The Times Style Guide: A guide to English usage

Copyright

Published by Times Books

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First published 2003

Second edition 2017

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Ebook Edition © April 2017 ISBN: 9780008146184

Version 2017-04-27

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Acknowledgments

Aa

Bb

Cc

Dd

Ee

Ff

Gg

Hh

Ii

Jj

Kk

Ll

Mm

Nn

Oo

Pp

Qq

Rr

Ss

Tt

Uu

Vv

Ww

Xx

Yy

Zz

About the Publisher

Introduction

This updated version of The Times Style Guide aims to provide writers and sub-editors with a quick reference to contentious points of grammar and spelling, and to guide them through areas where confusions have arisen in the past. It is a guide, not a straitjacket. Consistency is a virtue, but it should not be pursued at the expense of clarity, elegance or common sense.

By the standards of its predecessors this is a permissive volume. It avoids unnecessary prescription and prohibition. It tries to distinguish linguistic superstitions from grammatical rules. It hesitates to condemn common usage that neither baffles nor offends. English is not a language fixed for all time. Speech changes and its written form should change too. The Times must use the language of its readers, but that language at its best, clearest and most concise.

The guide sets out the paper’s detailed preferences in such fields as capitalisation, hyphenation and variant spelling. More general entries are intended to encourage reflection about words and the way we use them. While all Times journalists should follow house style, they should not do so unthinkingly. Considered exceptions can (and often must) be made, especially in direct quotes, in features, diaries and other less formal kinds of writing, and with columnists whose individual voices should be heard and whose flow of argument should be preserved.

Where extra guidance is needed, and for all spellings, hyphenations etc not covered by the guide, staff are expected to use as their first point of reference Collins English Dictionary. Other helpful resources are the New Oxford Dictionary for Writers and Editors (Odwe), the Concise Oxford or Chambers. For place names The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World should be consulted.

Further advice on style and on good writing may be found in the familiar authorities: Fowler (Modern English Usage), Partridge (Usage and Abusage), Gowers (The Complete Plain Words) and their admirably brisk US counterpart Strunk & White (The Elements of Style). The compendious Chicago Manual of Style contains sensible (American) guidance on almost everything. Kingsley Amis’s The King’s English takes a more idiosyncratic approach. All are valuable works of informed and considered opinion; none should be regarded as a repository of unbreakable rules.

There are thoughtful books on the particular challenges of journalistic writing by Harold Evans (Essential English for Journalists, Editors and Writers) and Keith Waterhouse (On Newspaper Style).

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Isabella Bengoechea, Magnus Cohen, Fiona Gorman, Alan Kay, Matthew Lyons and Siobhan Murphy, who worked on production of the book at The Times, and to Gerry Breslin, Jethro Lennox, Kevin Robbins and Sarah Woods at HarperCollins.

Thanks also to Nic Andrews, Chris Broadhurst, Josie Eve, Hannah Fletcher, Jeremy Griffin, Robert Hands, Oliver Kamm, Nick Mays, Robbie Millen, John Price, Chris Roberts, Fay Schlesinger, Mark Shillam, Craig Tregurtha, Emma Tucker, Roland Watson, Rose Wild and John Witherow at The Times; and to Tim Austin, Richard Dixon, Sir Simon Jenkins and the late Philip Howard, who were responsible for earlier editions of this guide.

Aa

a, an use a before all words beginning with a vowel or diphthong with the sound of u (as in unit) — a eulogy, a European etc; but use an before unaspirated h — an heir, an honest woman, an honour. Whether or not to use an before an aspirated h when the first syllable of a word is unaccented — hotel, historian, heroic — is a matter of preference; The Times prefers a. With abbreviations, acronyms, initials, be guided by pronunciation: an LSE student, an RAF officer, an NGO

abbreviated negatives (can’t, don’t, shan’t etc, and similar abbreviations/contractions such as I’ll, you’re) should be discouraged except in direct quotes, although in more informal pieces such as diaries, sketches and some features they are fine when the full form would sound pedantic

Abdication cap with specific reference to Edward VIII’s; in general sense use lower case

