Guardian Style

 a or an before H?

Use an before a silent H: an heir, an hour, an honest politician, an honorary consul; use a before an aspirated H: a hero, a hotel, a historian (but don’t change a direct quote if the speaker says, for example, “an historic”). With abbreviations, be guided by pronunciation: eg an LSE student

abbreviations and acronyms
Do not use full points in abbreviations, or spaces between initials, including those in proper names: IMF, mph, eg, 4am, M&S, No 10, AN Wilson, WH Smith, etc.

Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.

If an abbreviation or acronym is to be used more than once in a piece, put it in brackets at first mention: so Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), seasonal affective disorder (Sad); alternatively, use the abbreviation with a brief description, eg the conservation charity the RSPB. Remember that our international online readership will not necessarily be aware of even well-known UK abbreviations. If an organisation is mentioned only once, it is not necessary to give its abbreviation or acronym.

Cap up single letters in such expressions as C-list, F-word, “the word assassin contains four Ss”, etc

a cappella

Italian for “in the style of the church”, ie unaccompanied singing

acknowledgment
not acknowledgement

addendum
plural addendums

Latinate -um neuter endings that are a part of the language (eg stadium) take an -s plural. Exceptions: bacteria, which retain the Latin plural and take a plural verb, as do media, but note that spiritualists are mediums

adverbs
Most adverbial phrases do not need hyphens. Never use them after adverbs ending in -ly, eg constantly evolving newspaper, genetically modified food, hotly disputed penalty, wholly owned subsidiary.

For adverbs that do not end in -ly, use hyphens only when there would be a possibility of ambiguity without one, eg an ill-prepared speech.

But phrases such as ever forgiving, near fatal, now defunct, once popular, etc do not need hyphens.

Exceptions: much and well when used before a noun, eg a much-loved character (but a character who is much loved), a well-founded suspicion (a suspicion that is well founded), etc

affect/effect
exhortations in the style guide had no effect (noun) on the number of mistakes; the level of mistakes was not affected (verb) by exhortations in the style guide; we hope to effect (verb) a change in this

affinity
with or between, not to or for

all right
has traditionally been regarded as right, and alright as not all right (although the 1965 Who song, much loved by generations of headline writers and still widely quoted today, was The Kids are Alright).

Kingsley Amis in The King’s English said alright was “gross, crass, coarse and to be avoided” but admitted this was “a rule without a reason”.

Note, however, the difference between “she got the answers all right” and “she got the answers, alright!”

amok
not amuck

among
not amongst

among or between?
Whatever you may have been told, between is not limited to two parties. It is appropriate when the relationship is essentially reciprocal: fighting between the many peoples of Yugoslavia, treaties between European countries, etc; among belongs to distributive relationships: shared among, etc

ampersand
Use in company names when the company does: Johnson & Johnson, Marks & Spencer, P&O, etc, but use “and” in the names of government departments and agencies: Department of Work and Pensions, Advanced Research and Invention Agency etc

anarchism
A political philosophy that advocates stateless societies, holding the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful.

The term “anarchist” is bandied about carelessly, often used by politicians and the media to denigrate opponents of the status quo, and should be used with care; “self-styled anarchist” should be avoided altogether

annex
verb; annexe noun; I am going to annex the annexe for the afternoon

anniversaries
first anniversary, 10th anniversary etc; not one-year anniversary, 10-year anniversary. There is no such thing as a six-month anniversary.

apostrophes
used to indicate a missing letter or letters (can’t, we’d) or a possessive (David’s book).

Don’t let anyone tell you that apostrophes don’t matter and we would be better off without them. Consider these four phrases, each of which means something different:
my sister’s friend’s books (refers to one sister and her friend).
my sister’s friends’ books (one sister with lots of friends).
my sisters’ friend’s books (more than one sister, and their friend).
my sisters’ friends’ books (more than one sister, and their friends).

The possessive in words and names ending in S normally takes an apostrophe followed by a second S (Jones’s, James’s), but be guided by pronunciation and use the plural apostrophe where it helps: Mephistopheles’, Waters’, Hedges’ rather than Mephistopheles’s, Waters’s, Hedges’s.

Plural nouns that do not end in S take an apostrophe and S in the possessive: children’s games, old folk’s home, people’s republic, etc.

Phrases such as butcher’s knife, collector’s item, cow’s milk, goat’s cheese, pig’s blood, hangman’s noose, writer’s cramp, etc are treated as singular.

Use apostrophes in phrases such as two days’ time, 12 years’ imprisonment and six weeks’ holiday, where the time period (two days) modifies a noun (time), but not in nine months pregnant or three weeks old, where the time period is adverbial (modifying an adjective such as pregnant or old) – if in doubt, test with a singular such as one day’s time, one month pregnant.

Proper names that contain an apostrophe stay the same in the possessive: McDonald’s burgers may be delicious but Sainsbury’s are just as good.

Some shops use an apostrophe, wrongly, to indicate a plural (“pea’s”), but will generally omit the apostrophe when one is actually required (“new seasons asparagus”), a phenomenon sometimes referred to as the greengrocer’s (or grocer’s) apostrophe. Try to avoid this

apropos
Used most commonly to mean “with regard to”, it does not need a preposition, so “apropos your question ... “ But note the idiomatic “apropos of nothing ... “ which means something like “changing the subject” or “incidentally”.

Used to mean “pertinent” or “relevant to”, now rather rare, you might say “the thought was apropos to this” or, even more quaintly, “the point was apropos”.

The French idiom “à propos de bottes” (“with regard to boots”), meaning without rhyme or reason, was used by, among others, George Orwell

Muhammad
Our style for the prophet’s name and for most Muhammads living in Arab countries, though where someone’s preferred spelling is known we respect it, eg Mohamed Al Fayed, Mohamed ElBaradei. The spelling Mohammed (or variants) is considered archaic by most British Muslims, and disrespectful by many of them.

arguably
unarguably one of the most overused words in the language

around
about or approximately are better, eg “about £1m” or “approximately 2,000 people”

around or round?
We were driving around aimlessly all weekend; it nearly drove me round the bend

arsing about
rather than arseing

art movements
are generally lowercase, eg art deco, art nouveau, cubism, dadaism, expressionism, gothic, impressionism, pop art, surrealism, etc, but note Bauhaus, Modern (in the sense of Modern British, to distinguish it from “modern art”, pre-Raphaelite, Romantic (to differentiate between a romantic painting and a Romantic painting)

as or since?
“As” is causal: I cannot check the online style guide as the connection is down; “since” is temporal: Luckily, I have had the latest edition of Guardian Style on my desk since it was published

asylum seeker
Someone seeking refugee status or humanitarian protection; there is no such thing as an “illegal asylum seeker”, a term the Press Complaints Commission ruled in breach of its code of practice.

Refugees are people who have fled their home countries in fear for their lives, and may have been granted asylum under the 1951 refugee convention or qualify for humanitarian protection or discretionary leave, or have been granted exceptional leave to remain in Britain.

Someone who is refused asylum should be referred to as a refused asylum seeker, not a “failed asylum seeker”.

An asylum seeker can become an illegal immigrant only if he or she remains in Britain after having failed to respond to a removal notice

attorney general
lc, no hyphen; plural attorneys general

autistic people
largely regard autism as a fundamental part of who they are, so dislike being described as having autism, or being people with autism/living with autism. Whenever possible, ask a person how they prefer to be described. (Further reading: National Autistic Society guidance on writing about autism)

average, mean and median
Although we loosely refer to the “average” in many contexts (eg pay), there are two useful averages worth distinguishing.

What is commonly known as the average is the mean: everyone’s wages are added up and divided by the number of wage earners. The median is described as “the value below which 50% of employees fall”, ie it is the wage earned by the middle person when everyone’s wages are lined up from smallest to largest. (For even numbers there are two middle people, but you calculate the mean average of their two wages.)

The median is often a more useful guide than the mean, which can be distorted by figures at one extreme or the other

Ayers Rock
is now Uluru

bacchanalia
originally wild festivals dedicated to the god Bacchus; now drunken revelry as found in most British towns on a Saturday night, lowercase with singular verb: the bacchanalia is likely to continue until we all pass out

bachelor
now has a slightly old-fashioned ring to it, so probably better to say (if relevant) unmarried man; “confirmed bachelor” should definitely be avoided, as should “bachelor girl” (unless writing about swinging 60s movies)

backdoor (one word)
a digital encryption term for a way of bypassing normal authentication in a product

back door (two words)
the rear entrance to a house

balk
obstruct, pull up, stop short; baulk area of a snooker table

bated breath
not baited

begs the question
This phrase is almost invariably misused: it means assuming a proposition that, in reality, involves the conclusion. An example would be to say that parallel lines will never meet, because they are parallel.

The concept can be traced as far back as Aristotle, but HW Fowler, whose entry on begging the question is listed under the Latin petitio principii (assumption of the basis), defines it as “the fallacy of founding a conclusion on a basis that as much needs to be proved as the conclusion itself”, giving as an example “foxhunting is not cruel, since the fox enjoys the fun”.

Now used widely to mean “raises the question”, its traditional sense is being lost, which seems a sad fate for a phrase that might be useful or even – in a logical or philosophical context – essential

Belisha beacons
flashing orange lamps on black and white poles at zebra crossings, named after Leslie Hore-Belisha, the minister of transport who introduced them in 1934; have given way in many cases to pelican crossings (little red and green men)

berks and wankers
Kingsley Amis identified two principal groups in debates over use of language: “Berks are careless, coarse, crass, gross and of what anybody would agree is a lower social class than one’s own; wankers are prissy, fussy, priggish, prim and of what they would probably misrepresent as a higher social class than one’s own”

beyond the pale
not pail; this pale is derived from the Latin palus, a stake as used to support a fence (cf palisade); hence the figurative meaning of beyond the pale as being outside the boundary, unacceptable

biannual or biennial?
As no one can agree which of these means twice a year, and which means every two years, it’s best not to use them at all; “twice a year” or “every two years” are unambiguous.

The same applies to bimonthly and biweekly: say “every fortnight”, “twice a month” or “every two months”, and so on. It’s remarkable that no one has sorted this problem out; nearly a century ago, HW Fowler was already calling it “a cause of endless confusion”

biblical quotations
Use a modern translation, not the Authorised Version. From a reader: “Peradventure the editor hath no copy of Holy Writ in the office, save the King James Version only. Howbeit the great multitude of believers knoweth this translation not. And he (or she) who quoteth the words of Jesus in ancient form, sheweth plainly that he (or she) considereth them to be out of date. Wherefore let them be quoted in such manner that the people may understand”

biblical references
like this: Genesis 1:1; II Corinthians 2:13; Revelation 3:16 (anyone calling it “Revelations” will burn in hell for eternity)

biceps
singular and plural (there is no such thing as a bicep)

big
usually preferable to major, massive, giant, mammoth, behemoth, etc

bite-size
not bite-sized; very few things are the same size as a bite

blokeish
rather than blokish

blond
is the adjective, male and female: John has blond hair, and Jane’s hair is also blond.

As nouns, blond is male (John is a blond) and blonde is female (Jane is a blonde), but they sound old-fashioned and sexist nowadays (“Gentlemen Prefer Blondes”) so it’s best to say simply that someone is blond

bodge or botch?
To botch a job is to make a mess of it; to bodge means something very similar, but with the added sense that you botched it by trying to cut corners or save money – think of the Bodgers and their novelty 1976 single, (Don’t Do It Right) Bodge It!

boffin
tabloid word for scientist

bolognesesauce, not the French spelling bolognaise

bolshie
rather than bolshy

bona fide, bona fides

bon vivant
not bon viveur

bookcase, bookkeeper, bookseller, bookshelf

bored with, bored by
are preferable to bored of, although usage seems to be changing, particularly among younger people.

The distinction can, however, be useful: compare “bored with Tunbridge Wells” (a person who finds Tunbridge Wells boring) and “bored of Tunbridge Wells” (a bored person who happens to live there, perhaps a neighbour of “disgusted of Tunbridge Wells”)

born out
of necessity; borne out by the facts; borne back ceaselessly into the past

both
unnecessary in most phrases that contain “and”; “both men and women” says no more than “men and women”, takes longer, and can also be ambiguous

brackets
If the sentence is logically and grammatically complete without the information contained within the parentheses (round brackets), the punctuation stays outside the brackets. (A complete sentence that stands alone in parentheses starts with a capital letter and ends with a stop.)

