Style guide

not obligato

author of Master and Commander

see swearwords

"mentally slow or emotionally insensitive" (Collins); often confused with abstruse (hard to understand) or obscure

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

two Rs

a preferable term to Australasia, it is sometimes divided into Near Oceania and Remote Oceania, and comprises, according to the UN:

Australia/New Zealand

Melanesia (Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu)

Micronesia (Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau)

Polynesia (American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Niue, Pitcairn, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna Islands)

capped up, eg Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea

Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development at first mention

the female equivalent is the electra complex

Office of Communications, call it the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator or something similar

Office for Fair Access (to higher education)

eighth-century king of Mercia, best known for Offa's Dyke, a giant earthwork that separated the kingdom from Powys

ONS on second mention

OFT on second mention

replaced in May 2006 by the Department for Communities and Local Government, which dopped the "Department for" a year later
see departments of state

regulates the gas and electricity markets in Britain

Office for Standards in Education, but normally no need to spell out

regulates the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales

not O!

for production of oil

for exploration and drilling

is OK; okay is not

but New Labour

GCE O-levels and CSEs were combined in 1986 to become GCSEs

or just Olympics or the games

one should find an alternative unless one is mocking one's royal family; pref. you

if more than two; each other two only

etc should be treated as plural. There are good grammatical and logical reasons for this. Compare "more than one in six Japanese is 65 or older … " with "more than one in six Japanese are 65 or older … "

Grammatically, we are talking not about the noun "one" but the noun phrase "one in six", signifying a group of people. Logically, the phrase represents a proportion – just like "17%" or "one-sixth", both of which take plural verbs. "Two out of every seven" and "three out of 10" take plurals too, functioning identically.

"One in six is … " is also unnecessarily (and possibly misleadingly) specific, implying that of any six people from the group you take, exactly one will be as described. "One in six" means one-sixth on average over the whole group, and a plural verb better reflects this. We wouldn't say "Only 1% of Republican voters is able to point to Iraq on a map" just because there's a "one" in there

UK telecom company, not One.Tel, which is Australian

prefer continuous or continual

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 move the "only" in I Only Have Eyes for You when discussing the greatest songs of all time (the Flamingos' version was ranked 157th by Rolling Stone)

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"
see into

music style

Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, but not necessary to spell out

Do not use "or" when explaining or amplifying – rather than "the NUT, or National Union of Teachers" say "The NUT (National Union of Teachers)" or, even better, "The National Union of Teachers" at first mention and then just "the NUT" or "the union"

direction, decree

Britain's national mapping agency ("ordnance" because such work was originally undertaken by the army)

not "the Orkney Isles" or "the Orkneys"

bookshop taken over by Waterstone's

(cap O, not the number 0) is the new name for the former Millennium Dome

Europe's oldest natural human mummy (dated to about 3300BC), found in the Alps in 1991

TM; the generic name most commonly used, though not very satisfactory, is "talking board"

(Australia)

TM; the generic name most commonly used, though not very satisfactory, is "talking board"

take care with these terms: if we say, for example, that a paedophile was outed, we are equating him with a gay person being outed; use exposed or revealed instead

St Thomas' hospital in south London boasts the following styles, all on signs within a few yards of each other: Out Patients, Out-Patients, Outpatients, and outpatients

no accent

not "outside of"

use a safer term such as outdoor adventure or adventure training: we have been sued twice for reporting that people have died on "outward bound" courses that were nothing to do with the Outward Bound Trust

not overly

take care that you don't mean underestimate or understate (we often get this wrong)

and most other words with the prefix "over" do not need a hyphen

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), and 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