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

      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