“Square brackets,” the grammarian said, “are used in direct quotes when an interpolation [a note from the writer or editor, not uttered by the speaker] is added to provide essential information.”

Use brackets sparingly, particularly square ones: it’s not necessary to add [David] in a football story when an interviewee refers to “Beckham”

bullet points
take a full stop after each one, ie:

 This is the first bullet point.

 This is the second.

 And this is the third.

bumf
not bumph

buoyed up by
not buoyed by

burned/burnt
burned is the past tense form (he burned the cakes); burnt is the participle, an “adjectival” form of the verb (“the cakes are burnt”)

but, however
often redundant, and increasingly wrongly used to connect two compatible statements

buy to let, help to buy, right to buy
no initial caps; hyphenate before a noun, eg buy-to-let mortgages, help-to-buy programme, right-to-buy scheme

byelection, bylaw, byline, bypass, bystander

byte
unit of measurement of computer information storage, eg 320GB hard drive (320 gigabytes)

Byzantine
empire; byzantine complexity

cabby
not cabbie, but the plural is cabbies

Californian
a person; the adjective is California, which is why Brian Wilson did not write a song called Californian Girls; the same rule applies to other US states, so a “Texan drilling for Texas tea” is an oilman

can not, cannot
are not the same: note the difference between “you can not eat if you don’t want to” and “you cannot eat porridge with a knife”

careen
to sway or keel over to one side; often confused with career, to rush along

champ at the bit
not chomp

Channel, the
not the English Channel

check-in, checkout
noun, adjective

check in, check out
verb: so you might check in at the check-in after checking out the checkout desk

childish or childlike?
Laughing when someone breaks wind is childish; laughing when someone is flying a kite is childlike

chilli
with two Ls but note Red Hot Chili Peppers

chock-a-block

chocoholic
not chocaholic

chronic
means lasting for a long time or constantly recurring, too often misused when acute (short but severe) is meant

cisgender, cis
A person whose identity aligns with their sex observed at birth. From the Latin cis, meaning “on the same side”. Used when comparing the trans experience with that of the non-trans population, eg how trans men and cis men navigate the health service. Avoid talking about trans women v women, or trans men v men. As this is a relatively new term, talk to editors if you are planning to use it in furniture.

cliches
Overused words and phrases to be avoided, some of which merit their own ignominious entry in this guide, include: ahead of, back burner, boost (massive or otherwise), bouquets and brickbats, but hey ... , controversial, count ‘em, drop-dead gorgeous, elephant in the room, famous, fit for purpose, flagship, landmark, key, major, massive, meanwhile, ongoing, politically correct, raft of measures, set to, special, stepchange, to die for, upcoming, upsurge; verbs overused or misused in headlines include: bid, boost, downplay, fuel, hike, insist, probe, quiz, ramp up, signal, spiral, target, unveil.

A survey by the Plain English Campaign found that the most irritating phrase in the language was “at the end of the day”, followed by (in order of annoyance): at this moment in time, like (as in, like, this), with all due respect, to be perfectly honest with you, touch base, I hear what you’re saying, going forward, absolutely, and blue sky thinking; other words and phrases that upset people included 24/7, ballpark figure, bottom line, diamond geezer, it’s not rocket science, ongoing, prioritise, pushing the envelope, singing from the same hymn sheet, and thinking outside the box

collective nouns
Nouns such as committee, family, government, jury, squad and team take a singular verb or pronoun when thought of as a single unit, but a plural verb or pronoun when thought of as a collection of individuals:

The committee gave its unanimous approval to the plans;

The committee enjoyed biscuits with their tea.

The family can trace its history back to the middle ages;

The family were sitting down, scratching their heads.

The squad is looking stronger than for several seasons;

The squad are all very confident that they will win promotion this season

colon
Use between two sentences, or parts of sentences, where the first introduces a proposition that is resolved by the second, eg Fowler put it like this: to deliver the goods invoiced in the preceding words.

A colon, rather than a comma, should be used to introduce a quotation: “He was an expert on punctuation,” or to precede a list – “He was an expert on the following: the colon, the comma and the full stop.”

Use before quotes when the quote could stand on its own as a sentence. He said: “You’ll never take me alive.”

When a colon is used in a headline, the next word is usually lowercase, eg Osborne: there is no plan B. One exception to this rule is in web furniture where the colon comes after the title of a series, for example as in the headline “Digested week: Words mattered to Stephen Sondheim”. Similarly, in a standfirst after a descriptive tag such as “Exclusive” or “Analysis” the next word should take an initial cap. Another exception on the web is when the colon introduces a complete sentence in quotation marks, such as Maro Itoje: ‘Whenever England take the field we should win’

This 2010 example from the Guardian is an awful (but by no means isolated) example of the tendency to use a semicolon where only a colon will do (all the more unfortunate for distracting the reader from a funny sentence): “Here’s a task for the new coalition government; set up a Drumming Taskforce today, and appoint a Snare Tsar.”

We are in danger of losing the distinction between colon and semicolon; many writers seem to think they are interchangeable but to make it clear: they are not.

compare to or with?
The former means liken to, the latter means make a comparison: so unless you are specifically likening someone or something to someone or something else, use compare with.

A former lord chancellor compared himself to Cardinal Wolsey because he believed he was like Wolsey; I might compare him with Wolsey to assess their relative merits.

As so often, we are indebted to Prince for the grammatically immaculate Nothing Compares 2U

comprise, consist, compose or constitute?
Tricky, but to get these right, just remember that comprise or consist of mean “made up of” while compose and constitute mean “make up”.

So you might say a band comprises guitar, bass, drums and keyboards or that it consists of guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. You can also say the band is composed of those instruments. Alternatively, you could say guitar, bass, drums and keyboards compose or constitute the band.

The one thing to avoid, unless you want people who care about such things to give you a look composed of, consisting of and comprising mingled pity and contempt, is “comprised of”

the Republic of the Congo
also known as Congo-Brazzaville, it was the colony of French Congo until independence in 1960. Not to be confused with its neighbour, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Both countries border the Congo river

contemporary
of the same period, though often wrongly used to mean modern; a performance of Shakespeare in contemporary dress would involve Elizabethan costume, not 21st-century clothes

continual or continuous?
the former refers to things that recur repeatedly but not constantly; the latter indicates an uninterrupted sequence: “My car continually breaks down because the radiator leaks continuously”

contractions
Do not overuse contractions such as aren’t, can’t, couldn’t, hasn’t, don’t, I’m, it’s, there’s and what’s (even the horrific “there’ve” has appeared); while they might make a piece more colloquial or easier to read, they can be an irritant and a distraction, and make a serious article sound frivolous. They also look horrible

convince or persuade?
Having convinced someone of the facts, you might persuade them to do something, although you can be persuaded to do something without necessarily being convinced that it’s the right thing

coruscating
means sparkling, or emitting flashes of light; people seem to think, wrongly, that it means the same as excoriating, censuring severely, eg “a coruscating attack on Clegg’s advisers”

cull
means pick or choose as in “culled from the best authors”. It doesn’t mean killed, axed or massacred (though you cull sheep in order to kill them). So a jobs cull does not mean the same as mass sackings

cupful
The plural is cupfuls, as with spoonfuls, but it’s three cups full, three spoons full

curb
restrain; kerb pavement

currently
“now” is usually preferable, if needed at all

cusp
a place where two points meet (eg “on the cusp of Manchester and Salford”, “on the cusp of Taurus and Gemini”), which may be extended metaphorically to a place or time where two things or groups of things come into contact, as in this elegant example from the Review: “It was a world caught on the cusp between postwar recession, stasis and a dying moral code, and the colour, mobility and licence of the 60s.”

Writers who use cusp under the impression that it is a clever way to say on the brink of or about to (“on the cusp of adolescence”, “on the cusp of the final”, “tanker drivers are on the cusp of striking over a coming supermarket-led cut in their wages”, “the garlic was on the cusp of bursting into a constellation of white stars”) are, sadly, mistaken

C-word
can be spelt out in full, but should be used only when relevant (for example in the trial of a footballer accused of calling a rival player a “black cunt”)

dangling participles
(also known as hanging participles)

Avoid constructions such as “having died, they buried him”; the pitfalls are nicely highlighted in Mark Lawson’s novel Going Out Live, in which a TV critic writes: “Dreary, repetitive and well past the sell-by date, I switched off the new series of Fleming Faces.”

Another example, from a leading article: “Due out in January as a white paper, Ms Kelly may be unable to overcome Mr Blair’s apparent determination to stick with A-levels.”

And this particularly exotic dangling participle somehow found its way into the paper: “Though long-legged and possessing a lovely smile, gentleman journalists aren’t looking up her skirt and wouldn’t even if she weren’t gay”

dashes
A single dash can add a touch of drama – like this. But use sparingly.

A pair of dashes are an alternative to commas or brackets for parenthesis when you want to draw the reader’s attention to something surprising or unusual. An example from the paper of how not to do it: “Many neighbours in the block – which sits close to the banks of the Thames – were visibly shaken.” The block’s innocuous location does not need underlining with dashes. Commas would suffice.

Beware sentences – such as this one – that dash about all over the place – commas (or even, very occasionally, brackets) are often better; semicolons also have their uses.

Dashes should be en dashes rather than em dashes or hyphens

dates
Our style is: 21 July 2016 (day month year; no commas).

21 July-6 August, 6-10 August, etc.

In the 21st century but 21st-century boy; fourth century BC; AD2007, 2500BC, 10,000BC.

Use figures for decades: the 1960s, the swinging 60s, etc.

Should you have occasion to say 2016 out loud, for example in a podcast, pronounce it “twenty sixteen”, not “two thousand and sixteen”

daylong, daytime
but month-long, year-long, night-time

decimate
nowadays used to mean destroy (yes, we know it originally meant to kill one in 10)

derisive or derisory?
The former means contemptuous, as in a yell of derision; the latter means unworthy of serious discussion, as in a derisory offer

derring-do
not daring-do

different from
is traditionally the correct form; different to is widely accepted nowadays, but note the difference between:

She looked very different to those who came before (to the people who came before, she looked very different).

She looked very different from those who came before (she did not look like the people who came before).

Different than is frowned on, at least in British English; and it’s always differs from, not differs to

disabled people
not “the disabled”

We aim to use positive language about disability, avoiding outdated terms that stereotype or stigmatise.

Terms to avoid in reference to disability, with acceptable alternatives in brackets, include victim of, suffering from, afflicted by, crippled by (prefer person who has, person with); wheelchair-bound, in a wheelchair (uses a wheelchair); person who is less able, invalid (disabled person); mentally handicapped, backward, retarded, slow (person with learning difficulties or disabilities); the disabled, the handicapped, the blind, the deaf (disabled people, blind people, deaf people); deaf and dumb (deaf and speech-impaired, hearing and speech-impaired); the vulnerable, vulnerable people (disabled people)

Note that in the UK there is no central register of disabled people so avoid using terms such as “registered disabled”.

disinterested
means free from bias, objective (the negative form of interested as in “interested party”); often used incorrectly instead of uninterested, not taking an interest (the negative form of interested as in “interested in football”). So disinterest is impartiality, not a lack of interest.

The distinction is one we should strive to maintain because it is not helpful to readers if we use disinterested and uninterested to mean the same thing

disoriented
not disorientated

dissociate, dissociation
not disassociate, disassociation

distinct or distinctive?
There’s a distinct possibility that he will insist on showing you the distinctive birthmark on his left buttock

ditching
not a synonym for crashing: if you ditch a helicopter, you make a controlled landing on the water after an emergency – we have got this wrong several times

dos and don’ts

double down
to commit more strongly to a position

downplay
play down is preferable

dox, doxed, doxing
term for publishing someone’s private information online without their consent

doyen, doyenne
the senior member of a group, eg “she was the doyenne of ballet critics.” It once meant a leader or commander of 10 men

dreamed
not dreamt

drily
not dryly

driving licence
not driver’s licence in British English

due to or owing to?
Traditionalists argue that “due to” should only be used when it is the complement of the verb “to be”, and could be replaced by “caused by”; otherwise, use “owing to” or “because of”:

The train’s late arrival was due to [caused by] leaves on the line; the train was late owing to [because of] leaves on the line.