Aboriginal (singular, noun and adjective) and Aborigines (plural), for native Australian(s); aboriginal (lower case) for the wider adjectival use

absorption is the noun from absorb; absorbtion is a non-word that has found its way more than once into The Times

abstraction often an escape from precise meaning and a sign of lazy writing. Beware words such as situation, crisis, problem, resolution, question, issue, condition. A newspaper is about what happens and what people do; it should use concrete words. A headline, especially, may be killed by an abstract noun or phrase

abu means “father of” so must not be separated from the name that follows, ie Abu Qatada at first mention remains Abu Qatada (“father of Qatada”), not simply Qatada, and certainly not Mr Qatada

accents give French and German words their proper accents and diacritical marks, unless they have passed into common English usage. Use accents as appropriate also on capital letters and in headlines. With anglicised foreign words, no need for accents (hotel, depot, debacle, elite, regime etc), unless it makes a crucial difference to pronunciation or understanding, eg cliché, façade, café, exposé. NB matinee, puree etc.

In Spanish give accents only on the names of people, if they can be checked. In other Spanish words and place names, ignore accents and diacritical marks except for n with the tilde (Ñ or ñ, as in El Niño); this is considered a distinct letter of the alphabet in its own right and is also familiar to (and easily pronounceable by) most English-speaking readers

Achilles’ heel a small but deadly area of weakness in someone seemingly invulnerable (like the Greek hero of the Trojan war, hence cap and apostrophe); but achilles tendon (lower case, no apostrophe, as the connection with the myth is more remote)

acknowledgment as with most (but not quite all) such words, no middle e

acronym a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a set phrase or series of words, eg Opec, from the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or Ukip for the United Kingdom Independence Party. If the acronym is easily pronounced and usually spoken as a word, write with an initial cap and then lower case: Opec, Nato, Ukip, Rada, Bafta, Nice, Acas, Asbo etc; follow this house style whatever the organisation itself may choose to do. Acronyms do not normally take the definite article.

Non-acronym abbreviations based on initials that are spelt out separately in speech (ie not pronounced as a word) remain in caps, and normally retain a definite article: the BBC, the RAF, the CBI, the LSO, the UN, the EU etc. A few, by convention, take an unpleasant mixture of upper and lower case: MoT, the MoD, the DfE, the IoD. All but the most familiar organisations, bodies, concepts and things should be named in full at first mention with the initials in brackets. However, a lot of initials in text will produce an unappetising alphabet soup, so use as sparingly as possible; after first mention try to vary with a suitable word: the ministry, the corporation, the department, the institute etc

Act theatre, ballet, opera etc, use cap and use roman numerals when naming, specifying or giving references: Macbeth, Act I, Act II etc; for more general refs use lower case, eg “in the second act of the play”, “in the third scene of Act II”

Act and Bill (parliamentary) cap when giving full name (the Data Protection Act, the Assisted Dying for the Terminally Ill Bill etc) but otherwise lower case: “a bill intended to decriminalise assisted suicide”; “the act covers the gathering, storing and processing of personal information” etc

action as a transitive verb meaning undertake (“The marketing department will action this”) is corporate jargon of the most irritating kind; avoid

active verbs generally better (and shorter) than passive

actor, actress for women use the feminine designation

AD, BC note that AD comes before the date, eg AD35; BC comes after, 350BC. Both have no spaces. With century, both are used after, eg 3rd century BC/AD. The terms BCE and CE (Common Era) are not to be used by Times writers but may exceptionally be allowed to a guest columnist/letter writer if context/courtesy seems to demand it (eg Lord Sacks, as chief rabbi, preferred CE in his Credo columns)

addresses no commas in 1 Pennington Street, 3 Thomas More Square, 1 London Bridge Street etc; and do not abbreviate. No commas either between county names and postcodes, eg West Sussex BN6 9GS

adjectives do not overuse, especially in news reporting. Ask if the adjective is necessary and what it adds. Try to use adjectives to add precision, not merely for colour or emphasis. Beware especially those adjectives that come unbidden to mind with particular nouns: serious danger, devout Catholic, staunch Protestant, blithering idiot

administration (US) now lower case (cf government) even when specific, eg the Trump administration; generic always lower case, eg a lame-duck administration; also lower case adjectival, eg an administration official

Admiral do not abbreviate to Adm Jones etc except in lists; upper case when used as a title (Admiral Jones), at subsequent mentions “the admiral”

ad nauseam not ad nauseum

adrenaline with the final e

advance notice is faintly tautologous, but probably defensible; “advanced notice” is just wrong

adverbs as with adjectives (only more so), do not overuse, and never use without thought. Ask what, if anything, is being added or changed. Consider if there might be a better way of achieving the same effect, eg by using a more vivid or dramatic verb: to rush or race, say, rather than to run fast.

