BEST GUIDE TO WRITING STYLE

P
paedophile paean palate pallor panacea parallel, paralleled parallel structure in writing this implies a similarity or continuity of structure; failure is not strictly a grammatical errors but it is confusing, inelegant and generally just sounds wrong eg: he enjoys, books, music and riding his bicycle (two nouns followed by verbal gerund) might sound better as, he enjoys reading books, listening to music and riding his bicycle; the new pram is ingenious and a clever innovation (one adjective and one noun complementing the verb), can be recast as, the new pram was ingenious and innovative paraphernalia parentheses correct name for brackets; bracket was the traditional name for what is now known as the square bracket. The distinction has been pretty well lost. parenthetical statements can also be enclosed in commas and dashes; see entry for punctuation Parkinsons disease part and parcel partially participial phrases part is enough means incomplete, partly means to some extent if starting a sentence they must refer to the grammatical subject (walking down the road, Aloysius saw a woman accompanied by two children - the word walking refers to the subject of the sentence - in this case Aloysius - and not to the woman) if the phrase is not intended to refer to the subject the phrase has to be placed elsewhere (Aloysius saw a woman, accompanied by two children, walking down the road); ignoring this rule leads to comical results participles partner party passer-by passive voice see entry for dangling participles is a member of a business organisation like a firm of solicitors and not acceptable as synonym for boy-friend, lover, mistress etc is lower case even when referring to a political label plural is passers-by has less impact than the active so avoid it when possible. It is not only less punchy but generally less clear and more verbose. Or, as Harold Evans has it clarity, economy and vigour go hand in hand. So instead of There will be a meeting held by the companys directors next week, say The directors will hold a meeting next week actually that contains a hint: any sentence that starts there is, and such phrases can usually be recast into a more concise and striking form pastiche originally meant a picture or opera made up unrelated fragments or deriving from a range of sources, a pot-pourri, but that usage died out centuries ago and the word now means a creation copied from an original or in the style of another artist, usually of a previous age past tense provide problems about when to double the final consonant. There are two rules but they are too complicated re remember readily and, as usual, have exceptions. For instance, the final consonant is doubled after a stressed syllable or short single vowel (pinned wetted regretted) but not if preceded by a long or double vowel (seated repeated); it is also not doubled after an unstressed syllable (budgeted marketed). In general however follow the OED in doubling consonants: benefited, riveted, paralleled, picketed; but allotted, handicapped -t rather than -ed is preferred for the past tense of some words: dreamt, knelt, learnt, spilt, wrought; BUT earned, smelled, spelled; and he burned the cakes, the cakes were burnt patois is a pretentious French word for dialect - stick to the English word means curing everything and so calling it a universal panacea is tautologous, and referring to one of the better panaceas is silly is used to mean sexual desire for children (the strict meaning suggests only liking for them); not to be confused with paediatrician, who is a doctor specialising in childhood diseases; pederast is a man who has sex with a boy is a song of praise; paeon is a metrical foot of one long and three short syllables; a peon is in Spanish America a peasant servant (rather more obscurely, in India an infantryman or constable) is the roof of the mouth or taste; palette is the board artists hold on which they squeeze paints; pallet is a wooden platform for storage

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payment PC peak peccadillo pedagogue pedal pedant peddle pedlar peer Peking peninsula peon per

rather than payout avoid as abbreviation whether for police constable, postcard, press conference, personal computer, or politically correct; acceptable only in rare circumstances after the name for Privy Counsellor is the top, the summit; peek is to take a little look a minor fault, the plural is peccadilloes teacher, lecturer, and not necessarily a pedant (qv) is used in connection with feet (the bit pushed on a bicycle or a piano) is a meticulous stickler for learned accuracy; dogmatic insister on sticking the established learned rules; ostentatious displayer of learning; do not confuse with pedagogue means to sell in a casual or impermanent way for itinerant chapman, hawker or trader; peddler for drug pusher see the entry on titles; it is also used for an equal (eg a jury of your peers); also means to look hard rather than Beijing is the noun, peninsular the adjective is a peasant in Spanish; paean is a hymn of praise gratuitous Latinisms signal showing off, so if there is a common English usage, avoid them; gross domestic product is not per capita but so much a head, steel production is not tonnes per year but a year BUT some usages have become common enough to be normal usage: miles per gallon, per cent