The distinction, once routinely taught in primary schools but now assailed on all sides, especially by train and tube announcers, is being lost.

There is no such controversy about “due to” in other contexts – rent is due to the landlord, we are due to arrive in 10 minutes, etc

DVD
stands for digital versatile disc

dwarves
plural of dwarf (not dwarfs); but the verb is to dwarf, eg the Shard dwarfs the surrounding buildings

each other or one another?
Some traditionalists say the former should apply only to two people (“Iniesta and Xavi hugged each other”) and the latter to more than two (“all 11 Spanish players hugged one another”). HW Fowler was unimpressed by this argument and in practice very few people make the distinction.

The possessive is singular: they shook each other’s hand

earlier
often redundant: “they met this week” or “it happened this month” are preferable to “they met earlier this week” or “it happened earlier this month” and will save space

earn
rather than learn that a banker or footballer earns, say, £15m a year, readers have indicated that they would prefer us to say “is paid £15m a year” or “receives £15m a year”

eBay
but Ebay if you cannot avoid starting a sentence or headline with it

eco-friendly
but ecohome, ecosystem, ecotown, ecowarrior

educationist
not educationalist

effectively
This adverb is best kept simply to describe how something was done: “Anna managed the department effectively.” Confusion arises when it is used instead of “in effect”, which describes something that has the effect of, even if the effect was unintended or unofficial: “Her boss was off, so in effect Anna was the manager of the department” is clearer than “Her boss was off, so effectively Anna was the manager of the department.”

Sometimes effectively is used in neither of these ways, but just to pad out a sentence in a feeble attempt at adding emphasis, in which case it can be safely deleted

efficacy or effectiveness?
in scientific terms, efficacy relates to the performance of an intervention, eg a vaccine, under ideal and controlled circumstances, whereas effectiveness relates to the performance of an intervention under real-world conditions

Eid al-Adha
(Festival of Sacrifice) Muslim festival laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of the hajj. Note that eid means festival, so it is tautologous to describe it as the “Eid festival”

Eid al-Fitr
Muslim festival of thanksgiving laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of Ramadan (al-fitr means the breaking of the fast)

eid mubarak
not a festival but a greeting (mubarak means “may it be blessed”)

eke out
This used to mean making a small amount go further, as in “she eked out her rations by serving string instead of spaghetti”. It was a bit extra – note that eke meant “also” as used by Chaucer.

The word has come to mean something rather different, namely scraping by, as in “she eked out a living doing the occasional subbing shift at the Sunday Times”

elderly people
or older people, not “the elderly”; do not use to describe anyone under 75

El Dorado
fabled city of gold

electra complex
the female equivalent of oedipal complex

elephant in the room
Like governments and reality TV series, metaphors that we once welcomed into our lives as refreshing can become all too familiar, to the point of tedium – and this cliche is a fine example.

At its height, elephants were not only in the room, but had taken over the whole house: “elephants in the room” included trade figures, policy, lack of policy, climate change, Iraq, the US, Europe, anti-Americanism, men, women, single women, a new French football league, race, religion, Islam, Catholicism, Tessa Jowell, Andrew Neil, Jimmy Greaves, fatness, thinness, Stalinism, Hitler and Tony Blair’s departure from office.

The phrase seemed destined for the elephants’ graveyard but there is evidence that, used imaginatively, it may still be effective: “There’s only so long they can ignore this elephant in the room [the Iraq war] before it takes a dump on the carpet” (Gary Younge, 5 July 2010); and, from the same writer: “Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench” (30 January 2012)

emotional
showing emotion; emotive causing emotion.
“Badger culling is an emotive issue. No wonder people get emotional about it.”

empathic
not empathetic

emulate
The traditional meaning of emulate is to attempt to equal or surpass, so “try to emulate” is strictly tautologous. But nowadays if you say “he emulated Thatcher”, everyone will think you mean that he succeeded, so you do need to qualify it: “He sought to emulate Thatcher, but ended up doing a poor imitation of Major”

enclave
a piece of land totally surrounded by a foreign territory, eg San Marino and Vatican City, both enclaved within Italy; an exclave is politically attached to a larger piece of land but not physically conterminous with it because of surrounding foreign territory, eg the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhichivan, which is is bounded by Armenia, Iran and Turkey

encyclopedia
not encyclopaedia

enormity
It might sound a bit like “enormous”, but enormity refers to something monstrous or wicked, such as a massacre, and is not just another word for “big”

en suite
two words, whatever estate agents might claim

ensure
make certain; insure against risk; but you can assure someone’s life by taking out an insurance policy

epicentre
point on the Earth’s surface directly above the focus of an earthquake or underground explosion; frequently misused to mean the centre or focus itself and is also not a synonym for “dead centre”.

After one of our misuses in 2010 a reader (for more than 60 years) wrote: “How is it that so many highly educated people, whose business is words and communication, do not understand that a prefix such as epi is there for a purpose: it changes the meaning of the root word”

especially or specially?
The former means particularly (“he was especially fond of crab”) or in particular (“this policy is aimed at Ukip voters, especially those in marginal seats”).

The latter means for a special reason (“she made crab sandwiches specially for him”). If a company claims a product has been designed “especially for you”, it hasn’t

espresso
not expresso

etc
no full point

eventually
often unnecessary, as in “the FTSE 100 drifted back, eventually closing 33.9 points lower at 5244.2”; the stock market always closes eventually

every day
adverb meaning daily: it happens every day

everyday
adjective meaning commonplace: an everyday mistake

every parent’s nightmare
avoid this cliche

evoke or invoke?
If you invoke the spirit of Picasso, you’re trying to summon his soul up from the grave; if your paintings evoke the spirit of Picasso, it means their style reminds viewers of that artist’s work

exalt
praise someone; exult rejoice
“Tony Blair was exalted as exultant New Labour supporters exulted”

exceptional
above average; exceptionable something you take exception to
“The roast beef was exceptional, the yorkshire pudding exceptionable”

exclamation marks
Use sparingly! (As Scott Fitzgerald said, it is like laughing at your own jokes)

exhausting
tiring; exhaustive thorough

expat, expatriate
not ex-pat or expatriot; this is “ex” meaning “out of” (as in export, extract), not “ex-” meaning “former” (as in ex-husband).

The term is redolent of the days of empire and used only to describe Brits abroad, who might more accurately be termed emigrant

eye-watering
The pace at which a fresh metaphor becomes a tired cliche seems to have increased in recent years; this one saw a huge increase in 2009 – although curiously, while “eye-watering” is only ever applied to money (“eye-watering sums”), its adverbial near relative is more versatile (“an eye-wateringly beautiful woman”, “an eye-wateringly sharp sauvignon” and so on). The danger, as ever, is that the expression loses its force from overuse

facade
no cedilla

far away
adverb; faraway adjective: she moved to a faraway place, and now lives far away

farther or further?
farther and farthest are the comparative and superlative of far as in distance (eg farther away, the farthest point north): “a few miles farther, and we will reach the farthest point”.

further and furthest are the comparative and superlative of far as in degree (eg further discussion, the candidate furthest to the left)

fast track
noun; fast-track verb

fatal
deadly; fateful momentous
“The fateful game arrived. It was to prove fatal for Wednesday’s hopes of promotion”

ferment or foment?
You ferment alcohol, but foment unrest

flammable
rather than inflammable (although, curiously, they mean the same thing); the negative is non-flammable

flaunt or flout?
to flaunt is to make a display of something, as in flaunting wealth; to flout is to show disregard for something, as in flouting the seatbelt law.

fledgling
not fledgeling

flip-flops

flotsam and jetsam
The former is cargo or wreckage found floating in the sea; the latter (originally a variant of jettison) is stuff that has been thrown overboard. Used together to mean odds and ends

flounder or founder?
to flounder is to perform a task badly, like someone stuck in mud; to founder is to fail: a business might be foundering because its bosses are floundering

following
after is preferable, eg Wednesday went to pieces after their latest relegation

font
receptacle for baptism, digital file (originally a foundry) that contains a typeface; fount of all knowledge and wisdom

forever
continually: he is forever changing his mind

for ever
for always: I will love you for ever

forgo
go without; past tense forwent, past participle forgone

forego
go before; forego, past tense forewent, past participle foregone (as in “foregone conclusion”)

free rein
as in giving free rein to one’s ideas – the expression comes from holding a horse’s reins loosely

friendlily
curious adverb defined by the OED as “in a friendly manner, like a friend”

fuck
not “a good, honest old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon word” (as it is often described) because there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon word (they spoke Old English) and, more important, its first recorded use dates from 1278.
Use only when relevant, typically when quoting someone; can be spelt out in full, although “the F-word” offers an alternative

fulsome
Not a fancy word for full, it indicates cloying, lavish excess, as in this eloquent description in the London Review of Books, by Rosemary Hill, of books about the Queen Mother: “His biography was pious to a degree and, like his equally fulsome edition of her letters, much too long.”

This sorely misused word is most often seen in the phrase “fulsome praise”, which should not be used in a complimentary sense

gambit
an opening strategy that involves some sacrifice or concession; so to talk of an opening gambit is tautologous - an opening ploy might be better

generation X/Y/Z
there is no consensus about the exact dates when generations begin and end but broadly speaking generation X applies to people born between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s, generation Y (millennials) to those born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s, and generation Z to those born between the mid-1990s and early-2010s.

gerund
Nothing to be frightened of. Think of it as a verb used as a noun: I like running, smoking is bad for your health, etc. You are supposed to use a possessive: I was worried by his smoking, rather than I was worried by him smoking. In practice, many people – yes, even journalists – don’t bother

gif
stands for graphics interchange format. When CompuServe introduced it in 1987, it was pronounced with a soft G as in giraffe, although it is also widely pronounced with a hard G as in goat

gin and tonic
plural gin and tonics; abbreviation G&T, plural G&Ts

gobbledegook
not gobbledygook

grammar
“It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear”
(William Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2)

Ambrose Bierce defined grammar as “a system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man”. He had a point. Generations of schoolchildren were taught grammar as an arbitrary set of dos and don’ts laid down by people who knew, or thought they knew, best.

Nowadays, grammar might be more helpfully defined as the set of rules followed by speakers of a language: for example, why in English we say “I went out” and not “I out went”. Using correct grammar is a way to communicate effectively, not to feel superior to other people because you know what a conjunction is.

Don’t feel too downhearted if you were taught grammar badly, or not at all; as the linguist Steven Pinker says: “A preschooler’s tacit knowledge of grammar is more sophisticated than the thickest style manual”

Great Leap Forward
Mao Zedong’s ill-fated attempt to modernise Chinese agriculture and industry from 1958-61

grow
flowers may grow but companies don’t “grow profits” and governments don’t “grow economies”; horrors such as “grow the business” should only be used when quoting someone

grownup, grown up
You become a grownup when you have grown up

half
No hyphen when used adverbially: you look half dead; half wine, half water; his trousers were at half mast (see exceptions below).

Hyphen when used adjectivally: a half-eaten sandwich; a half-cut subeditor; half-time oranges.

The boy is six and a half but a six-and-a-half-year-old boy

hanged, hung
the woman was found hanged; the sheet was hung out to dry

hanging participles
An unfortunate example from a leading article in the paper: “Due out in January as a white paper, Ms Kelly may be unable to overcome Mr Blair’s apparent determination to stick with A-levels ... "

heave
There is confusion about the past tense, which is heaved in the senses of “she heaved a sigh of relief as he heaved the knife away” but hove in other senses: “they hove into view, hove up the anchor and hove alongside.” In all the above cases, the present tense is heave or heaves, so it would be “they heave into view”

historic or historical?
A historic event is notable, a historical event simply something that happened in the past. So someone might be accused of historical crimes that happened years earlier.

However, avoid using the term historical to describe sexual abuse crimes from the past. Survivors, particularly adults who were abused as children, feel the term undermines the long-lasting impact of the crimes. Try to date the crimes (year, decade etc) instead, or say they happened in the past eg “Detectives are investigating allegations of child sexual abuse from more than 30 years ago.” Exceptions may be necessary in court cases where specific wording is required.

