Style guide

formerly the British Airports Authority

cheese

US regional telephone companies formed after the breakup of AT&T in 1984

TM; a generic alternative is babygrow

US songwriter

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)

newspaper or politics; backbenches, backbenchers

plural of bacterium, so don't write "the bacteria is"; even more important, don't confuse with viruses

formerly British Aerospace

British Academy of Film and Television Arts

faith

a prisoner, a company or person in financial difficulty; the noun is bail-out; but bale out a boat or from an aircraft

obstruct, pull up, stop short

area of a snooker table

but ball game

TM; say plaster or sticking plaster

abbreviation for bed and breakfast

lc the: the Beatles, the Black Eyed Peas, the The; but uc equivalents in other languages, eg Les Négresses Vertes, Los Lobos.Bands that do not take the definite article (though they are often erroneously given it) include Arctic Monkeys, Pet Shop Boys and Ramones; most bands have their own website, or at least webpage, where this can be easily checked.

Bands take a plural verb: Editors are overrated, Iron Butterfly were the loudest band of the 60s, etc.Try to include diacritical marks if bands use them in their name, no matter how absurd: Maxïmo Park, Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, etc; for a comprehensive list
see the excellent "heavy metal umlaut" entry on Wikipedia

is now known as Bengalooru

bank holiday Monday, etc

UN secretary general; on second mention

the Bank on subsequent mentions

BoS on second mention

French for suburbia, not suburb: strictly singular, but a French reader points out that the Petit Robert dictionary listed "les banlieues" among its "nouveaux mots" in 2006; the French for suburb is faubourg (literally, "false town")

(legal) she was called to the bar; (political) of the House of Commons

children's charity, formerly Dr Barnardo's; it no longer runs orphanages

wine

the man behind Ali G and Borat

a professor of developmental psychopathology at Cambridge University and cousin of Sacha

are lords and ladies in our publications, even at first mention: Lord Adonis, Lady Scotland, Lady Thatcher, etc; do not use first names with title ("Lady Patricia Scotland")

the army has barracks, the RAF has airfields

former prime minister of Portugal who became president of the European commission in 2004

abbreviation for St Bartholomew's hospital, London

extreme sport; the acronym stands for four categories of object from which you can jump, if so inclined: building, antenna, span and earth

this word is unnecessary, basically

not Basel

not baited

(not Battenburg) German family name that became Mountbatten

lc

no apostrophes

no spaces

1000BC but AD1066
see AD

plural beaux

for boys aged six to eight, when they are eligible to become Cub scouts

can be ambiguous: "I didn't go to the party because Mary was there" may mean that Mary's presence dissuaded me from going or that I went for some other reason

murdered Archbishop of Canterbury, not Thomas à Becket

(Isabella Mary Beeton, 1836-65) author of The Book of Household Management

is best avoided as it 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, assuming as a fact the thing you are professing to prove. What it does not mean is "raises the question", and if you can substitute this phrase, it has been used wrongly.

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)

no hyphens

sheep that leads the herd; customarily misspelt, misused, or both

are sometimes confused: the former gives something; the latter gets it

also biased, riveting, focused

formerly Bangalore

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"

the home of Real Madrid

not Bern

not beserk

is in England, although Berwick Rangers play football in the Scottish League

TM; the generic term for the drug is interferon-beta 1b

no accents

These are meaningless to many readers, and we frequently get them wrong. But here's a brief explanation: long odds (eg 100-1 against, normally expressed as 100-1) mean something unlikely; shorter odds (eg 10-1) still mean it's unlikely, but less unlikely; odds on (eg 2-1 on, sometimes expressed as 1-2) means it is likely, so if you were betting £2 you would win only £1 plus the stake.

Take care using the phrase "odds on": if Labour is quoted by bookmakers at 3-1 to win a byelection, and the odds are cut to 2-1, it is wrong to say "the odds on Labour to win were cut last night" – in fact, the odds against Labour to win have been cut (the shorter the price, the more likely something is expected to happen).

