Style guide

European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company; the group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus and is the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium

often redundant: "they met this week" is preferable to "they met earlier this week" and will save space; "earlier this month" occurs almost every time we publish a paper on the first of the month, when it should, of course, be "last month"

station and district; Earls Court exhibition centre

not earnt

no hyphen

in an astronomical or science fiction context; but moon, sun

or south-east Asia rather than far east

inner east London north of the river (the equivalent district south of the Thames is south-east London)

TV soap

not Easter Sunday

electronic book

online travel company

Most Rev (archbishop), Right Rev (bishop), Very Rev (dean or provost), the Ven (archdeacon), the Rev John (or Joan) Smith not 'Rev John (or Joan) Smith', 'Rev Smith', 'the Revs Smith and Jones'. Surname only on subsequent mentions. Dr is not automatically correct for a bishop (who may not hold DD)

as with other taxonomic names, italicise in copy but roman in headlines and standfirsts; no full point

state and drug

European currency unit, superseded by the euro

lc: editor of the Observer, editor of the Redditch Indicator series, etc

not educationalist

weird

North American lake

of eagles

see affect

is not a synonym for in effect: "the Brown campaign was effectively launched in 2007" means the launch was official and its intended effect was achieved; "the Brown campaign was in effect launched in 1997" means this was not the official launch, but events at the time described did have the effect of launching it, whether intended or not. Effectively is almost invariably misused, and can often be omitted

does not mean effeminate or foppish, but "weak, ineffectual or decadent as a result of over-refinement ... exhausted, worn out, spent" (Collins)

(electronic facial identification technique) program used to create police drawings

no full point

not egm; extraordinary general meeting

(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"

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

not a festival but a greeting (mubarak means "may it be blessed")

Do not use; say Republic of Ireland or Irish Republic

no accent

director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei after first mention

Do not use to describe anyone under 70, and say elderly people (or even better, older people), never "the elderly"

fabled city of gold

legendary flop of a soap

the female equivalent of oedipal complex

death by electric shock, so don't say survivors of torture were "electrocuted" during their ordeal - rather that they were given electric shocks

Our cliche of the year in 2006, when it appeared in the Guardian 38 times (twice as frequently as in 2005); elephants in the room – and sometimes, more precisely, in the living room – have 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.

Mercifully, this tedious expression already seems to be on its way to the elephants' graveyard

Use spaces before and after ellipses, and three dots (with no spaces between them), eg "She didn't want to go there ... "; there is no need for a full point

is intransitive; use exude if you need a transitive verb

in London; the tube station is just Embankment

plural embargos

lc, eg British embassy

leave a country; immigrate arrive in one

not Tracy

not empathetic

lc British empire, Roman empire, etc

not industrial tribunal

European monetary system

economic and monetary union

not by or with

not inclose

not encyclopaedia

to deprive of strength or vitality

Take care not to offend readers from other parts of the UK by saying England or English when you mean Britain or British, and vice versa (we published a map of England's best beaches, with the headline "Britain's best beaches")
see Scotland

is now Natural England

something monstrous or wicked; not synonymous with large

use inquiry

make certain; insure against risk; assure life

UK parent of Powergen; Eon is our style for the German energy firm

the 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'

we do not define people by their medical condition: seizures are epileptic, people are not; so say (if relevant) "Joe Bloggs, who has epilepsy" not "Joe Bloggs, an epileptic"

erythropoietin, a performance-enhancing drug

formerly Spanish Guinea, a country in central Africa that became independent in 1974; do not confuse with Guinea or Guinea-Bissau, other African former colonies

not e'er long

exchange rate mechanism

electronic random number indicator equipment: the machine that picks winning premium bond numbers

not escapees, despite the apparently unstoppable advance of the -ee suffix (can it be long before readers become "readees"?)

is a language spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Note that it has no more words for snow than English does for rain. The people are Inuit (singular Inuk), not "Eskimos"

not expresso

Basque separatists

estimated time of arrival

never say ethnic when you mean ethnic minority, which leads to such nonsense as "the constituency has a small ethnic population"

do not use as a euphemism for genocide unless in quotation marks

European Union (no need to spell out at first mention); formerly EC (European Community); before that EEC (European Economic Community)

There are three, so don't say "EU president" or "president of the union" without making clear which you mean: president of the European commission, president of the European parliament, or holder of the rotating presidency (technically "president in office of the council of the European Union"), which rotates among the member states every six months

currency; plural euros and cents

do not use as a prefix to everything European, but Euro-MP is an acceptable alternative to MEP

runs what is now called Disneyland Paris

includes Britain, so don't say, for example, something is common "in Europe" unless it is common in Britain as well; to distinguish between Britain and the rest of Europe the phrase "continental Europe" may be useful; central Europe, eastern Europe, western Europe

the commission after first mention; do not abbreviate to EC

nothing to do with the EU: it is a Council of Europe body

fundamentalist wing of Christianity

someone who spreads the gospel

as in "the FTSE 100 drifted back, eventually closing 33.9 points lower at 5244.2"; the stock market always closes eventually so you don't need it here or in most other places it crops up

noun and adverb: it happens every day; everyday adjective: an everyday mistake

avoid this cliche

do not use!

term used by tabloid newspapers to denote a story that is in all of them

the carrying out of a death sentence by lawful authority, so a terrorist, for example, does not "execute" someone

by right of position or office

on behalf of one party only

not ex-pat or expatriot; this is "ex" meaning "out of" (as in export, extract), not "ex-" meaning "former" (as in ex-husband)

"said" is normally sufficient

ECGD at second mention

not extravert

no hyphen

is being used increasingly for "considers", but it doesn't mean that so don't use it in this way. You might get away with "BoS eyes up Abbey" meaning considers it as a takeover target, but not "BoS eyes online insurance" meaning BoS considers setting up an online sales operation