Note that it’s “a” not “an”, unless directly quoting: “an historic” is considered old-fashioned, and in modern English “a historic”, “a hotel” and so on sound more natural. Before silent H, the opposite applies: an heir, an honest man, etc

hoard or horde?
a hoard of treasure; a horde (or hordes) of tourists. Often confused

hoi polloi
common people, the masses; “the hoi polloi” is acceptable, even for speakers of ancient Greek

homage
a homage, not “an homage”; pay homage to.

hommage is a French word

home in on
not hone in on, which suggests you need to hone your writing skills

Hongkongers
one word

hopefully

Like many other adverbs, such as frankly, happily, honestly and sadly, hopefully can be used as a “sentence adverb” indicating the writer’s view of events – “hopefully, we will reach the summit” – or as a “manner adverb” modifying a verb – “we set off hopefully for the summit”. Why some people are upset by “hopefully we will win” and not “sadly we lost” is a mystery

horrendous
sounds like a rather ugly combination of horrific and tremendous, but is in fact from the Latin for fearful; horrific is generally preferable

hyphens
Our style is to use one word wherever possible. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines). This is a widespread trend in the language: “The transition from space to hyphen to close juxtaposition reflects the progressive institutionalisation of the compound,” as Rodney Huddleston puts it, in his inimitable pithy style, in his Introduction to the Grammar of English.

Inventions, ideas and new concepts often begin life as two words, then become hyphenated, before finally becoming accepted as one word. Why wait? “Wire-less” and “down-stairs” were once hyphenated, and some old-fashioned souls still hyphenate e-mail.

Words such as chatroom, frontbench, gameplan, housebuyer and standup are all one word in our publications, as are thinktank (not a tank that thinks), longlist (not necessarily a long list) and shortlist (which need not be short).

There is no need to use hyphens with most compound adjectives, where the meaning is clear and unambiguous without: civil rights movement, financial services sector, work inspection powers, etc. Hyphens should, however, be used to form short compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal, 19th-century artist. Also use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish “black-cab drivers come under attack” from “black cab-drivers come under attack”. A missing hyphen in a review of Chekhov’s Three Sisters led us to refer to “the servant abusing Natasha”, rather than “the servant-abusing Natasha”.

Do not use hyphens after adverbs ending in -ly, eg a hotly disputed penalty, a constantly evolving newspaper, genetically modified food, etc, but hyphens are needed with short and common adverbs, eg ever-forgiving family, much-loved character, well-established principle of style (note, however, that in the construction “the principles of style are well established” there is no need to hyphenate).
-
When an adverb can also be an adjective (eg hard), the hyphen is required to avoid ambiguity – it’s not a hard, pressed person, but a hard-pressed one; an ill-prepared report, rather than an ill, prepared one.

Use a hyphen in verbs where necessary to stop this kind of thing happening:

Motorists
told: don’t
panic buy
petrol

(While not panicking may well have been advisable, they had actually been told not to panic-buy.)

Prefixes such as macro, mega, micro, mini, multi, over, super and under rarely need hyphens: examples are listed separately. Follow Collins when a word or phrase is not listed

ie
no full points or commas, ie like this

immune to
not immune from

impact
is best used as a noun, not a verb: “could potentially impact” is more eloquently and concisely expressed as “might affect”; affect or have an effect on are invariably preferable to “impact” or “impact on”

imply or infer?
To imply is to suggest; to infer is to conclude.

Homer: “What are you inferring?”
Lisa: “I’m not inferring anything. You infer; I imply.”
Homer: “Well that’s a relief.”

Many people use infer when they mean imply, and they are in good company: Milton, Sir Walter Scott and Mervyn Peake in Titus Groan all did it

inchoate
Nothing to do with chaos, it means newly formed, whether describing someone’s literary skills or the universe shortly after the big bang

insidious or invidious?
The former means subtly or gradually harmful (“an insidious disease”); easily confused with the latter, which means likely to arouse resentment (“she put herself in an invidious position”)

into or in to?
If you go into a room or look into something, it’s one word; if you call in to complain, listen in to someone’s conversation, or go in to see them, it’s two.

introductory words
at the start of a sentence such as “However”, “Nonetheless”, “Instead”, should be followed by a comma

ironic, ironically
Do not use when what you mean is strange, coincidental, paradoxical or amusing (if you mean them say so, or leave it up to the reader to decide). There are times when ironic is right but too often it is misused, as in this typical example from the paper: “Santini’s Tottenham won 2-0 at Nottingham Forest, ironic really with the north London club having a big interest in Forest’s Republic of Ireland midfielder Andy Reid...” (not that sport are the only, or biggest, offenders).

As Kingsley Amis put it: “The slightest and most banal coincidence or point of resemblance, or even just- perceptible absence of one, unworthy of a single grunt of interest, gets called ‘ironical’.” The idiotic “post-ironic”, which Amis would be glad he did not live to see, is banned

-ise
not -ize at end of word, eg maximise, synthesise (exception: capsize)

italics
Use roman for titles of books, films, etc; the only exceptions are the Review and the Observer, which by special dispensation are allowed to ignore the generally sound advice of George Bernard Shaw:

“1. I was reading The Merchant of Venice. 2. I was reading ‘The Merchant of Venice’. 3. I was reading The Merchant of Venice. The man who cannot see that No 1 is the best-looking, as well as the sufficient and sensible form, should print or write nothing but advertisements for lost dogs or ironmongers’ catalogues: literature is not for him to meddle with.”

Use italics for foreign words and phrases (with roman translation in brackets); poetry and scientific names.

Never use italics in headlines or standfirsts

jack-in-the-box
but jack of all trades

jargon
Originally jargon was “the inarticulate utterance of birds, or a vocal sound resembling it; twittering, chattering”.

The modern sense – defined as “mode of speech abounding in unfamiliar terms, or peculiar to a particular set of persons, as the language of scholars or philosophers, the terminology of a science or art, or the cant of a class, sect, trade, or profession” (OED) – dates from the 17th century.

Bill Bryson describes jargon thus: “The practice of never calling a spade a spade when you might instead call it a manual earth-restructuring implement”

jib
triangular sail or arm of a crane; “I don’t like the cut of his jib” means you don’t like the look or manner of someone

jibe
(not gibe) taunt

job titles
are all lc: editor of the Guardian, governor of the Bank of England, prime minister, etc

Joneses
as in keeping up with the Joneses; also note the Joneses’ house (not the Jones’ house)

judges
have different titles according to the courts in which they work.

Courts below the high court:
Judge Smith, Judge Brown; thereafter Smith, Brown

High court:
Mr Justice Smith, Ms or Mrs Justice Brown; thereafter Smith, Brown

Court of appeal:
Lord Justice Smith, Lady Justice Brown; thereafter Smith, Brown

Supreme court:
Lord Smith, Lady Brown, thereafter Smith, Brown

If a judge appears in a court higher or lower than the one in which they usually work they retain their existing title, eg if Lady Justice Brown of the appeal court appears in the supreme court she does not become Lady Brown; likewise, if she appears in the high court she does not become Ms or Mrs Justice Brown. If the honorific of a female high court judge cannot be ascertained, use Ms.​

just deserts
not just desserts, unless you are saying you only want pudding

Keynes
If you need to pronounce them, John Maynard Keynes is Kaynz, Milton Keynes is Keenz

knell or knoll?
A knell is the sound of a bell, hence “death knell”. A bell can be knelled, as well as tolled. A knoll is a small hill, not necessarily grassy

laid-back
He is laid-back, she is a laid-back boss

landmark
overused as an adjective, randomly strewn through stories, perhaps as an alternative to flagship

laser
word dating from 1960 formed from the phrase “light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation”, and an example of why not all acronyms need to be capped up

last or past?
interchangeable in such phrases as “six times in the last week”, “twice in the past year”.

But last means “most recent” in this sentence:
“United have beaten Wednesday five times in their last six meetings”
whereas past refers to the past as a whole in this sentence:
“United have beaten Wednesday five times in their past six meetings” (suggesting they have only ever played each other six times)

Latin
“Away with him! Away with him! He speaks Latin” (Shakespeare, Henry VI Part 2)

Some people object to, say, the use of “decimate” to mean destroy on the grounds that in ancient Rome it meant to kill every 10th man; some of them are also likely to complain about so-called split infinitives, a prejudice that goes back to 19th-century Latin teachers who argued that as you can’t split infinitives in Latin (they are one word) you shouldn’t separate “to” from the verb in English. Others might even get upset about our alleged misuse of grammatical “case” (including cases such as dative and genitive that no longer exist in English).

As our publications are written in English, rather than Latin, do not worry about any of this even slightly

latter
Use only in contrast with former. Saying an item is “the latter” of more than two things is not only annoying but wrong. In such cases, it should be “the last”

lay bare
(revealed) past tense laid, not lay: so “almost a decade after the genome project lay bare ...” should have read “laid bare”

layperson
avoid layman

lay off
does not mean to sack or make redundant, but to send workers home on part pay because of a temporary lack of demand for their product

lay waste
a hurricane can lay waste an island, or lay an island waste, but it does not lay it to waste or lay waste to it (the word comes from the same root as devastate)

leach or leech?
leach (verb): percolate, remove with a percolating liquid
leech (noun): a bloodsucking worm, or used figuratively to describe, say, bankers

learned
not learnt, unless you are writing old-fashioned poetry (he learned his tables, a message well learned, etc)

led or lead?
In all but the present tense, the verb form is led. This does not stop otherwise normal, sensible people writing things like “he was lead to the slaughter” or “the singing will be lead by Cliff Richard”. If this is just a slip of the keyboard, it’s a frequent slip

lie
(tell an untruth), past tense lied.
lie (down), past tense lay: he lay there for an hour.
lay (a table, an egg, put something down), past tense laid

likable
not likeable

like or as if?
Using like as a preposition (“ride like the wind”) is uncontroversial. Using it as a conjunction, introducing a clause that contains a verb (“ride like you’re riding a motorbike”, “he behaved like he was drunk”) will annoy many readers.

The simple way to keep everyone happy is to use like when the verb is followed by a noun (“he ran like a gazelle”) and as if when the verb is followed by a clause (“he ran as if he had seen a ghost”).

Ogden Nash pointed out that it’s As You Like It, not Like You Like It, although Shakespeare in fact did use like as a conjunction

like or such as?
“Cities like Manchester are wonderful” suggests the writer has in mind, say, Sheffield or Birmingham; it’s clearer to say “cities such as Manchester” if that is what she means.

Do not, however, automatically change “like” to “such as” - the following appeared in the paper: “He is not a celebrity, such as Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler ... “

likely
In the UK, if not the US, using likely in such contexts as “they will likely win the game” sounds unnatural at best; there is no good reason to use it instead of probably. If you really must do so, however, just put very, quite or most in front of it and all will, very likely, be well.

lists
1 Similar to bullet points.
2 Like this.
3 With no full points after the number.

livable
not liveable

loathe
(rhymes with clothe) detest; loth (rhymes with oath) reluctant:
“I’m loth to do anything he says because I loathe him so much.”

You sometimes see loth spelt as loath, which is not incorrect, but only adds to the confusion with loathe

MacGuffin
an object or event in a book or a film that serves as the impetus for the plot

magic bullet
easy solution; silver bullet as used to kill a werewolf, and by the Lone Ranger.

We should normally stick to magic bullet for metaphorical use, at least when talking about a simple or ready solution.

By all means say silver bullet, however, when actually referring to werewolves or, metaphorically, if you are talking about getting rid of something. So:
Labour will need magic bullet to win the next election;
Labour will need silver bullet to remove Cameron from No 10

magistrates court
no apostrophe

Magna Carta
not “the Magna Carta”; note that it was sealed, not signed

major
a major case of overuse; avoid except in a military context: big, main and leading are among the alternatives

majority
Unless you are specifically talking about the larger part of a measurable number, “most of” normally sounds more natural: “a clear majority had voted Conservative, so he resolved to spend most of the next five years in the pub”

manner or manor?
“To the manner born” is a phrase from Hamlet. To the Manor Born was a sitcom

masterful or masterly?
The former means wilful or domineering; the latter means highly competent: “He gave a masterly demonstration of good grammar”

master’s
as in “I did my master’s at UCL”

may or might?
The subtle distinctions between these (and between other so-called modal verbs) are gradually disappearing, but they still matter to many of our readers and can be useful.

may implies that the possibility remains open: “The Mies van der Rohe tower may have changed the face of British architecture for ever” (it has been built); might suggests that the possibility remains open no longer: “The Mies tower might have changed the face of architecture for ever” (if only they had built it). Similarly, “they may have played tennis, or they may have gone boating” suggests I don’t know what they did; “they might have played tennis if the weather had been dry” means they didn’t, because it wasn’t.

