diff --git a/doc/man/man3/notcurses_visual.3.md b/doc/man/man3/notcurses_visual.3.md
index 424eef671..0e5e30d20 100644
--- a/doc/man/man3/notcurses_visual.3.md
+++ b/doc/man/man3/notcurses_visual.3.md
@@ -166,9 +166,9 @@ to work out very well for images, but (depending on the font) can be very
 good for plots.
 
 A string can be transformed to a blitter with **notcurses_lex_blitter**,
-recognizing **ascii**, **halfblock**, **quadblitter**, **sexblitter**,
-**fourstep**, **braille**, **eightstep**, and **pixel**. Conversion in the
-opposite direction is performed with **notcurses_str_blitter**.
+recognizing **ascii**, **half**, **quad**, **sex**, **fourstep**, **braille**,
+**eightstep**, and **pixel**. Conversion in the opposite direction is performed
+with **notcurses_str_blitter**.
 
 In the absence of scaling, for a given set of pixels, more rows and columns in
 the blitter will result in a smaller output image. An image rendered with
diff --git a/src/lib/blit.c b/src/lib/blit.c
index e133c8cf3..7579a8f92 100644
--- a/src/lib/blit.c
+++ b/src/lib/blit.c
@@ -916,11 +916,11 @@ static const struct blitset notcurses_blitters[] = {
    { .geom = NCBLIT_1x1,     .width = 1, .height = 1, .egcs = L" █",
      .blit = tria_blit_ascii,.name = "ascii",         .fill = false, },
    { .geom = NCBLIT_2x1,     .width = 1, .height = 2, .egcs = L" ▄█",
-     .blit = tria_blit,      .name = "halfblock",     .fill = false, },
+     .blit = tria_blit,      .name = "half",          .fill = false, },
    { .geom = NCBLIT_2x2,     .width = 2, .height = 2, .egcs = L" ▗▐▖▄▟▌▙█",
-     .blit = quadrant_blit,  .name = "quadblitter",   .fill = false, },
+     .blit = quadrant_blit,  .name = "quad",          .fill = false, },
    { .geom = NCBLIT_3x2,     .width = 2, .height = 3, .egcs = L" 🬞🬦▐🬏🬭🬵🬷🬓🬱🬹🬻▌🬲🬺█",
-     .blit = sextant_blit,   .name = "sexblitter",    .fill = false, },
+     .blit = sextant_blit,   .name = "sex",           .fill = false, },
    { .geom = NCBLIT_4x1,     .width = 1, .height = 4, .egcs = L" ▂▄▆█",
      .blit = tria_blit,      .name = "fourstep",      .fill = false, },
    { .geom = NCBLIT_BRAILLE, .width = 2, .height = 4, .egcs = L"⠀⢀⢠⢰⢸⡀⣀⣠⣰⣸⡄⣄⣤⣴⣼⡆⣆⣦⣶⣾⡇⣇⣧⣷⣿",
diff --git a/src/player/play.cpp b/src/player/play.cpp
index d18faa17b..d6ff1413f 100644
--- a/src/player/play.cpp
+++ b/src/player/play.cpp
@@ -27,8 +27,8 @@ void usage(std::ostream& o, const char* name, int exitcode){
   o << " -L: loop frames\n";
   o << " -t seconds: delay t seconds after each file\n";
   o << " -l loglevel: integer between 0 and 9, goes to stderr'\n";
-  o << " -s 'none', 'hires', 'scale', 'scalehi', or 'stretch'\n";
-  o << " -b 'ascii', 'halfblock', 'quadblitter', 'sexblitter', 'braille', or 'pixel'\n";
+  o << " -s scaling: one of 'none', 'hires', 'scale', 'scalehi', or 'stretch'\n";
+  o << " -b blitter: one of 'ascii', 'half', 'quad', 'sex', 'braille', or 'pixel'\n";
   o << " -m margins: margin, or 4 comma-separated margins\n";
   o << " -d mult: non-negative floating point scale for frame time" << std::endl;
   exit(exitcode);