What's "a nib for gash"?
Since I've worked at the Shropshire Star virtually everyone who has joined the newsdesk has done so by being promoted through the ranks. So much so that when someone new joined this week it was easy to forget they wouldn't exactly be up to speed on the way we do things and some of the unusual phrases we use.
Why would anyone from outside Shropshire Star land know what we mean when we talk about "gash", "fish" and "precen"?
So I thought I'd let new news editor Jon Ball explain the workings of the Star from a new boy's eyes . . .
"Overwhelming is probably the first word that springs to mind. And stays there.
Virtually every newspaper has its own way of doing things - I've come from a land of "nibs", "tops" and "wobs" to a world of "fila", "bottom panels" and "cenpo" - but from what I've seen at the Star so far is very impressive - a large operation running incredibly calmly and smoothly, delivering quality news to the region on time and on target each day.
My last paper totalled two editions selling about 30,000 copies each day. The Star sells about 80,000 each day across eight editions which shows the difference in scale.
Getting away from the crazy terms, the biggest challenge is learning the geography.
Kindly, my bosses put me in charge of our Mid Wales edition as Welsh place names are obviously the easiest to say. Although, having grown up in Norfolk - see Wymondham (prounced Windham), Happisburgh (pronounced Haysburra), and Costessey (pronounced Cossey) - nothing surprises me.
Anyway, my hugely impressive (for hugely impressive, read rather pathetic) attempts at saying Llanfair Caereinion have at least brought much mirth to my colleagues.
Seriously, everyone has made me feel very welcome and been incredibly patient at my rather slow attempts to learn an alien computer system and grasp the workings of the Star.
It's all very different from the university city of Cambridge with its struggling main football team, a non-league team on the rise, soaring house prices and threatened congestion charge - well, not that different."
Just in case you were wondering, here's a handy glossary of Shropshire Star newsroom phrases:
Gash - overnight pages, prepared the day before publication
Fish - FIrst SHrewsbury edition - early pages in the Shrewsbury edition
Precen - the pages before the middle - the pre-centres.
Fila - FIrst LAst edition - early pages in the final edition
Cenpo - the CEntre pages on the POwys edition
Bottom panel - the bottom area of a page, usually below a photograph
Top - a 150-word story used on a page
Nib - news in brief item, a two or three paragraph small story
Wob - white on black - when white copy is printed on a black background as opposed to the usual way around.
David Burrows is National News Editor at the Shropshire Star
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