Our headline “Capello has stayed aloof but personal touch may have kept Bridge onside” says the opposite of what is meant – it suggests that Capello’s personal touch means there is still a possibility of Bridge staying onside; it should have read “Capello has stayed aloof but personal touch might have kept Bridge onside” (but it didn’t).

may also has the meaning of “having permission”, so be careful: does “Megawatt Corp may bid for TransElectric Inc” mean that it is considering a bid, or that the competition authorities have allowed it to bid?

mayday
distress signal (from the French “m’aidez!”)

medieval
not mediaeval. While the term can be used to refer broadly to old-fashioned or primitive behaviour that might have been found in the middle ages, if using the term to refer specifically to that time period please ensure it falls roughly between 500-1455 AD.

Menorca
not Minorca

mental health
Take care using language about mental health issues. In addition to such clearly offensive and unacceptable expressions as loony, maniac, nutter, psycho and schizo, terms to avoid - because they stereotype and stigmatise - include victim of, suffering from, and afflicted by; “a person with” is clear, accurate and preferable to “a person suffering from”.

Terms such as schizophrenic and psychotic should be used only in a medical context: for example never use schizophrenic to mean “in two minds”. Also, they should only be used as adjectives, not nouns.

Avoid writing “the mentally ill” - say mentally ill people, mental health patients or people with mental health problems

metric system
We use the metric system for weights and measures; exceptions are the mile and the pint. As understanding of the two systems is a matter of generations, conversions (in brackets) to imperial units should be provided wherever this seems useful, though usually one conversion – the first – will suffice. Imperial units in quoted matter should be retained, and converted to metric [in square brackets] if it doesn’t ruin the flow of the quote.

It is not necessary to convert moderate distances between metres and yards, which are close enough for rough and ready purposes (though it is preferable to use metres), or small domestic quantities: two litres of wine, a kilogram of sugar, a couple of pounds of apples, a few inches of string.

Small units should be converted when precision is required: 44mm (1.7in) of rain fell in two hours. But be sensible: don’t convert a metric estimate into a precise imperial figure (round the conversion up or down). Tons and tonnes are close enough for most purposes to do without conversion; use tonnes (except in shipping tonnage).

Body weights and heights should always be converted in brackets: metres to feet and inches, kilograms to stones/pounds. Geographical heights and depths, of people, buildings, monuments, etc, should be converted, metres to feet. In square measurement, land is given in sq metres, hectares and sq km, with sq yards, acres or sq miles in brackets where there is space to provide a conversion. The floor areas of buildings are conventionally expressed in sq metres (or sq ft). Take great care in conversions of square and cubic measures: 2 metres is about 6.5ft, but 2 sq metres is about 21.5 sq ft

How to write units for precise measurements (examples):

10mm
10cm
10 metres (but, eg 400m in athletics)
10 sq metres
10km
10kg
10 tonnes
10 litres
10in
10ft
10 sq ft
10 yards
10 miles
10lbs
10 pints

meze
not mezze

mid-60s, mid-90s, etc

mis-hit, mis-sell
but misspeak, misspell, misspent

Moby-Dick
The title of Herman Melville’s classic is hyphenated, although the name of the whale is Moby Dick

money-grubbing
not money-grabbing

moot
a moot point, in British English, is debatable, open to discussion; in American English, it is irrelevant

myriad
A large, unspecified number, derived from the ancient Greek for ten thousand. The OED lists various ways it is used: as a singular noun (there is a myriad of people outside), a plural noun (there are myriads of people outside), or an adjective (there are myriad people outside)

nation
should not be used to mean country or state, but reserved to describe people united by language, culture and history so as to form a distinct group within a larger territory.

Beware of attributing the actions of a government or a military force to a national population (“the Israelis have killed 400 children during the intifada”). Official actions always have opponents within a population; if we don’t acknowledge this, we oversimplify the situation and shortchange the opponents

naught
nothing; nought the figure 0

naysayer
a “neighsayer”, as we have been known to spell it, would be a horse

nemesis
an agent of retribution and vengeance, not a synonym for enemy

nerve-racking

next door
she lives next door (adverb)

nextdoor
she’s my nextdoor neighbour (adjective)

no
the plural is noes

none
It is a (very persistent) myth that “none” has to take a singular verb: plural is acceptable and often sounds more natural, eg “none of the current squad are good enough to play in the Premier League”, “none of the issues have been resolved”

no one
not no-one

North York Moors
national park; but North Yorkshire Moors railway, 18-mile heritage line between Pickering and Grosmont

nosy
not nosey

nous
common sense

Nouse
York University student newspaper

obtuse
means “mentally slow or emotionally insensitive” (Collins); often confused with abstruse (hard to understand) or obscure

Occam’s razor
philosophical principle, attributed to the 14th-century English friar William of Ockham, that broadly means prefer the simplest explanation, adopting the one that makes the fewest assumptions and “shaving away” the rest

ongoing
Bureaucrats and business people love this jargon word and associated phrases such as “ongoing situation” or “on an ongoing basis”. Even some journalists are oddly fond of it, although the story has yet to be written that cannot be improved by removing it. “The case continues” is preferable to “the trial is ongoing”

only
can be ambiguous if not placed next to the word or phrase modified: “I have only one ambition” is clearer than “I only have one ambition”; however, be sensible: do not change the song title to I Have Eyes for Only You.

Say “the only” or “one of the few” rather than “one of the only”, which has found its way into the paper

on to not onto
Kingsley Amis, perhaps slightly overstating the case for this, argued: “I have found by experience that no one persistently using onto writes anything much worth reading”

oohing and aahing, oohs and aahs

oriented, disoriented
not orientated, disorientated

Orkney
not “the Orkney Isles” or “the Orkneys”

outre
no accent

outside
not “outside of”

Oxford comma
a comma before the final “and” in lists: straightforward ones (he ate ham, eggs and chips) do not need one, but sometimes it can help the reader (he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea).

Sometimes it is essential: compare
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling
with
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling

oxymoron
does not just vaguely mean self-contradictory; an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms are used in conjunction, such as bittersweet, compassionate conservatism, “darkness visible” (Paradise Lost), “the living dead” (The Waste Land); one of Margaret Atwood’s characters thought “interesting Canadian” was an oxymoron

pace
Latin tag meaning “by the leave of”, as a courteous nod to the views of a dissenting author, or “even acknowledging the existence of”, not a clever way to say “such as”

palate, palette or pallet?
The palate is the roof of the mouth or sense of taste; an artist mixes paint on a palette; a pallet is one of those wooden frames you see on a forklift truck

pale
The expression “beyond the pale”, meaning unacceptable, outside the boundary, has nothing to do with buckets; it is derived from the Latin palus, a stake used to support a fence, from which palisade is also derived

panacea
a remedy for all ills; so it’s a misuse of the word to say (as we did) that “exercise is no panacea for depression”

panjandrum
a pretentious or self-important person in authority

parentheses
If the sentence is logically and grammatically complete without the information contained within the parentheses (round brackets), the punctuation stays outside the brackets.

(A complete sentence that stands alone in parentheses starts with a capital letter and ends with a stop.)

“Square brackets,” the grammarian said, “are used in direct quotes when an interpolation [a note from the writer or editor, not uttered by the speaker] is added to provide essential information”

partially or partly?
Use partial or partially to mean the opposite of impartial; otherwise partly is generally preferable: “I may be being partial, but booking me to stay in a partly built hotel merits a refund”

people-smuggling
The hyphen helps to clarify such sentences as: “The problem of people smuggling between north Africa and Europe has increased”

per
avoid; use English: “She earns £30,000 a year” is better than “per year”. If you must use it, the Latin preposition is followed by another Latin word, eg per capita, not per head. Exception: miles per hour, which we write mph

planning
not “forward planning”

plebeian
not plebian

poetry
Ideally, run line by line, as it was written:

I struck the board and cry’d, ‘No more;
I will abroad.’
What, shall I ever sigh and pine?
My lines and life are free; free as the rode,
Loose as the winde, as large as store.

If you don’t have room to run it line by line, separate the lines with spaces and a slash:

I struck the board and cry’d, ‘No more; / I will abroad.’ / What, shall I ever sigh and pine? / My lines and life are free; free as the rode, / Loose as the winde, as large as store.

Italics are acceptable, though not essential

poncey
not poncy

pond
not a terribly witty way to refer to the Atlantic (“on the other side of the pond”) which, in the words of one Guardian writer, is “smug, hackneyed, old-fashioned, inaccurate and generally crap”

popular
liked; populist wants to be liked: a party’s policies may be populist, but its politicians may remain unpopular

potentially
rarely necessary: verbs such as could and might already convey potentiality, so “could potentially” and “might potentially” are tautologous, as well as clumsy

Pov
term coined by a Guardian journalist to depict laboured attempts to produce synonyms by writers seeking what Fowler called “elegant variation” (and Orwell “inelegant variation”), often descending into cliche or absurdity. Thus Dalí becomes “the moustachioed surrealist” and Ireland “the cockatoo-shaped landmass”. Pov, incidentally, stands for “popular orange vegetable”

practice
noun; practise verb

pre-
redundant in such newly fashionable words as pre-booked, pre-reserved, pre-ordered, and even pre-rehearsed

precede
go before; proceed go ahead

prepositions
appeal against, protest against, over or at, not “appealed the sentence”, “protested the verdict”, etc.

Schoolchildren used to be told (by English teachers unduly influenced by Latin) that it was ungrammatical to end sentences with a preposition, a fallacy satirised by Churchill’s “this is the sort of English up with which I will not put” and HW Fowler’s “What did you bring me that book to be read to out of for?”

Take care after phrases following “to”: the subheading “to we Conservatives, Labour looks as if it’s heading back to the old horrors of the winter of discontent” drew numerous protests from readers pointing out that it should have been “to us Conservatives … “ (The mistake was ours, not the shadow cabinet minister who wrote the piece)

presently
What exactly does this mean? I will tell you presently – soon – is the traditional British English usage, whereas in American English it means at present, and is usually redundant (“we are presently third in the table”). To avoid ambiguity, say soon when you mean soon, and don’t say anything when you mean now.

There is a similar problem with momentarily, which means for a moment or briefly in British English, and very soon to American (and some British) speakers. Best avoided

prestigious
For centuries this meant deceptive, as in a conjuring trick (prestidigitation). The modern meaning is having prestige or status

pretext
by its nature false, so while it may or may not be true that Tony Blair went to war on a pretext, it is tautologous to say he did so on a false one

prevaricate
Can mean speaking or acting with intent to deceive as well as avoiding giving a direct answer or making a firm decision, so take care when accusing someone of doing it. Similar alternatives might include procrastinate (putting something off), equivocate (using ambiguous language to avoid speaking directly) or vacillate (being indecisive)

prior to, previous to
the word you want is “before”

prise
apart, open (not prize)

probe
a dental implement, not an inquiry or investigation

prodigal
means wasteful or extravagant, not a returned wanderer; the confusion arises from the biblical parable of the prodigal son, but he was prodigal because he wasted his inheritance, not because he wandered off.

Thus a prodigal striker is one who misses lots of chances to score goals, not one who has played for lots of clubs (who will also invariably be described as “much-travelled”)

profession
Strictly, to enter a profession you need a specific qualification, such as that acquired by a doctor, lawyer, social worker or teacher. As anyone with a mobile, a laptop and a bit of cheek can be a journalist, or at least claim to be one, journalism is not a profession but a trade, craft or racket. Much the same applies to politics

program
in Australia and the US, and for computer programs everywhere; otherwise programme in the UK: “I saw a fascinating TV programme about computer programs”

prolific
means abundant or fruitful, so a “prolific striker” scores lots of goals; it is a positive attribute, and phrases such as “one of Britain’s most prolific paedophiles” (which we used) strikes completely the wrong tone

prone
face down; supine face up

pronouns
Some people use they/them/their rather than he/she etc. This should be respected at the same time as avoiding creating confusion for the reader.