Adverbs are rarely a good way of beginning a sentence. “Interestingly”, “ironically”, “oddly” all clumsily flag something that ought to become obvious to the reader soon enough.

When adverbs are used to qualify adjectives the joining hyphen is rarely needed, eg heavily pregnant, classically carved, colourfully decorated. In some cases, however, such as “well founded”, “ill educated”, when used before the noun, eg a well-founded rumour, write the compound with the hyphen. The best guidance is to use the hyphen in these phrases as little as possible or when the phrase would otherwise be ambiguous. Thus, “the island is well regulated”, but “it is a well-regulated island”

advertisement prefer to advert or ad, especially at first mention; but the shorter forms are perfectly acceptable (and often preferable at second mention and in headings etc)

adviser never advisor

-aemia not -emia, for blood conditions such as anaemia, leukaemia; thus anaemic, leukaemic

affect, effect as a verb, to affect means to produce an effect on, to touch the feelings of, or to pretend to have or feel (as in affectation); to effect is to bring about, to accomplish. If in doubt, always consult the dictionary. Affect as a noun should be used only by psychologists, among themselves

affidavit a written declaration on oath. Such phrases as “sworn affidavit” and “he swore an affidavit” are, strictly speaking, tautologous

Afghan noun or adjective; an afghani (lower case) is a unit of currency, not a person

Africa note north Africa, east Africa, west Africa, southern Africa, all lower case: these are locators, not place names (unlike South Africa)

African-American hyphenate

Afrikaans the language; Afrikaners the people. Afrikanders a breed of cattle

after almost invariably to be used rather than “following” and always preferable to such ponderous constructions as “in the wake of”. Remember that after is a useful way of indicating a clear and particular temporal relationship; do not say after if what you mean is when. Also beware of lazily using after to convey a cause relationship. “The British player won a place in the final after beating the seeded German” is journalese for “… by beating the seeded German”

afterlife one word

ageing takes the middle e

ages are helpful to readers; they add context and human interest, particularly in stories involving unfamiliar people. Use common sense. Information should be useful or interesting, not distracting; there is no need to give an age for every minor figure mentioned in passing in a news report, or to tell Times readers how old the prime minister is whenever she crops up.

Normal style is “Joe Brown, 33, a porter,” but occasional variations such as “Andrew Hunt, who is 74,” are fine. For children’s ages, except in headlines, write out numerals up to and including ten: “Emma Watson, seven, who …”, “Emma Watson, who is seven”, “Emma Watson, aged seven”, “the seven-year-old Emma Watson” etc. For consistency, however, use figures for both numerals if one is lower than ten and one higher so, eg “children aged 5 to 14” (not “five to 14”). In headlines, numerals save space and may often be clearer: “Children aged 7 are victims of school sexting epidemic.” For more general ages use lower case decades, ie “I wish I was still in my thirties” etc.

Note caps in Ice Age, Stone Age, the Dark Ages etc

aggravate means to make (an evil or complaint) worse. It does not mean to annoy or irritate

AGM caps, but prefer annual meeting in text

ahead of do not use in the sense of timing to mean before/prior to/in advance of

aide-memoire roman, hyphen, no need for accent; plural aidesmemoire. Traditionally minded French speakers might prefer the plural to be aide-mémoire; aide is a verb, not a noun, and there is still only one mémoire being aided, so the form is invariable; since the French spelling reform of 1990, however, the tendency has been to treat such composites as simple nouns and add an s at the end of all of them, so most younger French people would probably write aide-mémoires. All this is academic; aide-memoire has been anglicised through common use (no accent, no italics, no attempt at French pronunciation); in the process it has acquired various more or less awkward English plurals, of which the most widely accepted seems to be aides-memoire; this may be poor French, but it is comprehensible English, and if it is good enough for Collins, the OED and the National Archives (where British government and diplomatic aides-memoire are catalogued and stored), it should be good enough for us

