As always, use common sense: a piece about the late film director Carlo Ponti was edited to say that in his early career he was “already a man with a good eye for pretty actors ...” As the readers’ editor pointed out in the subsequent clarification: “This was one of those occasions when the word ‘actresses’ might have been used” a political philosophy that advocates stateless societies, holding the state to be undesirable, unnecessary and harmful. Write all other numbers in numerals (including 2 to 9) except where it’s part of a common expression like ‘one or two of them’ where numerals would look strange. 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. Use local council, instead of local authority, where possible. See also council. overseas-trained teacher

Although we loosely refer to the “average” in many contexts (eg pay), there are two useful averages worth distinguishing. Kingsley Amis in The King’s English said alright was “gross, crass, coarse and to be avoided” but admitted this was “a rule without a reason”.Lower case when a group has a very generic title like working group or research team. Guardian’s Allowance In British English you appeal against a decision, verdict, etc, you do not “appeal the verdict”. After we reported on 9 June 2010 that a convicted murderer “successfully appealed the sentence”, a despairing reader wrote: “This usage seems to be occurring more and more, sometimes even in headlines. Do Guardian journalists not read the style guide?” Not all of them, evidently In technical writing, don’t write ‘identification’ or ‘identifier’, unless it’s part of a standard abbreviation. For example, ‘unique identifier (UID)’. ie amount refers to a quantity, number to something that can be counted, eg an enormous amount of energy was exerted by a small number of people

Used most commonly to mean “with regard to”, it does not need a preposition, so “apropos your question ... “ But note the idiomatic “apropos of nothing ...” which means something like “changing the subject” or “incidentally”.Using this word to mean annoy, rather than make worse, really aggravates some people. Good. Both meanings have been around for more than 400 years, and there is no good reason why both should not be acceptable now .

Lower case and not in inverted commas: Westminster School was judged outstanding in its latest Ofsted inspection. Arabic for “the God”. Both words refer to the same concept: there is no major difference between God in the Old Testament and Allah in Islam. Therefore it makes sense to talk about “God” in an Islamic context and to use “Allah” in quotations or for literary effectdeploy (unless it’s military or software), use ‘use’ or if putting something somewhere use ‘build’, ‘create’ or ‘put into place’ When using real time information in any other sense, it should be lower case. Rebated Oils Enquiry Service The Shadow Secretary of State for XXX is upper case whether or not it’s used with the holder’s name because there is only one. Use common sense to capitalise shortened versions of the Secretary of State titles: the Shadow Health Secretary. also known, less commonly nowadays, as All Fools’ Day; an individual prank, or the victim of one, is an April fool, so you might say “one of the greatest April fools was the Guardian’s San Serriffe issue of 1977 – it made April fools of all who were taken in”

Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters (an initialism): BBC, CEO, US, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (pronounced as a word) spell out with initial capital, eg Nasa, Nato, Unicef, unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo, pin number and sim card. Note that pdf and plc are lowercase.Upper case when referring to the business area covered by Money Laundering Regulations. Do not use the acronym. Accounts Office Front-load your link text with the relevant terms and make them active and specific. Always link to online services first. Offer offline alternatives afterwards, when possible. Only use upper case when referring to the name of an academy, like Mossbourne Community Academy. See also Titles. academy converters For other types of sanction, say what will happen to the user - you’ll get points on your licence, go to court and so on. Only say ‘civil penalty’ if there’s evidence users are searching for the term.