One option is to mention that the person uses the singular they. For example: ‘Jones, who uses they, said …’. Alternatively, although they and their are sometimes used in the singular in speech, it may be clearer to rewrite or repeat the person’s name if the use of they/them/their is not explained. For example, “They said the show was brilliant” can simply become “Jones said the show was brilliant”

prophecy
noun; prophesy verb

protege
male and female, no accents

protest
against, over or about – not, for example, “protest the election result”, which has appeared on our front page

proven
proved is the past tense of prove; beware the creeping “proven”, a term in Scottish law (“not proven”) and in certain English idioms, eg “proven record”

public schools
are actually private schools, so that is what we should call them

pyrrhic
A pyrrhic victory is not a hollow one, as often assumed, but one achieved at great cost. King Pyrrhus of Epirus defeated the Romans twice, in 280BC and 279BC, but suffered such heavy losses that he said one more such victory would undo him

quango
plural quangos; short for quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation, but no need to spell out

queueing
not queuing

quite
“I’m quite tired” means “I’m fairly tired.”
“Have you quite finished?” means “have you completely finished?” and comes with a built-in note of irritation.
“Quite!” means “I agree!”

quotation marks
Use double quotes at the start and end of a quoted section, with single quotes for quoted words within that section. Place full points and commas inside the quotes for a complete quoted sentence; otherwise the point comes outside – “Anna said: ‘Your style guide needs updating,’ and I said: ‘I agree.’” but: “Anna said updating the guide was ‘a difficult and time-consuming task’.”

When beginning a quote with a sentence fragment that is followed by a full sentence, punctuate according to the final part of the quote, eg The minister called the allegations “blatant lies. But in a position such as mine, it is only to be expected.”

Use double quotation marks for words that aren’t actually quotations, for example: These are the people who put the “style” in style guide.

Headlines and standfirsts (where absolutely necessary), captions and display quotes all take single quote marks.

For parentheses in direct quotes, which should be employed very sparingly, use square brackets

quotes

From the editor:

If a reader reads something in direct quotation marks in the Guardian he/she is entitled to believe that the reporter can vouch directly for the accuracy of the quote.

Copying quotes out of other newspapers without any form of attribution is simply bad journalism, never mind legally risky. If, where there are no libel issues, you’re going to repeat quotes, then always say where they came from. It won’t be much help in a legal action, but at least the reader can evaluate the reliability of the source. A quote in the Sunday Sport may – who knows – count for less than one from the Wall Street Journal.

If we’re taking quotes from the radio or television it is our general policy to include an attribution. This matters less if it is a pooled interview or news conference that happens to be covered by, say, the BBC or Sky. If the quote comes from an exclusive interview on a radio or TV programme (eg, Today, Channel 4 News or Newsnight) we should always include an attribution.

Some further guidelines:

 Take care with direct speech: our readers should be confident that words appearing in quotation marks accurately represent the actual words uttered by the speaker, although ums and ahems can be removed and bad grammar improved. If you aren’t sure of the exact wording, use indirect speech.

Where a lot of material has been left out, start off a new quote with: “He added: ... ”, or signify this with an ellipsis.
Take particular care when extracting from printed material, for example a minister’s resignation letter.

 Avoid “that” quotes, ie The prosecutors maintained that “this was not a trial about freedom of the internet. Instead, a serious issue has been raised about the rights of the individual.” There is no reason to introduce a complete direct quote of this kind with “that”. It should be The prosecutors maintained: “This was not a trial ... ” etc.
...
 Colons, rather than commas, should be used to introduce quotes, ie Guardian Style says: “Please use colons, not commas;” not Guardian Style says, “Please use ... ” etc. We are writing a newspaper, not a novel.

 Think about where the attribution goes, and avoid this kind of thing:
“Gordon Brown is a bully and a liar. I have had numerous complaints about his aggressive behaviour,” said Mrs Pratt.

“The prime minister is completely out of control, and everyone inside No 10 knows it,” added Andrew Rawnsley.

It’s extremely annoying to get to the end of the second par and find out it is a different speaker, because it reads as a continuation of the words of Mrs Pratt.

As a general rule, and particularly with lengthy quotations, it is better to start with the attribution, so the reader does not have to engage in a series of mental double-takes trying to find out who is supposed to be saying what. It should be:

Mrs Pratt said: “Gordon Brown is a bully and a liar. I have had numerous complaints about his aggressive behaviour.”

Andrew Rawnsley added: “The prime minister is completely out of control, and everyone inside No 10 knows it.”

 Avoid quoting words when it is unnecessary to do so, like this: Benítez said he was “angry” that Liverpool were being written out of the title race. Yes, maybe, quotation marks if he was “incandescent”, or “spitting with rage” – but it is completely unnecessary to use quotation marks for mundane words and unexceptional quotes. They are even finding their way into headlines, which looks awful.

Similarly: MPs said they had not seen any evidence that Andy Coulson “knew that phone hacking was taking place”. There is no need for the quotation marks, which are splattered like confetti across the paper and website every day but should be used only when it is necessary, in both copy and headlines

racial terminology
A person’s race should only be included if relevant to the story. The words black and Asian should not be used as nouns, but as adjectives: black people rather than “blacks”, an Asian woman rather than “an Asian”, etc.

Say African-Caribbean rather than Afro-Caribbean.

Use the word “immigrant” with great care, not only because it is often incorrectly used to describe people who were born in Britain, but also because it has been used negatively for so many years. If relevant, say people are “children of immigrants”, not “second-generation immigrants”

rack or wrack?
You rack your brains, face rack and ruin, and are racked with guilt, shame or pain; wrack is seaweed

rackets
not racquets, except in club titles

raft
something Huck Finn and Jim were on when they floated down the river; do not say “a raft of measures”, which has very rapidly become a cliche (particularly in political reporting)

ravage or ravish?
To ravage is to destroy or severely damage something. To ravish, confusingly, can mean one of two distinct things: to seize someone and carry them off, or to enrapture. The OED gives examples, both from the 1990s, of a child being ravished by a lion and a wine lover being ravished by a glass of chablis

re/re-
Use re- (with hyphen) when followed by the vowels e or u (not pronounced as “yu”): eg re-entry, re-examine, re-urge.

Use re (no hyphen) when followed by the vowels a, i, o or u (pronounced as “yu”), or any consonant: eg rearm, rearrange, reassemble, reiterate, reorder, reread, reuse, rebuild, reconsider, retweet.

Exceptions (where confusion with another word would arise): re-cover/recover, re-creation/recreation, re-form/reform, re-sent/resent, re-sign/resign

ask or contact are preferable; both shorter and simpler

realpolitik

rebut, refute or repudiate?
To rebut is to contest or deny something; to refute is to prove that it’s wrong. So when a politician claims to have refuted an allegation, what they mean is rebut. To repudiate someone is to disown them.

If you don’t know the difference, you could always try “refudiate”, a word coined by Sarah Palin, perhaps inspired by George W Bush’s “misunderestimate”

received pronunciation (RP)
a traditionally prestigious accent, associated with private schools and used by an estimated 3% of the population of England, also known as BBC English, Oxford English or the Queen’s English; nothing to do with Standard English, which includes written as well as spoken language and can be (indeed, normally is) spoken with a regional accent

recent
avoid: if the date is relevant, use it

recourse, resource or resort?
You might have recourse to your mother to comfort you when your hamster dies. She would, therefore, be a resource you could turn to. As a last resort, you might resort to your brother as well

recur
not reoccur

redundancy
Strictly (and in legal terms) jobs, rather than people, are made redundant.
From a reader: “Please could the Guardian set an example to all journalists by saying that 1,028 jobs were made redundant, not 1,028 staff? That subtle difference can make a big difference to the self-respect of the people whose jobs have been made redundant, and, in my experience (four redundancies) to the attitude of future employers too”

refute
This much abused word should be used only when an argument is disproved; otherwise contest, deny, rebut

regard
with regard to, not with regards to (but of course you give your regards to Broadway)

regrettably
unfortunately; regretfully with regret

rehome or rehouse?
The former applies to animals, the latter to people

reign or rein?
A ruler reigns, but a horse is reined in

repellant
noun, repellent adjective: you fight repellent insects with an insect repellant

repertoire
an individual’s range of skills or roles

reported speech
When a comment in the present tense is reported, use past tense: “She said: ‘I like chocolate’” (present tense) becomes in reported speech “she said she liked chocolate”.

Once it has been established who is speaking, there is no need to keep attributing, so long as you stick to the past tense: “Alex said he would vote Labour. There was no alternative. It was the only truly progressive party,” etcWhen a comment in the past tense is reported, use “had” (past perfect tense): “She said: ‘I ate too much chocolate’” (past tense) becomes in reported speech “she said she had eaten too much chocolate” (not “she said she ate too much chocolate”).

residents
has a rather old-fashioned feel to it, especially in the deadly form “local residents”; on the whole, better to call them people

respective
unnecessary in a sentence such as “Smith and Jones spoke on behalf of their respective constituencies”; essential in “Smith and Jones represented the constituents of Dorset North and Dorset South respectively”

restaurateur
not restauranteur

rice paddies
tautologous, as padi is the Malay word for rice; so it should be paddy fields or simply paddies

ridden, riddled or raddled?
crime-ridden, disease-ridden; riddled with errors, riddled with bullets; a raddled appearance

riffle
to flick through a book, newspaper or magazine; often confused with rifle, to search or ransack and steal from, eg rifle goods from a shop

right now
adds nothing, and should normally be deleted.
We asked: “Who are the most powerful people in the UK media right now?”
“Who are the most powerful people in the UK media?” would have had just as much impact, and been much less annoying

Romeo
cap up, whether referring to Juliet’s boyfriend or using generically (“he’s the office Romeo”)

roofs
plural of roof (not rooves, which has appeared in the paper)

routeing or routing?
They are routeing buses through the city centre after the routing of the protesters

saccharin
noun; saccharine adjective

sacrilegious
not sacreligious

Sahara
no need to add “desert”

said
normally preferable to added, commented, declared, pointed out, ejaculated, etc; you can avoid too many “saids”, whether quoting someone or in reported speech, quite easily.

sanction
To sanction (verb) something is to approve it; to impose sanctions (noun) is to stop something you disapprove of. So politicians might sanction (permit) the use of sanctions (forbidding) trade with a country they don’t, for the moment, happen to like very much.

OED definitions of the noun “sanction” involve penalties or coercion, typically to enforce a law or treaty. So you find “sanction-breaker” (quoted from the Guardian in connection with sanctions against Rhodesia in 1968). Rather chillingly, a draft 1993 addition to the dictionary includes a new definition: “sanction: in military intelligence, the permission to kill a particular individual.”

Definitions of “sanction” as a verb include ratify, confirm, permit, authorise and encourage. Hence expressions such as “sanctioned by common sense” and “sanctioned by usage”.

The Department for Work and Pensions, confusingly, says it “sanctions” people to mean it imposes sanctions on or penalises them. We should not use it in this sense

Say’s law
“Supply creates its own demand” (also known as the law of markets)

schadenfreude

scotch
Scottish (not “Scotch”) people, also known as Scots, make scotch whisky, usually known simply as scotch. Other countries, including Canada and Japan, also make whisky. In Ireland and the United States – countries that you will note have an E in their name – they make whiskey with an E. You can also scotch (put an end to) someone’s hopes or plans

Scoville scale
system that measures the heat level of chillies

sea change or step-change?
Used interchangeably, typically to mean nothing more than “a big change”, but there is a difference that you might think worth preserving. Shakespeare coined the former in a well-known passage of The Tempest:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea change,
Into something rich and strange.

The idea is that a major transformation is taking place, but very slowly. By contrast, step-change comes from physics, where it means an abrupt change in a value, as in voltage

semicolon
Used correctly (which occasionally we do), the semicolon is a very elegant compromise between a full stop (too much) and a comma (not enough). This sentence, from a column by David McKie, illustrates beautifully how it’s done: “Some reporters were brilliant; others were less so.”

