The Times Style Guide: A practical guide to English usage

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When referring to the legal requirement we use deliver or file the return. Online, we say submit the return. For Self Assessment (paper or online) use send or file the return. Send is better. the teachers’ standards

This acronym means small and medium-sized enterprises. Use SME for the singular. south, the south of England Proper names that contain an apostrophe stay the same in the possessive: McDonald’s burgers may be delicious but Sainsbury’s are just as good. Midnight is the first minute of the day, not the last. You should consider using “11:59pm” to avoid confusion about a single, specific time.

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For example ‘These rules apply to Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales). This does not include Northern Ireland.’ When referring to local government, use local council instead of local authority where possible. See also council. Local Authority Trading Standards Services

Use upper case for the full title, like Minister for Overseas Development, or when used with a name, as a title, like Health Minister Norman Lamb. In reference to US legislation, six-week abortion ban is preferable to foetal heartbeat bill, unless quoting someone talking about the “heartbeat bill” Lower case in text. Upper case in titles: Spencer Tracy, Executive Director, GDS. Extended Project Qualificationrobust (unless talking about a sturdy object), depending on context, use ‘well thought out’ or ‘comprehensive’ when referring to today (as in a news article) include the date: ‘The minister announced today (14 June 2012) that…’ Upper case because it’s the name of a programme, but note that it’s Green Deal programme, Green Deal team, Green Deal assessment. green paper normally a choice between two courses of action; if there are more than two, option or choice may be preferred; beware the trend to use “alternate” instead of alternative: in a piece about French politics we wrote “in this juddering alternate reality …” Is strictly alphabetical and thus self-indexed, while AP has separate sections for sports and weather entries, and combines many entries under such terms as "weapons"

RAF: Gp Capt, Wg Cmdr, Sqn Ldr, Flt Lt, Fg Off, Plt Off, MAcr, WO, Ft Sgt, Ch Tech, Sgt, Cpl, Jr Tech, L/Cpl, SAC, LAC, AC Army: Gen, Lt Gen, Maj Gen, Brig, Col, Lt Col, Maj, Capt, Lt, 2Lt, OCdt, WOI, WOII, SSgt, CSgt, Sgt, CoH, L/CoH, Cpl, Bdr, L/Cpl, L/Bdr, Pte Lower case except where it’s a title with the holder’s name, like Chief Constable Andrew Trotter. Child Benefit If a number starts a sentence, write it out in full (Thirty-four, for example) except where it starts a title or subheading. lc for categories, eg Colin Firth won the best actor Oscar, Chipmunk was voted best newcomer at the 2008 Mobos, etcabbreviation of aggravation, and spelt thus despite the once popular terrace chant “A, G, A-G-R, A-G-R-O: agro!” note lc and hyphen) before an Arabic name means “the” so try to avoid writing “the al- ...” where possible going/moving forward, use ‘from now on’ or ‘in the future’ (it’s unlikely we are giving travel directions)

Use EU when you mean EU member states: EU countries, EU businesses, EU consumers, goods exported from the EU, EU VAT numbers. Not “third-party software”. Also use “commercial” for types of software, for example “commercial word processor”. Community Care GrantIf you think an acronym is well known, please provide evidence that 80% of the UK population will understand and commonly use it. Evidence can be from search analytics or testing of a representative sample. For example: ‘HMPO is the sole issuer of UK passports. They will send your new passport within 3 weeks’ former owner of Harrods and Fulham FC (Fayed after first mention; Mr Fayed if honorific is needed); the son who died in Paris in 1997 was Dodi Fayed Do not use semicolons as they are often mis-read. Long sentences using semicolons should be broken up into separate sentences instead. Senedd Cymru (Welsh Parliament) Do not use hyphens in ages unless to avoid confusion, although it’s always best to write in a way that avoids ambiguity. For example, ‘a class of 15 16-year-old students took the A level course’ can be written as ‘15 students aged 16 took the A level course’. Use ‘aged 4 to 16 years’, not ‘4-16 years’.