Grammar
Some of the better quality newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times provide style guides for the benefit of their journalists. The idea being that all the articles appearing in their publications should be consistent in terms of punctuation, spelling, capitalisation and use of language. The guides are usually made available to the public in book form and/or on the internet, such as The Times style book. If you’re into this sort of thing it can make for fascinating reading.
Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Usually the style guide writers also advise on topical issues, such as how to spell Colonel Gaddafi’s surname out of the 32 or more possible options (strictly speaking it’s an alliteration of his name from the Libyan original).
- Rhetorically Speaking 2: Alliteration
Alliteration is the use of the two or more words in sequence that have the same sound in their first syllables. Take this example The snake silently slithered Here the ess sound is repeated three times. The repetition of sounds is very pleasing the to...
- The Lazy Man's Guide To Acronyms
It’s human nature to want to expend the minimum possible effort. Why say National Aeronautics and Space Administration when you can simply say NASA? An acronym is usually formed by taking the first letters of the full form to create a new word. The...
- Some Random Thoughts On A Wide Range Of + Is Or Are
Recently I came across this sentence in an article in the Guardian newspaper, by one of my favourite journalists : A wide range of activists, both African and European, is furious about the New Alliance This didn’t sound quite right to me; I’m...
- Some Random Thoughts On Different To
If you're a foreign learner looking for advice as to what preposition to use after different, I'd recommend using from; that way you won't tread on anybody's toes. You can read more about the use of different and easily confusable...
- The Which-hunting Season Is Upon Us Again.
A minor spat about the use of which and that in relative clauses Which-hunting, a play on words on witch-hunting (see link below), is a term used by linguists to refer to the criticism by some of the use of which for things, in defining (aka restrictive...
Grammar
Guide to Style Guides
Some of the better quality newspapers such as The Guardian and The Times provide style guides for the benefit of their journalists. The idea being that all the articles appearing in their publications should be consistent in terms of punctuation, spelling, capitalisation and use of language. The guides are usually made available to the public in book form and/or on the internet, such as The Times style book. If you’re into this sort of thing it can make for fascinating reading.
Image: Idea go / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Apart from useful guidance on where to place hyphens and suchlike the style guides often provide a list of “banned words”. This isn't often, contrary to what you might expect, a list of swear words and terms. Instead, it is something that the guardians of good writing practice find far more heinous, namely clichés, tautolgies and sensationalisms such as
So, the higher quality press has style guides that aspire to keeping their journalistic standards high. Do the gutter press have style guides encouraging sensational headlines, stereotyping and stating the obvious. Do men's magazines provide guidance to their journalists on how to objectify women, relate their tales of excessive drinking and the best way to describe bodily functions. Maybe they do, but somehow I think these are the sort of guides less likely to be made available to the public.
Brutal murders - all murders are brutal so that word isn’t neededThe tone of these style guides can be quite amusing. For example, Americanisms are frowned upon and and so are seemingly politically correct terms such as chairperson. The word “toilet” is on the banned list too, this obviously has lower-class connotations, despite it being the word that you will see on the door of public toilets.
Innocent victims - victims are by their very nature innocent
Jaw-dropping
So, the higher quality press has style guides that aspire to keeping their journalistic standards high. Do the gutter press have style guides encouraging sensational headlines, stereotyping and stating the obvious. Do men's magazines provide guidance to their journalists on how to objectify women, relate their tales of excessive drinking and the best way to describe bodily functions. Maybe they do, but somehow I think these are the sort of guides less likely to be made available to the public.
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- Rhetorically Speaking 2: Alliteration
Alliteration is the use of the two or more words in sequence that have the same sound in their first syllables. Take this example The snake silently slithered Here the ess sound is repeated three times. The repetition of sounds is very pleasing the to...
- The Lazy Man's Guide To Acronyms
It’s human nature to want to expend the minimum possible effort. Why say National Aeronautics and Space Administration when you can simply say NASA? An acronym is usually formed by taking the first letters of the full form to create a new word. The...
- Some Random Thoughts On A Wide Range Of + Is Or Are
Recently I came across this sentence in an article in the Guardian newspaper, by one of my favourite journalists : A wide range of activists, both African and European, is furious about the New Alliance This didn’t sound quite right to me; I’m...
- Some Random Thoughts On Different To
If you're a foreign learner looking for advice as to what preposition to use after different, I'd recommend using from; that way you won't tread on anybody's toes. You can read more about the use of different and easily confusable...
- The Which-hunting Season Is Upon Us Again.
A minor spat about the use of which and that in relative clauses Which-hunting, a play on words on witch-hunting (see link below), is a term used by linguists to refer to the criticism by some of the use of which for things, in defining (aka restrictive...