Aids (acquired immune deficiency syndrome) is not a disease, but a medical condition. Diseases that affect people who are HIV-positive may be called Aids-related diseases; but through custom and practice we can now afford to relax our rule about never saying “died of Aids”. Write HIV/Aids when appropriate regarding the virus and the condition together

airbase, airstrip, airspace no hyphens

air conditioner, air conditioning no longer hyphenate as noun; but hyphenate adjectivally, eg an air-conditioning unit

aircraft prefer to planes wherever possible. Remember that not all aircraft are jets, some are still turbo-prop. Do not use the American airplanes

aircraftman, aircraftwoman not aircraftsman etc

aircraft names are italicised, like ship or locomotive names, on the rare occasions when they are needed, eg the Enola Gay (Hiroshima bomber)

aircraft types B-52, F-111 etc (roman, hyphens between letter and numbers just because it looks neater)

air fares two words, as rail fares, bus fares etc

air force cap Royal Air Force (thereafter the RAF), otherwise all lower case: the US air force (USAF, or in Second World War contexts USAAF), Brazilian air force; and lower case in adjectival use, eg an air force raid. No hyphen, even adjectivally

airplane ugly Americanism; do not use

airports as a general rule for British airports, use the name of the city or town followed by lower case airport, eg Manchester airport, Leeds/Bradford airport, East Midlands (formerly Nottingham) airport, Luton airport; but Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted are fine on their own

air raid two words (unlike airstrike)

air show two words; lower case even when specific, eg the Paris air show, the Farnborough air show

airstrike one word in military sense, but air raid (two words)

AK47 no need to hyphenate the Kalashnikov assault rifle

akimbo use only with reference to arms (never legs). It means hands on the hips with elbows turned outwards

al- as the prefix to Arabic nouns (including names), prefer the al- to the el- form, except where the el- has become widely accepted. The prefix is dropped from names at second mention, so that Bashar al-Assad becomes Assad

Albert Hall, the prefer to give Royal at first formal mention (that is its name); subsequently (or informally) fine without

alcohol its strength is measured either by volume (a percentage) or by the more traditional proof system, of which there are British and American variants. Do not confuse the percentage and proof systems by writing, eg that a drink is 48 per cent proof. As an example, a spirit that is 40 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV) is 80 degrees proof on the American scale (which runs from 0 to 200, and the proof number being precisely double the ABV figure); on the old British scale, which runs from 0 to 175, 40 per cent ABV would be 70 degrees proof. On the British scale, 100 degrees proof spirit (57.1 per cent ABV) is the minimum strength of distilled alcohol that when mixed with gunpowder sustains its combustion, and this property was used to test the traditional rum ration in the British navy. Since 1980 Britain has used the ABV system. See drink-drive

A level no hyphen as a noun, but A-level results etc (hyphenate when adjectival). A levels now embrace AS levels and A2s, and can still be used as the generic phrase and in historical context. But use O levels (same hyphenation rules) now only in historical context

alfresco one word, roman

algebra take great care in writing and presenting algebraic expressions. Individual terms should be in italics. Be sure that superscripts, including squares of numbers, and subscripts are properly rendered, eg E=mc2. As an example in narrative text: “Dr Edwards noted that the mass, m, is proportional to Ax where A is the area of the burger and x is its thickness. If all other parameters remain the same (heat of grill, absence of sudden downpour, mood of cook and so on), then t, the total cooking time, is proportional to x2A.” See italics

alibi not a general alternative to excuse; it means being elsewhere at the material time

Alistair always check the spelling of this name (Alastair, Alasdair, Alister etc)

all in phrases such as “all the president’s men” there is no need to write “all of the president’s men”

Allahu akbar (God is greatest); note also alhamdulillah (“praise God”, approximately equivalent to the Judaeo-Christian alleluia/hallelujah)

allcomers one word

allege avoid the suggestion that the writer is making the allegation; somewhere in the story always specify the source. Do not assume that use of this verb will keep you out of legal trouble; if in doubt, ask a lawyer. Do not use alleged as a synonym of ostensible, apparent or reputed

All Hallows Eve not Allhallows