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

room two words, but chatline one

      chat show, game show, quiz show, talk show etc no hyphens when used as noun or when adjectival, eg chat show host; note also chatline, sexline

      cheap goods are cheap, prices are low

      check-in (noun) but check in (verb)

      checklist, checkout counter note also checkup (noun); check up (verb)

      cheerleader one word

      cheeses we tried making these all lower case. It worked, but it always seemed a triumph of consistency over common sense. Readers are used in most contexts to seeing capital letters at the start of proper nouns and adjectives, especially place names. So that is what we should do. Wensleydale, Lancashire, Red Leicester, Cheshire and their foreign equivalents simply seem more natural than the lower case alternative. This will give us a few more capital letters in the paper than we might like, but for it to become a problem, we would have to write about cheeses a lot more often than we do. Exceptions are made for cheddar and brie, which are almost universally treated as common nouns (Canadian cheddar, Irish cheddar, Somerset brie). See foodstuffs

      chequebook one word, either as noun or adjective (eg chequebook journalism)

      chi prefer to qi for the vital energy in oriental medicine, martial arts etc believed to circulate around the body in currents

      chickenpox no hyphen; similarly smallpox

      chief constable lower case, the chief constable of Lancashire or the chief constable. Do not write, eg the chief constable of West Midlands police, but simply the chief constable of the West Midlands

      chief inspector of prisons/schools also chief medical officer

      chief of the defence staff is the professional head of the British armed forces and the principal military adviser to the defence secretary and the government; the chief of the general staff is the professional head of the British army

      chief petty officer is an NCO (non-commissioned officer) in the Royal Navy, not an officer

      Chief Rabbi cap at first mention when naming the individual, then the chief rabbi or refer to as Rabbi X or Lord Y (like the Archbishop of Canterbury). See capitalisation (titles of ecclesiastical dignitaries)

      chief whip lower case

      child access, child custody do not use these terms regarding divorce unless in direct quotes and from lay people. Under the Children Act 1989 children are given residence with one parent and the other in disputed cases has contact. Put more simply, children live with one parent and the other is allowed to see them

      childcare as healthcare

      childminder one word

      child pornography/child porn never use these terms, except in direct quotes. Use instead internet child sex abuse, sex abuse images, or similar

      children’s names generally for under-18s, write eg John Jones at first mention and then simply John at second mention

      child-sex abusers/offenders use hyphen

      chilli (plural chillies) prefer to chili

      chill out two words as verb; one word as noun or adjective

      chimera prefer to chimaera

      chimpanzees are apes, not monkeys

      Chinese cap C in idioms such as Chinese whispers, Chinese walls

      Chinese names use the Pinyin rather than the traditional Wade-Giles, so write Beijing, Mao Zedong (though Chairman Mao or just Mao are acceptable), Zhou Enlai etc. Normal style is to place family name first, then given name, so that the actress Zhang Zivi, for instance, becomes Zhang at second mention. For place names, follow The Times Atlas of the World except where older usage is well established, eg the special administrative regions Hong Kong (not Xianggang) and Macau (not Aomen); and the autonomous regions Tibet (not Xizang) and Inner Mongolia (not Neimengu)

      chip and PIN no hyphen as a noun or adjectivally

      chocoholic but shopaholic and workaholic

      chopper, copter not to be used as substitutes for helicopter, even in headlines

      Christ discourage use as a casual exclamation or expletive; it offends many readers

      Christ Church (the Oxford college), two words, thus, and never Christ Church College

      Christchurch in Dorset and New Zealand

      christened Christians are christened; ships, trains and people not known to be Christians are named

      Christian, Christianity unchristian, non-Christian, antichristian, Antichrist

      Christian Democrat cap when referring to specific European parties for both noun and adjective, as in Christian Democrat MP

      Christian names take care in context of non-Christians; in such cases use forename or first name

      Christian terms mostly lower case when possible but cap eg the Bible, the (Ten) Commandments, the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, Mass, Holy Communion (and simply Communion), Eucharist, Blessed Sacrament, Advent, Nativity (also cap adjectival Advent calendar, Nativity play), the Scriptures; also when naming the persons of the Trinity, God (the Father), Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit; but then follow the Vatican and Lambeth Palace in using lower case for he/his except where clarity demands a cap (“Isaiah looks forward to God rescuing His people”, ie God’s, not Isaiah’s). Cap the names of books of the Bible: the Book of Revelation, Acts of the Apostles, the Gospel of (or According to) Matthew; but generally lower case for the apostles, the disciples, gospel, the gospels. Use lower case for evensong, matins. There are columnists and feature writers who like to use eg God, Christ and Jesus as harmless exclamations or mild expletives; they should know that this offends many Times readers

      Christmas Day, Christmas Eve seem to need caps

      church cap in names — the Church of England, St James’s Church, Piccadilly etc — but otherwise only if absolutely necessary to distinguish an institution from a building (“the Church is often said to be in terminal decline, but the church I attended on Sunday was absolutely packed”). Context will usually suffice to make clear which is meant, so lower case should be possible more often than not

      Church in Wales not Church of Wales for the disestablished Anglican church once headed by Dr Rowan Williams

      churchwarden one word

      cinemagoer as concertgoer, operagoer, theatregoer etc

      cipher not cypher

      circa abbreviate simply as c (roman) followed by a space

      City of London the City, City prices

      civil list (lower case unless clarity demands caps) has been replaced by the sovereign grant (also lower case unless clarity demands caps)

      civil partnership commonly referred to as gay marriage before gay marriage became legal. A suggested shorthand for headings is civil union

      civil service, also civil servants lower