The late Beryl Bainbridge said in the Guardian: “Not many people use it much any more, do they? Should it be used more? I think so, yes. A semicolon is a partial pause, a different way of pausing, without using a full stop. I use it all the time” and George Bernard Shaw told TE Lawrence that not using semicolons was “a symptom of mental defectiveness, probably induced by camp life”.

Orwell, on the other hand, thought they were unnecessary and Kurt Vonnegut advised: “Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites, standing for absolutely nothing. All they do is show you’ve been to college.”

sequined
not sequinned

serves to
adds nothing to a phrase such as “serves to underline”; replace with “underlines”

sexuality
From a reader:

“Can I suggest your style guide should state that homosexual, gay, bisexual and heterosexual are primarily adjectives and that use of them as nouns should be avoided. It seems to me that this is both grammatically and politically preferable (politically because using them as nouns really does seem to define people by their sexuality). I would like to read that someone is ‘homosexual’, not ‘a homosexual’, or about ‘gay people’, not ‘gays’. Lesbian is different as it is a noun which later began to be used adjectivally, not the other way round. As an example from Wednesday, the opening line ‘Documents which showed that Lord Byron … was a bisexual’ rather than ‘was bisexual’ sounds both Daily Mail-esque and stylistically poor.”

sexual orientation
is generally more accurate and appropriate than “sexual preference”

shall or will?
Once regarded as a very important distinction, and some people still get excited about it. In practice, there is very little difference these days. Use the former for emphasis (“you shall go to the ball”) and don’t worry too much. They seem to get by quite happily in the United States hardly bothering with “shall” at all

shared possessives
Freddie and Beth’s party (they share one)
Freddie and Beth’s parties (they share two)
Freddie’s and Beth’s parties (they have one each)

Shia, Sunni
two branches of Islam (note: not Shi’ite); plural Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, though Shias and Sunnis are fine if you are pushed for space

ships
are not feminine: it ran aground, not she ran aground; no quotes, no italics; you sail in, not on, ships

shoo-in
not shoe-in

shrank, shrunk
shrank, not shrunk, is the past tense of shrink, except in the film title Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (and perhaps the occasional piece of wordplay based on it); shrunk is the past participle (the kids had shrunk) or what is sometimes known as the present perfect form (Honey, I’ve shrunk the kids)

silicon
computer chips; silicone breast implants – we have been known to confuse the two, as in “Silicone Valley”

singular or plural?
Corporate entities take the singular: eg The BBC has decided (not “have”). In subsequent references make sure the pronoun is singular: “It [not “they”] will press for an increase in the licence fee.”

Sports teams and rock bands are the exception – “England have an uphill task” is OK, as is “Nirvana were overrated”

slay
past tense: slew; past participle: slain

slither
slide; sliver small piece. Writers often get this wrong, saying things like “a tiny slither of the global population” when they mean sliver

smuggling or trafficking?
There are three key differences between people smuggling and trafficking.

1 Exploitation: smugglers are paid by people to take them across borders, after which the transaction ends; traffickers bring them into a situation of exploitation and profit from their abuse in the form of forced labour or prostitution.

2 Consent: migrants usually consent to be smuggled; a trafficked person does not (or their “consent” is meaningless because they have been coerced).

3 Borders: smuggling always takes place across international borders; trafficking does not (you can be trafficked, say, from Rochdale to Rotherham)

so what if ...
needs a comma when used at the start of a sentence to distinguish between “So, what if ... “ and “So what, if ... “

The former expresses an open mind (“So, what if we all voted Green?”); the latter is more sceptical (“So what, if we all voted Green?”)

span of years
2010-12 or from 2010-12; but between 2010 and 2012, not “between 2010-12”

spelled or spelt?
spelled is the past tense, spelt is the past participle; she spelled it out for him: “the word is spelt like this”

spicy
not spicey

spilled or spilt?
spilled is the past tense, spilt is the past participle; she spilled the beans: the beans were all spilt

split infinitives
“The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are happy folk, to be envied.” (HW Fowler, Modern English Usage, 1926)

It is perfectly acceptable, and often desirable, to sensibly split infinitives – “to boldly go” is an elegant and effective phrase – and stubbornly to resist doing so can sound pompous and awkward (“the economic precipice on which they claim perpetually to be poised”) or ambiguous: “He even offered personally to guarantee the loan that the Clintons needed to buy their house” raises the question of whether the offer, or the guarantee, was personal.

Raymond Chandler wrote to his publisher: “Would you convey my compliments to the purist who reads your proofs and tell him or her that I write in a sort of broken-down patois which is something like the way a Swiss waiter talks, and that when I split an infinitive, God damn it, I split it so it will stay split.” And after an editor tinkered with his infinitives, George Bernard Shaw said: “I don’t care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go – but go he must!”

spoiled or spoilt?
spoiled is the past tense, spoilt is the past participle; she spoiled her son: in fact he was a spoilt brat

sprang or sprung?
sprang is the past tense of spring; sprung is the past participle. When we got this wrong, a reader commented: “The error sprang out at me immediately as it should have sprung out to your subeditor”

spun
is the past tense and past participle of spin, despite “when Adam delved and Eve span” (1560), which is an older past tense form

stammer/stutter
stammer is the more well-used term for the speech condition. Avoid using either term when describing something operating in a stop-start manner and use an alternative instead, eg falter

stationary
motionless; also used by some stationery shops to mean stationery; stationery writing materials; also used by some signwriters to mean stationary

staunch
verb: to stop the flow of something, eg blood or confidence;
adjective: steadfast, eg a staunch defender of human rights

stumm
as in “keep stumm”, not schtum

subjunctive
Fowler noted that the subjunctive was “seldom obligatory” and Somerset Maugham declared half a century ago: “The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is put it out of its misery as soon as possible.” Would that that were so.

Most commonly, the subjunctive is a third person singular form of the verb expressing hypothesis, typically something demanded, proposed, imagined: he demanded that she resign at once, I propose that she be sacked, she insisted Jane sit down.

It is particularly common in American English and in formal or poetic contexts: If I were a rich man, etc, and you have to admit the song sounds better than “If I was a rich man ...”

We get this wrong at least as often as we get it right. Two examples from the same issue in April 2010 in which “was” should be “were”:
“If every election or ballot in which there are cases of bad practice was to be invalidated, democracy would soon become a laughing stock ...” (leading article); “If this was the centred Conservative party that Cameron claims, its strategists wouldn’t be half as worried as they are ...” (column)

Nobody died and no great harm was done, but as professional writers we should be aware of the distinction. Used properly, the subjunctive can add elegance to your writing; an object lesson was provided in a Gary Younge column of 5 July 2010: “It was as though Charlie Brown’s teacher were standing for leader of the opposition ... “ (one of three examples of the subjunctive in the piece).

As with the hyper-corrective misuse of whom instead of who, however, using the subjunctive wrongly is worse than not using it at all, and will make you look pompous and silly

substitute

Is it by, with or for? If you don’t choose the right preposition, it’s not always easy to see who’s replaced whom.

Let’s say Player A is injured and Player B comes on as a substitute. So: the manager replaces A with B; A is replaced by B; the manager has substituted B for A; B is substituted for A

sucking-pig
not “suckling-pig”

superlatives
“Superlatives must be used very sparingly, in every sense. We do not wish to give the impression that we live in a constant state of excitement.”

Sound advice from AP Wadsworth, the then editor, in the 1950 edition of the Manchester Guardian stylebook

supersede
not supercede

surgeons
surgeons traditionally take the honorific of Mr/Ms/Miss/Mrs, not Dr. As such, and in line with Guardian style, use their full name at first mention, and surname thereafter eg Henry Marsh, then Marsh

swap
not swop

swat
flies

swot
books

swath/swathe
either is acceptable to refer to a strip of land

swearwords
We are more liberal than any other newspapers, using language that most of our competitors would not. The statistics tell their own story: the word “fuck” (and its variants) appeared 705 times in the Guardian in the 12 months to April 2010, with a further 269 mentions in the Observer. (The figures for other national newspapers were as follows: Independent 279, Independent on Sunday 74, Times 3, Sunday Times 2, all other papers 0.) The figures for the C-word, still regarded by many people as taboo, were: Guardian 49, Observer 20, Independent 8, Independent on Sunday 5, everyone else 0.

Even some readers who agree with Lenny Bruce that “take away the right to say fuck and you take away the right to say fuck the government” might feel that we sometimes use such words unnecessarily, although comments in response to Guardian Style’s blogpost on the subject were overwhelmingly in support of our policy.

The editor’s guidelines are as follows:

First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend.

Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. The use of swearwords in furniture, especially headlines, should also be avoided unless an editor deems it absolutely necessary.

Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.

Finally, never use asterisks, or such silliness as b------, which are just a cop-out, as Charlotte Brontë recognised: “The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does – what feeling it spares – what horror it conceals”

-t
ending for past participle: the cakes were burnt, the word was misspelt. But earned, not earnt

T
(not tee) as in it suited her to a T, he had it down to a T

talisman
plural talismans, not “talismen”

tam o’shanter
woollen cap

Tangier
not Tangiers

Taoism
rather than Daoism

Ten Commandments
not 10 Commandments

tending
one’s flock, etc (not “tending to”)

tenses
We’ve Only Just Begun was playing on the radio. He began to drink; in fact he drank so much, he was drunk in no time at all. He sank into depression, knowing that all his hopes had been sunk. Finally, he sneaked away. Or perhaps snuck (according to Steven Pinker, the most recent irregular verb to enter the language).

terrace houses
not terraced

Tesco
not Tesco’s

that
Do not use automatically after the word “said”, but it can be useful: you tend to read a sentence such as “he said nothing by way of an explanation would be forthcoming” as “he said nothing by way of an explanation” and then realise that it does not say that at all; “he said that nothing by way of an explanation would be forthcoming” is much clearer. A similar problem arises with verbs such as argue and warn. “He argued the case for war had not been made” and “he warned the case for war had not been made” both become much clearer if you insert “that” after the verb

that or which?
The traditional definition is that “that” defines and “which” informs (gives extra information), as in:
“This is the house that Jack built; but this house, which John built, is falling down.”
“The Guardian, which I read every day, is the paper that I admire above all others.”
“I am very proud of the sunflowers that I grew from seed” (some of them); “I am very proud of the sunflowers, which I grew from seed” (all of them).
Note that in such examples the sentence remains grammatical without “that” (“this is the house Jack built,” “The Guardian is the paper I admire above all others,” “I am very proud of the sunflowers I grew”) but not without “which” (“this house, John built, is falling down”).

A word about relative clauses: restrictive relative clauses (also known as defining, best thought of as giving essential information by narrowing it down) are not enclosed by commas, whereas non-restrictive relative clauses (non-defining, giving non-essential information) are.

In the three examples, “which John built”, “which I read every day” and “which I grew from seed” are all non-restrictive. They give extra information, they are preceded by a comma, and they use “which” rather than “that”. If you try them with “that” they sound odd (“the Guardian, that I read every day”). It’s not the same the other way round: although “that” is more common in restrictive clauses, you can use “which”: “the Guardian is the paper which I read every day”.

A formula that may help simplify things:
Restrictive clauses – “that” (desirable), no comma (essential).
Non-restrictive clauses – “which”, comma (both essential).
So a BBC radio interviewer who asked the question “should advertising, which targets children, be banned?” was suggesting that all advertising targets children. She meant “should advertising that targets children be banned?”

the
Leaving “the” out often reads like official jargon: say the conference agreed to do something, not “conference agreed”; the government has to do, not “government has to”; the Super League (rugby), not “Super League”.

Avoid the “prime minister David Cameron” syndrome: do not use constructions such as “prime minister David Cameron said”. Prominent figures can just be named, with their function at second mention: “David Cameron said last night” (first mention); “the prime minister said” (subsequent mentions).

If it is thought necessary to explain who someone is, write “Nigel Adkins, the Sheffield United manager, said” or “the Sheffield United manager, Nigel Adkins, said”. In such cases the commas around the name indicate there is only one person in the position, so write “the Tory prime minister, David Cameron, said” (only one person in the job), but “the former Tory prime minister John Major said” (there have been many).

lc for newspapers (the Guardian), magazines (the New Statesman), pubs (the Coach and Horses), bands (the Black Eyed Peas, the Not Sensibles, the The), nicknames (the Hulk, the Red Baron), and sports grounds (the Oval).

uc for books (The Lord of the Rings), films (The Matrix), poems (The Waste Land), television shows (The West Wing), and works of art (The Adoration of the Magi).

