Style guide

not a trivial fact, but a mistaken assumption repeated so often that it is believed to be true (a word coined by Norman Mailer, who defined it as "something that everyone knows is true, except it ain't!")

the Cup (the cap C is hallowed by convention); all other cups lc at second mention

use in brackets, without degree symbol, after celsius figure, eg 37C (98.6F); to convert, multiply the celsius temperature by 1.8, then add 32; alternatively, double the celsius figure, subtract one-tenth of that figure, and add 32; or you could save yourself the bother by using a conversion website

Ireland's tourism authority

The Fairtrade mark is a certification system run by the Fairtrade Foundation; products are entitled to be called Fairtrade (cap F) if they meet the following criteria: a price that covers producers' costs, a premium for producers to invest in their communities, and long-term and more direct trading relations; fair trade refers to the movement as a whole, eg only fair trade will enable farmers in developing countries to become self-sufficient

noun and adjective

not family-sized, fun-sized

overused and often unnecessary

of distances; otherwise further, furthest

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

but east Asia or south-east Asia is preferable

not farm labourer

or just Faroes

a hotchpotch or jumbled mixture; not synonymous with fiasco (a humiliating failure)

language spoken by the majority of Iranians (not Persian)

not facism, facist, a careless but common error

lc, eg London fashion week

use death

use sparingly, unless writing about overweight moggies

etc (no hyphens); only describe people in this way if relevant

an edict, not necessarily a death sentence

say fair

overwhelmed; phased staged

Federal Bureau of Investigation; no need to spell out

what the former First Division Association now calls itself; you will need to say it is the senior civil servants' union or no one will know who you are talking about; note that FDA also stands for the US food and drug administration

Arab fighters (the word means those who risk their lives for a cause); can be capped up when referring to a specific force, eg the Saddam Fedayeen militia, which fought coalition forces in the 2003 Iraq war

at first reference, the Fed thereafter

not fed up of

lc, eg a fellow of All Souls, fellow artist, fellow members, etc (and do not hyphenate)

not "woman" or "women" in such phrases as female home secretary, female voters

not "female circumcision"

do not cap up

lc, whether artistic or sporting: Cannes film festival, Cheltenham festival, Edinburgh Fringe festival, Reading festival, etc

no accent

fewer means smaller in number, eg fewer coins; less means smaller in quantity, eg less money

male, fiancee female; but note divorcee is both male and female

Irish political party

like debacle and farce, overused in news stories: who says it's a fiasco?

spell out from one to nine; numerals from 10 to 999,999; thereafter 1m, 3.2bn (except for people and animals, eg 2 million viewers, 8 billion cattle); spell out ordinals from first to ninth, thereafter 10th, 31st, etc

not filip

but film star

TM; use personal organiser unless you are sure

avoid; use complete, completed or finish, finished

FSA on second mention

2004-05, etc

irish political party

lc, eg Cheshire fire brigade

do not use to describe a military skirmish

not fireman

the people who do the firing; if they are aiming at you, you are in the line of fire not in the firing line

strictly a partnership without limited liability, such as solicitors or accountants, but may be used in place of company in headlines

rather than firstly, secondly, thirdly, etc; spell out up to ninth, then 10th, 21st, millionth

(Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Northern Ireland assembly)

not Christian name. Use them first time, but not subsequently (except for peers, who never use their first names).

Avoid just initials, unless that is how a person is known – TS Eliot, DBC Pierre. In stories about more than one member of a family, first names can be used to distinguish between them. Occasionally, we will use first names in interviews for emotional impact

a recent cliche that quickly proved itself unfit for the purpose of good writing

not fill the bill

a flagship is a ship, a "flagship store" would be a store where one bought flagships, and a "flagship local authority" is a cliche

not flack

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

computer memory that can be erased and reprogrammed, used for example in mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 players

not fledgeling

whether in a tank, or on the stock market

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

not flukey

not flier

noun

abbreviation of forecastle

not fetid

not fetus

not fogy

prefer after, eg Leeds United went to pieces after yet another relegation

(typeface) not fount

hyphenate, left-back etc

abbreviation for football, but note that in Australia (particularly Victoria), footy is what they call Australian rules football

but for what it's worth

abstain

ancestor

Use accents on French, German, Spanish, and Irish Gaelic words – and, if at all possible, on people's names in any language, eg Sven-Göran Eriksson (Swedish), José Manuel Durão Barroso (Portuguese). This may be tricky in the case of some languages but we have had complaints from readers that it is disrespectful to foreign readers to, in effect, misspell their names.

