-
each other
of two only (Iniesta and Xavi hugged each other); otherwise one another (all 11 Spanish players hugged one another) -
EADS
European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company; the group includes the aircraft manufacturer Airbus and is the major partner in the Eurofighter consortium -
earlier
often redundant: "they met this week" or "it happened this month" are preferable to "they met earlier this week" or "it happened earlier this month" and will save space -
Earl's Court
station and district; Earls Court exhibition centre -
earn
rather than learn that a banker or footballer earns, say, £15m a year, readers have indicated that they would prefer us to say "is paid £15m a year" or "receives £15m a year" -
earned
not earnt -
earring, earshot
no hyphen -
Earth
but moon, sun -
east Africa
-
East Anglia
-
east Asia
or south-east Asia rather than far east -
east coast mainline
but the train operating company set up by the government in 2009 is East Coast -
East End
inner east London north of the river; the equivalent district south of the Thames is south-east London -
EastEnders
TV soap; in real life, people from the East End are East Enders -
Easter Day
not Easter Sunday -
eastern Europe
-
East Jerusalem
-
east Midlands
but East Midlands airport -
East Riding of Yorkshire council
-
easyCouncil
approach to local government favoured by some Conservative authorities, modelled on the no-frills approach of budget airlines such as easyJet -
Easy Street
-
Ebacc
English baccalaureate -
eBay
but Ebay if you cannot avoid starting a sentence or headline with it -
Ebola
a virus and a disease, Ebola haemorrhagic fever (EHF) -
ebook, email
but e-commerce, e-learning, e-petition, e-reader -
ebookers
online travel company -
eccles cake
-
ecclesiastical titles
Most Rev (archbishop), Right Rev (bishop), Very Rev (dean or provost), the Ven (archdeacon), the Rev John (or Joan) Smith – not "Rev John Smith", "Rev Smith", "the Revs Smith and Jones". Surname only on subsequent mentions, except in leading articles -
Eccleston, Christopher
actor; Ecclestone, Bernie Formula One boss -
E coli
It is not normally necessary to use the full name, Escherichia coli. As with other taxonomic names, italicise in copy but use roman in headlines and standfirsts; no full point.
Note that E coli is a bacterium, not a virus -
eco-friendly
but ecohome, ecosystem, ecotown, ecowarrior -
ecstasy
state and drug -
ecu
European currency unit, superseded by the euro -
Ecuadorian
-
Edinburgh festival
comprises the following:
Edinburgh international festival
Edinburgh festival fringe (not fringe festival, but the fringe is OK)
Edinburgh international book festival -
editor
lc: editor of the Observer, editor of the Bromley, Bexley and Eltham Leader series, etc -
editors
An editor is to newspaper or website as a captain is to ship.
"Editors are craftsmen, ghosts, psychiatrists, bullies, sparring partners, experts, enablers, ignoramuses, translators, writers, goalies, friends, firemen, wimps, ditch diggers, mindreaders, coaches, bomb throwers, muses and spittoon – sometimes all while working on the same piece" (Gary Kamiya, Salon.com).
"Trust your editor, and you'll sleep on straw" (John Cheever) -
educationist
not educationalist -
-ee endings
-ee means something happens to you; -er means you do something: so employee, invitee (if you must), refugee but attender, escaper, etc, rather than attendee, escapee, etc -
eerie
weird; Erie North American lake; eyrie of eagles -
effect or affect?
See affect -
effectively
is not a synonym for in effect: "the Balls campaign was launched effectively after Brown resigned" means the launch was official and its intended effect was achieved; "the Balls campaign had in effect been launched before Brown resigned" means this was not the official launch, but events at the time described did have the effect of launching it, whether intended or not.
