as written doesn't this sentence paint a wonderful picture of exasperated vehicles desperate to find new homes?

Noise exceedings

One of our regular contributors is a Dutch writer who certainly speaks English much better than I will ever speak Dutch. However English not being his native language he occasionally employs an unusual – albeit charming – turn of phrase. Recently, in a piece about a trial of noise-reducing technology, he wrote:

no more than five complaints on noise exceedings followed

I think that is just lovely. "Don't make any noise exceedings, you'll disturb the neighbours..."

Palm visible on Google Earth shock

Today I was planning to write about a BBC News story on a species of giant palm recently discovered in Madagascar. The reason I chose this particular story was because it described the palm as being 'so large it could be seen by satellite', or something to that effect. Odd, because I know you can see quite small things by satellite – certainly things much smaller than a reasonably sized palm.

However, when I went back to the BBC News site to check the story today, I found that the offending copy had been rewritten to remove any mention of satellites. Just when I was thinking that I would have to come up with a new subject to write about, I spotted that one of the captions read:

The palm is said to be so big it can be seen on Google Earth

Brilliant! I have three problems with this. Firstly, I've checked on Google Earth and it is quite possible to make out the sunroof on the car parked outside my flat – not a very large object at all. Admittedly the satellite coverage of Madagascar may be worse than that of South London, but without knowing whether this is true it is impossible to use the caption to gauge the size of the palm. And since when has an object's visibility or otherwise on Google Earth been used as a common indicator of its size anyway? Or is the BBC suggesting that the scientists were lax for missing something that could quite easily be seen by satellite?

Secondly, 'is said to be'? Can't the BBC check? Presumably it could find out whereabouts in Madagascar the palm tree has been discovered and then use Google Earth to verify the claim. Said by whom, anyway?

Thirdly, why rewrite the body copy to make up for your mistake and then leave the caption? That's just shoddy... it would never happen on our publication (ahem).

(And now I am off to eat a biscuit so big it is said that someone in the building opposite looking through a telescope would be able to see it with one eye shut – as long as the weather was fine and I was holding it at a certain angle...)

Some other palm tree that may
be visible on Google Earth,
if that helps you in any way

Plain English Guide: tautologies

A regular Engine Room reader who has asked to remain anonymous has emailed me a local government 'Plain English Guide'. At 27 pages, it is perhaps a little long-winded but then again it is still shorter than the style guide and glossary of the magazine that I work for.

I was particularly struck by its list of tautologies (or as the guide says, "words that mean the same thing"). It includes:

• free gift

• new innovation

• pair of twins

• past history

• vast majority

• brief moment

• circle round

• join together

• repeated again

• mutual co-operation

• whether or not

• a dead corpse

• added bonus

• revert back

• future prospects

• early beginnings

• unite together

Now, I'm not sure that quite all of these are actually tautologous. 'Vast majority', for example – it is possible for a political party to have a slim majority, so I don't have a problem with vast majority either. What do you reckon?

And on another note, I remember a (former) member of the news desk here who was convinced it was incorrect to use the word 'whether' without following it with 'or not' . All I can imagine is that he fell under the influence of an ill-informed or malicious teacher at some point in his schooling...


(By the way – yesterday's question was correctly answered by TootsNYC, so read the comments if you were stumped.)

Derren Brown: tricks of the mind (and page)

I'm currently reading the surprisingly well written and interesting book Tricks of the Mind by British magician and mentalist Derren Brown. At one point in the book, Brown confesses he is:

...never one to arrive at an acumen regarding a set of printed pages bound along one side, based purely upon my discernment of its sheathing, ho ho

Ignoring for the moment the interesting use of the word 'acumen', my question to you is: what on earth is he talking about? I'll post the answer tomorrow, although I'll doubt you'll need it.

Typo of the week: ethic minorities

Yes, you did read that post title correctly: today is press day on our publication and we almost let through the clanger 'ethic minorities'. Not only that but it appeared twice in the same news story.

Fortunately for the subs, one of our eagle-eyed proofreaders spotted the mistake.

"Do ethic minorities come from Ethics?" I asked him. Unusually, he not only got my joke but laughed at it.

"Never mind the missing 'n', we should just drop the 'e'," he then said. So of course I told him not to be ethicist.

Words, eh?

Word of the day: invacuation

Here's an email from Gareth regarding a great work-related portmanteau he has encountered:

Alarming signs have recently gone up in our office informing us of the procedures we need to follow in the event of an Invacuation.

An Invacuation – presumably the unloved offspring of the words "evacuation"and, erm, "in" – apparently involves workers sheltering within their office building rather than being kicked out onto the streets to fend for themselves. In our state-of-the-art Canary Wharf tower, that basically means hiding in the stairwells until it's safe to come out again, and is designed principally as the process to be followed in the event of a terrorist attack. None of this, sadly, is clear from the signs, which seem to have led to general confusion.

This raises two points. Firstly, I don't care what you've called your new emergency procedure: if someone attacks my workplace then I want to get as far away from there as possible, not huddle in a stairwell. Secondly, how safe can an emergency procedure be if you've given it a name that ensures no-one knows what it means?

We were hoping to get you a photo of the Invacuation signs, but due to technical problems – neither of us being able to work our mobiles properly – this has been put on hold...

Update 28/06/08: Finally, finally managed to get the photos off my phone and on to my computer. So here are Gareth's invacuation shots (click for a larger version):

Mariah Carey: not a diva

Free London paper Metro included an interesting quote from singer Mariah Carey the other day:

"I don't believe I'm truly nasty. I've never done one diva-ish thing in my life," she said. "The definition of a diva is a woman who sings well."

Um, right. So a diva sings well, but Mariah has never done one diva-ish thing, so logic would suggest that Mariah has never sung well...

(And I was going to link the same Metro article online but it appears to have been taken down. Wonder why?)

Mariah: Sofa, so good

Georgia is a hoe!

I recently spotted a great piece of graffiti near my flat. It read:

Georgia is a hoe!

I was going to take a picture – by the time I went back, the final word had been erased. I'm presuming that Georgia herself did this, but whether it was because she is a stickler for spelling or because she took offence at being called a garden implement is beyond me...

And I did consider making a joke around the phrase 'calling a spade a spade' – but decided not.