Month: June 2013
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Wikipedia:Manual of Style
Wikipedia, like the other newspapers and journals we’ve looked at, has it’s own Wikipedia:Manual of Style. As with so many of these style guides, Wikipedia’s reflects Wikipedia. It’s fascinated with minutia, detail and precision, and in fact even has a beginners guide to using the Manual of style, which begins by saying: The MoS [Manual of…
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The Economist Style Guide
The first rule of The Economist Style guide club is that you do not talk about… oh no, sorry, no it’s not. It’s that: that it should be readily understandable. Clarity of writing usually follows clarity of thought. In the first instance, this means: Use the language of everyday speech, not that of spokesmen, lawyers…
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Omit Words
Probably the most famous bit of stylistic advice is from The Elements of Style. Omit needless words. Vigorous writing is concise. A sentence should contain no unnecessary words, a paragraph no unnecessary sentences, for the same reason that a drawing should have no unnecessary lines and a machine no unnecessary parts. This requires not that the…
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Avoiding Superfluous Tautology
I have to admit, I sometimes repeat myself. Repeating the same thing, but phrased differently, is something I do. Sometimes. So, it’s helpful to read the list in the BBC News Style Guide of Superfluous words and phrases Another way to save time is to be aware of words which go together but actually mean the same thing. For…
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I like this alot
Some mistakes in English are painfully frequent. But none more minor and irritating than writing “a lot” as one word. The website Hyperbole and a Half has a particularly well thought out joke about this error: The Alot is an imaginary creature that I made up to help me deal with my compulsive need to…
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This is literally a post about grammar
At some point, in the last thirty years, people started to think that literally was an intensifier. That is, that adding “literally” into a sentence strengthened the sense. People thought “I’m literally sweating buckets” meant “I am really sweating a lot!”. Once you’re reminded that “literal” means taking the words in their basic sense without…
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Writing for People
Words are designed to be read and understood. But it’s amazing how many companies persist in using their own technical terms for things, even when more common terms exist. One thing I like about the TFL Style Guide is that it suggests using the more common term: articulated bus Note: If writing for passengers, use…
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Bidding and Fighting
Almost all of the style guides mentioned on this site take a hard line on clichés. (You could say that writing needs clichés, like I need a hole in the head). The BBC news guide says of “bid”: Bid – another one straight from the Hack’s Book of Wee Words. When was the last time…
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The National Geographic Style Manual
The National Geographic Style Manual is a guide to the magazine’s preferred usage. It consists of an A-Z list of rules and conventions, handling all the usual suspects. Towards split infinitives, it takes what I’ve come to think of as the standard approach: Avoid in general, but may be used for sense or grace And it supports…
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Guide to Ofsted’s house style
The Ofsted House Style guide is a list of numbered rules for writing. Interestingly, it’s more like a school English lesson than style guidance. It contains sections like: 141. Make sure that adjectives are matched to the correct noun, for example ‘an organic box of vegetables’ should be ‘a box of organic vegetables’. In fact,…
Outright Barbarous 