Effectively is almost invariably misused, and can often be omitted -
effete
does not mean effeminate or foppish, but "weak, ineffectual or decadent as a result of over-refinement ... exhausted, worn out, spent" (Collins) -
efit
(electronic facial identification technique) program used to create police drawings -
eg
no full points -
EGM
extraordinary general meeting -
Eid al-Adha
(Festival of Sacrifice) Muslim festival laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of the hajj. Note that eid means festival, so it is tautologous to describe it as the "Eid festival" -
Eid al-Fitr
Muslim festival of thanksgiving laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of Ramadan (al-fitr means the breaking of the fast) -
eid mubarak
not a festival but a greeting (mubarak means "may it be blessed") -
Eire
no: say Republic of Ireland or Irish Republic -
elan
no accent -
ElBaradei, Mohamed
former director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei after first mention -
elderly people
or older people, not "the elderly"; do not use to describe anyone under 75 -
El Dorado
fabled city of gold -
Eldorado
fabled flop of a TV soap -
electra complex
the female equivalent of oedipal complex -
electrocution
death by electric shock, so don't say survivors of torture were "electrocuted" during their ordeal - rather that they were given electric shocks -
elegiac
-
elephant in the room
Like governments and reality TV series, metaphors that we once welcomed into our lives as refreshing can become all too familiar, to the point of tedium – and this cliche is a fine example.
At its height, elephants were not only in the room, but had taken over the whole house: "elephants in the room" included trade figures, policy, lack of policy, climate change, Iraq, the US, Europe, anti-Americanism, men, women, single women, a new French football league, race, religion, Islam, Catholicism, Tessa Jowell, Andrew Neil, Jimmy Greaves, fatness, thinness, Stalinism, Hitler and Tony Blair's departure from office.
The phrase seemed destined for the elephants' graveyard but there is evidence that, used imaginatively, it may still be effective: "There's only so long they can ignore this elephant in the room [the Iraq war] before it takes a dump on the carpet" (Gary Younge, 5 July 2010); and, from the same writer: "Money in American politics was already an elephant in the room. Now the supreme court has given it a laxative, taken away the shovel, and asked us to ignore both the sight and the stench" (30 January 2012) -
11-plus
-
elision
means omission, not the conflation of one or more things -
elite
-
ellipsis
Use a space before and after ellipses, and three dots (with no spaces between them), in copy and headlines, eg "She didn't want to go there ... "; there is no need for a full point -
email
-
emanate
is intransitive; use exude if you need a transitive verb -
Embankment, the
in London; the tube station is just Embankment -
embargo
plural embargos -
embarrass, embarrassment
-
embassy
lc, eg British embassy; not necessarily an excuse to use the Ferrero Rocher joke yet again -
emigrate
leave a country; immigrate arrive in one -
émigré
-
Emin, Tracey
not Tracy -
empathic
not empathetic -
Empire State Building
-
empires
lc British empire (but British Empire Medal), Roman empire, etc -
employment tribunal
not industrial tribunal -
EMS
European monetary system -
Emu
economic and monetary union -
enamoured of
not by or with -
encyclopedia
not encyclopaedia -
endgame
-
enervate
to deprive of strength or vitality -
enforce, enforceable
-
England, English
should not be used when you mean Britain or British, unless you are seeking to offend readers from other parts of the UK (we published a map of England's best beaches, with the headline "Britain's best beaches")
See Scotland -
English Nature
is now Natural England -
Enlightenment, the
-
en masse
-
enormity
refers to something monstrous or wicked, not big -
enquiry
use inquiry -
enrol, enrolling, enrolment
-
en route
not on route
-
en suite
two words, whatever estate agents might claim -
ensure
make certain; insure against risk; assure life -
enthral, enthralling
-
entr'acte
-
E.ON
-
epicentre
point on the Earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake or underground explosion; frequently misused to mean the centre or focus itself and is also not a synonym for "dead centre".