Names of trains take the definite article (the Flying Scotsman); names of locomotives do not (Mallard)

‘the’ in name of a country
include ‘the’:
the Bahamas, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Czech Republic, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC, no “the”, on second mention), the Dominican Republic, the Gambia, the Marshall Islands, the Netherlands (but The Hague), the Northern Mariana Islands, the Philippines, the United Arab Emirates (the UAE on second mention), the United Kingdom, the United States.
no ‘the’:
Central African Republic (CAR on second mention), Ivory Coast, Lebanon, Seychelles, Solomon Islands, Sudan, Ukraine, Vatican City (but the Vatican), Yemen

thing or think?
If you think the expression is “you’ve got another thing coming”, then you have misheard the expression “you’ve got another think coming”

this and that
that was then, but this is now; this looks forward, that looks back: so the man showing his son and heir the lands lying in front of them says: “One day, son, all this will be yours.” Then he points behind him to the house and says: “But that remains mine”

till
Not an abbreviation of until, but the older word. Until sounds more natural as the first word of a sentence and before a verb (“Until you come back to me”); till works well in less formal contexts and before a noun (“till lunchtime”). Do not use til or ’til, despite such precedents as the Beach Boys’ sublime Til I Die

times
1am, 6.30pm, etc; 10 o’clock last night but 10pm yesterday; half past two, a quarter to three, 10 to 11, etc; 2hr 5min 6sec, etc; for 24-hour clock, 00.47, 23.59; noon, midnight (not 12 noon, 12 midnight or 12am, 12pm).

The week starts on Mondays, but stories published on Sunday refer to the following week as “this week” and the six days preceding that Sunday as “last week”.

times
1am, 6.30pm, etc; 10 o’clock last night but 10pm yesterday; half past two, a quarter to three, 10 to 11, etc; 2hr 5min 6sec, etc; for 24-hour clock, 00.47, 23.59; noon, midnight (not 12 noon, 12 midnight or 12am, 12pm).

The week starts on Mondays, but stories published on Sunday refer to the following week as “this week” and the six days preceding that Sunday as “last week”.

titles
Do not italicise or put in quotes titles of books, films, TV programmes, paintings, songs, albums or anything else.

Words in titles take initial caps except for a, and, at, for, from, in, of, on, the, to (except in initial position or after a colon): A Tale of Two Cities, Happy End of the World, Shakespeare in Love, Superman: The Early Years, I’m in Love With the Girl on a Certain Manchester Megastore Checkout Desk, etc.

Exception: the Observer, which still italicises titles

to-do
as in “what a to-do!”

to-ing and fro-ing
You need the hyphens to stop it looking like “toyng and froyng”

tonne
not ton (but note the above): the (metric) tonne is 1,000kg (2,204.62lb), the British ton is 2,240lb, and the US ton is 2,000lb; usually there is no need to convert.

For figurative use, write tons (I’ve had tons of birthday cards, etc)

torpid, turbid or turgid?
There’s plenty of opportunity to get these wrong, and plenty of people do: torpid means apathetic or sluggish; turbid is muddy, thick or cloudy; turgid means congested or swollen, and therefore can be handy if you want to accuse someone of using bombastic or pompous language

tortuous or torturous?
A long and winding road is tortuous.
An experience involving pain or suffering might be described as torturous

Transnistria
separatist region that declared its independence from Moldova in 1990, but has not been recognised by the international community; also known as Trans-Dniester

transpire
to emit vapour through the skin, so by analogy to become apparent, come to be known, not just a synonym for “occur” or “happen”; “it transpired that” usually sounds artificial and pompous in any case

Travellers
capped: they are recognised as an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act; note new age travellers (l/c)

trooper
soldier in a cavalry regiment (so you might “swear like a trooper”); trouper member of a troupe, or dependable worker (“the night team are real troupers”)

trooping the colour
(no “of”)

try to
never “try and”. As Bart Simpson put it: “I can’t promise I’ll try, but I’ll try to try”

Ts
as in dotting the Is and crossing the Ts

tsar
not czar; try to avoid when referring to someone appointed to a government role

21st century
but hyphenate if adjectival: newspapers of the 21st century, 21st-century newspapers

UK or Britain
in copy and headlines for the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (but note Great Britain comprises just England, Scotland and Wales)

ukulele
not ukelele

Ulaanbaatar
capital of Mongolia

umm-ed and ahh-ed

uncharted
not unchartered

underestimate, understate
Take care that you don’t mean overestimate or overstate. We often get this wrong – a typical example from the paper: “Qian’s contribution to China’s space and missile programme cannot be underestimated” (the writer meant the opposite)

uninterested
means not taking an interest; not synonymous with disinterested, which means unbiased, objective

union flag, union jack
The Flag Institute has ruled that these two terms are interchangeable

unveiled
pictures are, as are cars sometimes, but these days almost everything seems to be – so the government “unveiled a raft of new policies” (two cliches and a redundant “new” in six words) or a company “unveiled record profits”. There is nothing wrong with announcing, reporting, presenting or publishing

upcoming
the coining and, even worse, use of such jargon words is likely to make many otherwise liberal, enlightened readers (and editors) wonder if there is not after all a case to bring back capital, or at least corporal, punishment for crimes against the English language; an editor once told his staff: “If I read upcoming in the Wall Street Journal again, I shall be downcoming and somebody will be outgoing”

vagina or vulva?
The vagina is an internal organ, the muscular tubular organ that connects the genitals to the uterus; not the same thing as the vulva, the female genitals.

As the reader who pointed out one of the many examples of our getting this wrong said: “I am sure an article that used the term testicles to describe the penis would be corrected. Why do you accept this error for women?”

veld
not veldt

venal
open to bribery

venial
easily forgiven

venerable
worthy of reverence, not just old

veranda
not verandah

very
usually very redundant.

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“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very’. Your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be” (a quotation often attributed to Mark Twain but now thought to be the advice of William Allen White)

vie, vying

wacky
not whacky

wagon
not waggon

waiver or waver?
To waive is to relinquish a claim or right, as in the much used headline “Britannia waives the rules”. The associated noun is waiver, which can lead to confusion with waver, meaning to hesitate (or a person waving).

Adding to the fun, waver is sometimes mixed up with haver, which in Scotland means to talk nonsense

wake
“in the wake of” is overused; nothing wrong with “as a result of” or simply “after”

weave (fabric)
past tense wove, past participle woven. This also applies when used metaphorically, as in “Obama’s speech was woven throughout with the language of the US constitution” (we actually printed “weaved”, which was wrong)

weave (from side to side)
past tense weaved, past participle weaved, as in “Cameron dodged and weaved”

welch
is considered derogatory of Welsh people so avoid using it to describe someone failing to honour an obligation; use an alternative such as renege instead

Welsh spellings
(eg F for the V sound in English): prefer Welsh spellings such as Caernarfon and Conwy to old-fashioned anglicised versions (Caernarvon, Conway) – although there are exceptions, such as Cardiff not Caerdydd

what is
a phrase that, while occasionally helpful to add emphasis, has become overused to the point of tedium; examples from the paper include:

“Beckham repaid the committed public support with what was a man-of-the-match performance ... “

“Principal among Schofield’s 19 recommendations in what is a wide-ranging report ... “

What is clear is that these would be improved by what would be the simple step of removing the offending phrase

whence
means “where from”, so don’t write “from whence”

whereabouts
singular: her whereabouts is not known

which or that?
This is quite easy, really: “that” defines, “which” gives extra information (often in a clause enclosed by commas):

This is the house that Jack built; but this house, which John built, is falling down. The Guardian, which I read every day, is the paper that I admire above all others. I am very proud of the sunflowers that I grew from seed (some of the sunflowers); I am very proud of the sunflowers, which I grew from seed (all the sunflowers).

Note that in such examples the sentence remains grammatical without “that” (the house Jack built, the paper I admire, the sunflowers I grew), but not without “which”

while
not whilst

Whitsuntide, Whit Sunday
not Whitsun

who or whom?
This is how to do it: “When it comes to sci-fi villains, few have endured as well as the Martians, whom HG Wells depicted wielding a weapon called the Heat-Ray in The War of the Worlds, back in 1898.”

And this is how not to do it: “A nation’s weeping turned to tears of joy with the news that Louie – for who media commentators had to commission new words for camp ... – is to star in his own 10-part series.”

Only those with a tin ear for language could be unaware that “who” sounds wrong in the second example, but it is not always so obvious.

If in doubt, ask yourself how the clause beginning who/whom would read in the form of a sentence giving he, him, she, her, they or them instead: if the who/whom person turns into he/she/they, then “who” is right; if it becomes him/her/them, then it should be “whom”.

In this example: “Straw was criticised for attacking Clegg, whom he despised” – “whom” is correct because he despised “him”.

But in “Straw attacked Clegg, who he thought was wrong” – “who” is correct, because it is “he” not “him” who is considered wrong.

Use of “whom” has all but disappeared from spoken English, and seems to be going the same way in most forms of written English too. If you are not sure, it is much better to use “who” when “whom” would traditionally have been required than to use “whom” incorrectly for “who”, something even great writers have been guilty of: “There was a big man whom I think was an hôtelier from Phnom Penh and a French girl I’d never seen before ...” (The Quiet American, Graham Greene – who as a former subeditor should have known better).

winter of discontent
overused

woman, women
are nouns, not adjectives, so say female president, female MPs etc rather than “woman president”, “women MPs”. An easy way to check is to try using man instead of woman eg “man president”, “men MPs” – if it doesn’t work for men, it doesn’t work for women.

wreaked
is the past tense of wreak (eg wreaked havoc); wrought is not – it’s an archaic past tense form of work, and is used as an adjective, eg wrought iron, finely wrought embroidery

wrest
as in wresting back, rather than wrestling back, your title

wrongfoot
(verb) as in I was wrongfooted by the question

wryly
not wrily

y or ie?
As a general rule: -y is an English suffix, whose function is to create an adjective (usually from a noun, eg creamy); -ie was originally a Scottish suffix, whose function is to add the meaning of “diminutive” (usually from a noun, eg beastie).

So in most cases, where there is dispute over whether a noun takes a -y or an -ie ending, the correct answer is -ie: she’s a girly girl, but she’s no helpless girlie. Think also scrunchie, beanie, nightie, meanie ... There are exceptions (a hippy, an indie band), but where specific examples are not given, use -ie for nouns and -y for adjectives

year
write 2012, not “the year 2012”; for a span of years use hyphen thus: 2011-12, not 2011/12. If you need to say it aloud – for example, in a podcast – say “twenty-twelve” not “two thousand and twelve”

yesses and noes

yesterday
Give some thought to where you place the time element in a story: do not automatically put it at the start (“David Cameron yesterday insisted ... “), a style satirised by the subeditor turned bestselling author Bill Bryson, who wrote: “Anyone not acquainted with journalists could be forgiven for assuming that they must talk something like this: I last night went to bed early because I this morning had to catch an early flight.”

Constructions such as “the two sides were today to consider”, as we have been known to say, sound ugly and artificial. As with headlines, try reading out loud to find the most natural arrangement.

Remember that we have millions of readers in different time zones around the world, for whom yesterday, today and tomorrow will not necessarily mean the same thing. Terms such as yesterday, today, tonight and tomorrow should not be used on the website: if you need to specify, say “on Wednesday”, etc.

“Yesterday” remains appropriate for some newspaper stories, which are most likely to be read in the UK first thing in the morning, but not for the website, which may be read at any time, anywhere in the world

Yorkshire
North Yorkshire, South Yorkshire, West Yorkshire but east Yorkshire. Try to be specific about which county is being referred to

zero
plural zeros; but zeroes in on

zeugma
A figure of speech in which, typically, a single verb is used to yoke together two or more parts of a sentence with different meanings. Some examples:
“The queen takes counsel and tea” (Pope).
“Mr Pickwick took his hat and his leave” (Dickens).
And more recently:
“The following year, in Sing Your Worries Away, she played a stripper, taking off her clothes and her sister.”
(Ronald Bergan, in a 2010 Guardian obituary of June Havoc, Gypsy Rose Lee’s sister)

zigzag
no hyphen