Outright Barbarous

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…
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,…
Attribution first

There’s a nice bit in the BBC News Styleguide about attributions: You would not say to a friend: I am a dissolute, disreputable failure, a moral vacuum with no discernible redeeming features. That’s what my wife said last night. You would naturally put the attribution first: My wife says I’m a dissolute, disreputable failure etc. That’s the way we speak…
Responsibility

From the BBC News Styleguide: People are responsible, things are not. It is nonsense to write “A fire has killed a woman in Barnsley”. A woman has died in a fire. And bad weather cannot be responsible for an increase in vegetable prices, although it may be the cause. I think I’ve been responsible for…
Telegraph Style Book

Simon Heffer, Associate Editor of the Daily Telegraph, sends a regular “Style notes” eMail to all staff. It contains writing, spelling and grammar tips and general advice on writing for the newspaper. It’s a good idea, although I do wonder how many staff read it. His emails are, however, all published as part of the…
TFL’s Editorial Style Guide

I came across TFL’s Editorial Style Guide the other day, quite by accident. The first half of this guide is what style guides are like in my imagination. It’s a list of words, how they should be spelled, capitalized, hyphenated, and what words should and shouldn’t be used: It’s nice to see some consensus between this…
BBC News Styleguide

The BBC News Styleguide takes a discursive look through the English language. It’s filled with tips and frequently asked questions : When is it right to say may or might? And is peppered with short quotes musing on English language and style: People think I can teach them style. What stuff it all is! Have something to…