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Observer style guide: introduction



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-t
pref. verb ending (alternative to '-ed'): burnt, dreamt, leant, leapt, learnt, spilt, spoilt. But earned, not earnt

tad
is a tad overused

Tchaikovsky

Teesside
and it's Middlesbrough (but shortened to Boro)

Tehran

temazepam

temperatures
weather: Max 8C (46F); cookery: 190C (gas mark 5 etc).
(See measurements)

Terylene

Thailand

Thermos
prefer vacuum flask

Third World
prefer developing world

Tiananmen Square

time
the week starts on Sunday because that is when we publish. So the week following publication is 'this week', the one preceding it is 'last week', and more than seven days after publication is 'next week'.
Days in week before publication 'Last Monday/Tuesday' etc
Two days before publication 'On Friday'
Day before publication Yesterday
Sunday of publication Today
Monday after publication Tomorrow
then 'on Tuesday/Wednesday etc'
Never say 'Last Saturday' (meaning eight days before publication). Use 'eight days ago', the date, or 'last weekend'.

Writers must put the date in brackets when there might be ambiguity. Never start a story 'Last week'. Do not even start a sentence thus

times
6am, 7.15pm, close up, no points, and not 6.00am; noon, midnight, not 12 noon, 12 midnight

Tirol

titles
Books, plays, operas films, newspapers, periodicals, radio and television programmes, CDs, works of art and anthologies of poetry should be in italic.

Song titles and single poems in single quotes. In Text Bell Bold captions all these should be be used unquoted and unitalicised

titles of classical music
Use italics when a piece has a specific title - Beethoven's Pastoral symphony - but not where pieces carry a number - Beethoven's fifth symphony. Movement markings (allegro, lento etc) should be in roman.
Opera titles should be italicised.

Music derived from the liturgy (for example, Mozart's Mass in C; Elgar's Te Deum; Faure's Requiem etc) should stay in roman, as should references to particular movements within those pieces (Kyrie, Sanctus, Benedictus etc).

Opus numbers should be used sparinglyand only when there is likely to be confusion between similar types of composition bythe same composer in the same key (Beethoven's piano sonata Op. 2 No.2 in A is not the same as Beethoven's piano sonata Op.101 in A)

Torah, the

trade names
use generics (some are suggested in this style book) whenever possible and always where there is a possibility of unintentionally derogatory context. (The vacuum flask was cold, not 'the Thermos was cold'.)
NB: Be very careful with Outward Bound courses

try to
never try and

tsar
not czar.
Avoid 'the government's transport tsar' or other PR-generated nonsense

the tube, the underground
both lower case forms of transport




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