abbreviate to FCO not FO as its official name is Foreign and Commonwealth Office

Style for foreign placenames evolves with common usage. Leghorn has become Livorno, and maybe one day München will supplant Munich, but not yet. Remember that many names have become part of the English language: Geneva is the English name for the city that Switzerland's French speakers refer to as Genève and its German speakers call Genf.

Accordingly, we opt for locally used names, with these main exceptions (the list is not exhaustive, apply common sense): Archangel, Basle, Berne, Brittany, Cologne, Dunkirk, Florence, Fribourg, Genoa, Gothenburg, Hanover, Kiev, Lombardy, Milan, Munich, Naples, Normandy, Nuremberg, Padua, Piedmont, Rome, Sardinia, Seville, Sicily, Syracuse, Turin, Tuscany, Venice, Zurich.

And the next time someone says we should call Burma "Myanmar" because that's what it calls itself, Colonel Gadafy renamed Libya "The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyya"

Italicise, with roman translation in brackets, if it really is a foreign word or phrase and not an anglicised one, in which case it is roman with no accents (exceptions: exposé, pâté, résumé, roué). Remember Orwell: do not use a foreign word where a suitable English equivalent exists

belonging to the courts; does not mean scientific

continually: he is forever changing his mind

for always: I will love you for ever

go without

go before

These are:

Armenia adjective Armenian
Azerbaijan adjective Azerbaijani (though there are ethnic Azeris in, eg, Armenia)
Belarus adjective Belarussian
Estonia adjective Estonian (Estonia did not join the Commonwealth of Independent States)
Georgia adjective Georgian
Kazakhstan adjective Kazakh
Kyrgyzstan adjective Kyrgyz
Latvia adjective Latvian (not in the commonwealth)
Lithuania adjective Lithuanian (not in the commonwealth)
Moldova adjective Moldovan
Russia adjective Russian
Tajikistan adjective Tajik
Turkmenistan adjective Turkmen (its citizens are Turkmen, singular Turkman)
Ukraine adjective Ukrainian (not "the Ukraine")
Uzbekistan adjective Uzbek

TM

plural formulas, but formulae in scientific context

motor racing

by chance, not (as most people seem to think) by good fortune; if we manage to use the word correctly, it is entirely fortuitous

Family Planning Association at first mention, thereafter the FPA, although the organisation has decided to style itself "fpa" (lc, no definite article) in its literature and on its website

fellow of the Royal Academy; FRS fellow of the Royal Society

two-thirds, three-quarters, etc, but two and a half, but use 1⁄ 3, 3⁄4 in tables, recipes, etc; avoid mixing fractions and percentages in the same story

the monster's creator, not the monster

has become a cliche to describe GM food; do not use

or for nothing are preferable to "for free"

an overseas département of France on the Caribbean coast of South America; do not confuse with Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, or Guinea-Bissau, which are all in Africa, or Guyana, which is also in South America

plural frescoes

British artist, not Lucien

curious adverb defined by the OED as "in a friendly manner, like a friend"

no quotation marks necessary

abbreviate to FoE after first mention

no apostrophe

TM; if in doubt, call it a flying disc

do not describe this as "a good, honest old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon word" because, first, there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon word (they spoke Old English) and, more important, its first recorded use dates from 1278
see swearwords

overused as a verb

not Fullbright

another example of a word that is almost never used correctly, it means "cloying, excessive, disgusting by excess" (and is not, as some appear to believe, a clever word for full); so "fulsome praise" should not be used in a complimentary sense