After one of our misuses in 2010 a reader (for more than 60 years) wrote: "How is it that so many highly educated people, whose business is words and communication, do not understand that a prefix such as epi is there for a purpose: it changes the meaning of the root word" -
epilepsy
seizures are epileptic, people are not – we do not define people by their medical condition; so say (if relevant) "Joe Bloggs, who has epilepsy" not "Joe Bloggs, an epileptic" -
EPO
erythropoietin, a performance-enhancing drug -
equable
unvarying; equitable fair -
Equality and Human Rights Commission
body created in 2007 to bring together the work of the Commission for Racial Equality, the Disability Rights Commission, and the Equal Opportunities Commission; may be called EHRC, or simply the commission, after first mention -
equator, the
-
Equatorial Guinea
formerly Spanish Guinea, a country in central Africa that became independent in 1974; do not confuse with Guinea or Guinea-Bissau, other African former colonies -
Erdogan, Recep Tayyip
Turkish politician, elected prime minister in 2003 -
ere long
not e'er long -
Eriksson, Sven-Göran
-
ERM
exchange rate mechanism -
Ernie
electronic random number indicator equipment: the machine that picks winning premium bond numbers -
escapers
not escapees, despite the apparently unstoppable advance of the -ee suffix (can it be long before readers become "readees"?) -
Eskimo
is a language spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Note that it has no more words for snow than English does for rain. The people are Inuit (singular Inuk), not "Eskimos" -
espresso
not expresso -
establishment, the
-
estuary English
-
Eta
Basque separatists; ETA estimated time of arrival -
etc
no full point -
ethnic
never say ethnic when you mean ethnic minority, which leads to such nonsense as "the constituency has a small ethnic population" -
ethnic cleansing
should not be used as a euphemism for genocide unless quoting someone -
EU
European Union (no need to spell out at first mention); formerly EC (European Community); before that EEC (European Economic Community) -
EU presidents
There are three, so don't say "EU president" or "president of the union" without making clear which you mean: president of the European commission, president of the European parliament, or holder of the rotating presidency (technically "president in office of the council of the European Union"), which rotates among the member states every six months -
euro
currency; plural euros and cents -
Euro
should not be used as a prefix to everything European, but Euro-MP is an acceptable alternative to MEP -
Euro Disney
runs what is now called Disneyland Paris -
euroland, eurozone
-
Europe
includes Britain, so don't say, for example, something is common "in Europe" unless it is common in Britain as well; to distinguish between Britain and the rest of Europe the phrases "continental Europe" or "elsewhere in Europe" may be useful
central Europe, eastern Europe, western Europe -
European commission
the commission after first mention; do not abbreviate to EC -
European convention on human rights
-
European council
EU institution; not to be confused with the Council of Europe -
European court of human rights
nothing to do with the EU: it is a Council of Europe body; sits in Strasbourg. To avoid confusion, call it the "Strasbourg court" or the "human rights court" after first mention rather than the "European court" -
European court of justice
the highest court in the European Union in matters of EU law; sits in Luxembourg -
European stability mechanism
ESM for short -
Eurosceptic
sceptical about Europe, not just the euro -
Eurovision song contest
-
evacuate
You can evacuate a place, or people from a place. So "the islands were evacuated of thousands of people" and "thousands of people were evacuated from the islands" are both correct -
evangelical
fundamentalist wing of Christianity -
evangelist
someone who spreads the gospel -
eventually
often unnecessary, as in "the FTSE 100 drifted back, eventually closing 33.9 points lower at 5244.2"; the stock market always closes eventually -
every day
adverb meaning often: it happens every day -
everyday
adjective meaning ordinary: an everyday mistake -
every parent's nightmare
avoid this cliche -
exchequer, the
-
exclamation marks
Do not use! (As Scott Fitzgerald said, it is like laughing at your own jokes) -
exclusive
term used by tabloid newspapers to denote a story that is in all of them -
execution
the carrying out of a death sentence by lawful authority, so a terrorist, for example, does not "execute" someone -
ex officio
by right of position or office; ex parte on behalf of one party only -
exorcised
having had evil spirits removed; often used erroneously for exercised having one's passions inflamed by something -
expat, expatriate
not ex-pat or expatriot; this is "ex" meaning "out of" (as in export, extract), not "ex-" meaning "former" (as in ex-husband) -
explained
"said" is normally sufficient -
exploitative
rather than exploitive -
Export Credits Guarantee Department
ECGD at second mention -
exposé
-
extracurricular, extramarital, extraterrestrial, extraterritorial
-
"extrajudicial killing"
should be used only when quoting someone -
extrovert
not extravert -
eye level
no hyphen -
eyes
is being used increasingly for "considers", but it doesn't mean that. You might get away with "BoS eyes up Abbey" meaning considers it as a takeover target, but not "BoS eyes online insurance" meaning BoS is considering setting up an online sales operation -
eye-watering
The pace at which a fresh metaphor becomes a tired cliche seems to have increased in recent years; this one saw a huge increase in 2009 – although curiously, while "eye-watering" is only ever applied to money ("eye-watering sums"), its adverbial near relative is more versatile ("an eye-wateringly beautiful woman", "an eye-wateringly sharp sauvignon" and so on). The danger, as ever, is that the expression loses its force from overuse -
eyewitness
one word, but witness is preferable, except in the Guardian's Eyewitness picture spread -
Eyjafjallajökull
Icelandic volcano that brought peace to the skies for a short time in 2010
