The Times Style Guide: A guide to English usage. Ian Brunskill

own as generic phrase, lower case and roman; but the old publication was called The Boy’s Own Paper

      braille lower case

      brainchild try to avoid this cliché

      branch in police context, eg special branch, anti-terrorist branch, lower case unless there is any risk of confusion

      breakthrough avoid describing every bit of medical and scientific progress as a breakthrough — “a significant development or discovery, especially in science”. It isn’t

      breakout, breakdown (as noun, each one word); but to break out etc, and break-up (hyphenate as noun)

      breastfeed(ing) no longer use hyphen

      breaststroke no longer hyphenate the swimming discipline

      Breathalyser (cap, proprietary), but to breathalyse (lower case, generic)

      breathtaking no hyphen

       breech birth

      brevity Verbosity clouds meaning. Brevity is a virtue, in phrases, sentences, whole passages of writing. Even in words. Use short rather than long ones if you can: “be” rather than “exist”, “go” rather than “proceed”, “know” rather than “comprehend”, “do” rather than “perform”, “execute” or “carry out”. Whenever you write a long word, consider a short one instead. When you write a long sentence or paragraph, ask yourself why

      Bric Brazil, Russia, India and China collectively, all relatively fast-growing developing economies; thus, eg the Bric countries. (The financial wizards who coined Bric are also responsible for Mint: Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey. Mercifully, perhaps, this has yet to gain quite the same currency in the wider world; if it has to be used at all, it should be explained)

      bridges cap as in Severn Bridge, London Bridge, Southwark Bridge, Golden Gate Bridge

      Britain is now widely used as another name for the United Kingdom or Great Britain, and pragmatically we accept this usage. Strictly, Great Britain = England, Wales, Scotland and islands governed from the mainland (ie not Isle of Man or Channel Islands); United Kingdom = Great Britain and Northern Ireland; British Isles = United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland, Isle of Man and Channel Islands

      British Overseas Territory eg Anguilla; Bermuda; British Antarctic Territory; British Indian Ocean Territory; British Virgin Islands; Cayman Islands; Falkland Islands; Gibraltar; Montserrat; Pitcairn Islands; South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands; St Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha; Turks & Caicos Islands. Note that they may have a premier rather than a prime minister, so always check

      Britpop not Brit Pop; and Britart

      Broadmoor inmates are patients, not prisoners, as it is a hospital

      broadsheet retains some currency as a way to describe the serious British press, even though most British newspapers are now of a smaller format (tabloid, or compact; Berliner etc). Quality, serious or (at a pinch) upmarket may be used as appropriate synonyms

      Brobdingnagian cap. Huge, immense, unnaturally large; from Brobdingnag, the imagined land of giants in Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels; use sparingly, for colour and rhetorical force, eg “a politician with a truly Brobdingnagian ego”

      brownfield, greenfield as in building sites. But note green belt (two words)

      brownie points lower case

      Brummie (not Brummy), Geordie, Scouse etc, people and dialect, all capped

       Brylcreem

      BSE bovine spongiform encephalopathy, or mad cow (no need for quotes) disease. See mad cow disease

      buddleia thus. Buddleja (cap, note j) is the scientific spelling, after Linnaeus, for the genus of shrubs known commonly as butterfly bush, but despite that, Collins and Oxford dictionaries give buddleia (lower case, note i) as the common spelling, and that is what we must use. See wisteria (what is it with botanists?)

      budget lower case; the budget, Philip Hammond’s budget, budget day; also note pre-budget report and autumn statement (lower case)

      buffalo plural buffaloes

      Buggins’s turn awkward, perhaps, but consistent with Times style of such possessives

      buglers, trumpeters cavalry regiments have trumpeters, infantry regiments have buglers. They are not interchangeable

      builder’s merchant(s) as in shepherd’s pies, the apostrophe does not move in the plural

      bulletproof adjective or verb, one word

      bullion is gold or silver in unminted form

       bull-mastiff, bull-terrier

       bullring, bullfight(er)

       bullseye

      bumf prefer to bumph

      bunga-bunga lower case, hyphen, eg in the context of sexually charged déshabillé partying linked to Silvio Berlusconi, the former Italian prime minister. The derivation is uncertain and theories abound, including genuine African origins, a Fascist colonialist-racist construct or a word given to Mr Berlusconi via Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, the deceased Libyan leader

      bungee jumping no hyphen

      bureau plural bureaux or bureaus depending on context; eg bureaux de change, Citizens Advice Bureaux; but prefer bureaus for writing desks and distant newspaper offices

      burka prefer to burqa for the long, enveloping garment worn by Muslim women in public. The niqab is the piece of cloth that they use to cover the face. The hijab is a covering for the hair and neck

      Burma not Myanmar (except in direct quotes); the inhabitants are Burmese, while Burmans are a Burmese people

      Burns Night (caps, no apostrophe) falls on January 25

      burnt not burned

      Burton upon Trent no hyphens; and note the colloquial gone for a burton (lower case)

      bus, buses noun; but in verbal use, busses, bussed, bussing

      Bush, George W do not use Jr. Refer to him subsequently as Mr Bush or the former president. Refer to his father as the first President Bush or George Bush Sr

      “businesses that depend on water” beware this and similar phrases. All businesses depend on water to some extent; some businesses, eg farms, are especially dependent on water

      But there is no grammatical rule to prevent it starting a sentence; even Fowler describes this as a superstition. Be aware, however, that there are readers (and editors) who dislike it, and that it is easily overdone. Be sure, in any case, that “but” is the word you want; it often seems to be used to add a note of spurious drama where all that is meant is “and”

      buyout and buyback one word as nouns; but prefer buy-in, take-off, shake-out, shake-up, sell-off, sell-out etc with hyphens, wherever the composite noun looks hideous

      buzzword one word