It gets more complicated when something is genuinely odds-on, ie bookmakers quote a price of "2-1 on": in this case, if the Labour candidate is quoted at 2-1 on and becomes an even hotter favourite, at 3-1 on, the odds have shortened; if Labour loses popularity, and 2-1 on becomes, say, 7-4 on or evens, the odds have lengthened between 15 and 20not "between 15 to 20" or "between 15-20"

(1897-1960) Labour health minister from 1945 to 1951 and architect of the NHS, also known as Nye Bevan

(1881-1951) Labour foreign secretary between 1945 and 1951 who helped to create Nato

twice a year; biennial every two years; biannual is almost always misused, so to avoid confusion stick with the alternative twice-yearly; an alternative to biennial is two-yearly

cap up if referring to Old or New Testament, lc in such sentences as "the stylebook is my bible"; the adjective biblical is always lc

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"

Genesis 1:1; II Corinthians 2:13; Revelation 3:16 (anyone calling it "Revelations" will burn in hell for eternity)

a 200th anniversary; bicentennial its adjective

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

use only in a financial or sporting sense, eg Royal Bank of Scotland has made a bid for ABN Amro, Barcelona have put in a bid for Rooney, etc; or when writing about an auction. Say "in an effort to" rather than "in a bid to"

usually preferable to major, massive, giant, mammoth, behemoth, etc, particularly in news copy

lower case, whether you are talking about the origin of the universe, around 14 billion years ago, or deregulation of the City of London in 1986

lc, even when giving full name; cap up only if it becomes an act

one thousand million: in copy use bn for sums of money, quantities or inanimate objects: £10bn, 1bn litres of water; otherwise billion: 6 billion people, etc; use bn in headlines. (Further explanation: 2 billion not two billion as it is a different way of saying 2,000,000)

Bin Laden on second reference. He has been stripped of his Saudi citizenship, so can be described as Saudi-born but not as a Saudi. His organisation is known as al-Qaida ("the Base")

TM; no apostrophe

also known as birders, not "twitchers"; they go birdwatching or birding, not "twitching"

TM; say ballpoint pen

are for people. Institutions, events etc have anniversaries

British composer

the Right Rev Clifford Richard, bishop of Wimbledon, at first mention; thereafter just Richard or the bishop

means "in the name of God" in Arabic

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

use of this word by the Guardian in 2006 provoked a bitter controversy among readers, many of whom (rightly) pointed out that there is nothing wrong with it

use only as an adjective when referring to race, ie not "blacks" but "black people" or whatever noun is appropriate

fruit; plural blackberries

handheld wireless email device; plural BlackBerrys

prefer hidden or parallel economy

is banned, unless in a quote, but even then treat with scepticism (imagine the police saying they were "investigating an incident of white-on-white violence between Millwall and West Ham supporters")

a giant funfair, not a beach, so do not illustrate with a picture of donkeys on the sand

not Bladerunner

is Cherie Blair when we are referring to her in her capacity as the wife of the former prime minister; if she is appearing in court or at a function related to her work as a lawyer, she is Cherie Booth QC (Booth on second mention)

no accent

pager; not to be confused with beeper, a thing that goes "beep" (eg on a microwave)

blog (noun) collection of articles, (verb) action of publishing an article to the blog: "I just blogged about that" post (noun) single article on blog, (verb) action of publishing an article to the blog: "I was going to post later" (also: blogpost)

blogger person who authors posts (also: author) comment text-based audience interaction with an individual blogpost

commenter audience member interacting via comments with blogposts (also: user)

comment thread list of comments following a blogpost

adjective and male noun; blonde female noun: the woman is a blonde, because she has blond hair; the man has blond hair and is, if you insist, a blond

TM; full name is Blu-ray Disc (not Disk), abbreviation BD

TM

Oxford v Cambridge

popularly known as Boddies, it remains the cream of Manchester, despite the closure of the Strangeways brewery

(1921-99) British actor

(1899-1957) American actor

golf, ghost, so bogeyman

trolley, truck

capital of Colombia

is now known as Mumbai

not bon viveur

mistake

cartoon bear who lived with Yogi in Jellystone Park