per cent

when dealing with changes it is important to differentiate between a percent rise and the rise of a percentage point - if inflation rose from 4% to 5% it did not rise by one per cent (that would have taken the new rate to 4.04%), it rose by one percentage point or by 25%

percentage of perceptible peremptory Performing Right Society Persian Gulf persona personal computer Perspex Peterhouse (Cambridge) petite phased phenomenon Philippines Philips pidgin

some is preferable unless a specific number is attached brusque not Rights rather than Arabian Gulf is Jungs word for the mask an individual turns to the world, his role and way of filling social expectations, and is therefore not a synonym for personality a classic oxymoron for something that impersonal so avoid (except for IBMs trade-marked model) and use desk-top computer instead is a trade name for acrylic sheet and therefore takes an initial capital letter is not called Peterhouse College avoid as a description of a woman in stages of phases and is not be confused with fazed which means discomposed or disturbed is the singular, phenomena is plural but Filipinos and Filipinas for the Dutch electronics company note just one l is a rudimentary language devised by people without a common tongue eg pidgin English; a creole is a stable language created by a mixture of two or more languages, usually with radical changes and a syntax which is not obviously borrowed from either of the parent tongues, which may themselves be creoles or pidgins

Pilates Pimms PIN pit bull terrier place names

is a trademarked name for an system of exercise stands for personal identification number, so it is silly to talk of a PIN number the third word is needed, otherwise the reference is to the cattle fought by the dogs should follow The Times Atlas and hence local usage except where custom and anglicisation have long changed practice: Antwerp (Antwerpen) Archangel (Arkangelsk) Austria (sterreich) Bavaria (Bayern) Benares (Varanasi) Bombay (Mumbay) Brunswick (Braunschweig) Bucharest (Buchuresti) Burgundy (Bourgogne) Burma (Myanmar) Calcutta (Kolkata) Canton Ceylon (Sri Lanka) Cologne (Kln)

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Crete (Kriti) Crimea (Krim) Croatia (Hrvatska) Danube (Donau, Duna, Dunarea) Faeroes (Frayar) Finland (Suomi) Florence (Firenze) Flushing (Vlissingen) Franconia (Franken) Gallipoli (Gelibolu) Germany (Deutschland) Greece (Ellas) The Hague (Den Haag) Hanover (Hannover) Hesse (Hessen) Hungary (Magyarorszg) Italy (Italia) Leghorn (Livorno) Lisbon (Lisboa) Lithuania (Lietuva) Lyons (Lyon) Mantua (Mantova) Marseilles (Marseille) Mongolia Moscow (Moskva) Munich (Mnchen)

Nanking, Naples (Napoli) Norway (Norge) Peking (Beijing) Poona (Pune) Prague (Praha) Prussia (Preussen) Rheims (Reims) Rhodes (Rodos) Rome (Roma) Rumania (Romania) Salonika (Thessaloniki) Saragossa (Zaragoza) Saxony (Sachsen) Shanghai Simla (Shimla) Smyrna (Izmir) Spain (Espaa) Sweden (Sverige) Taiwan Tiflis (Tbilisi) Turin (Torino) Venice (Venezia) Vienna (Wien) Warsaw (Warszawa) Westphalia (Westfalen)

As the Guardian style book puts it, next time someone says we should call Burma Myanmar because that is what it calls itself, point out that Colonel Gadafy renamed Libya The Great Socialist Peoples Libyan Arab Jamahiriyya. Kazakhstan has changed the spelling of its largest town from Alma-Ata to Almaty and shifted the capital to Astana . some places, especially Belgian or Swiss, have several variants. Unless anglicised usage supervenes choose the one most popular with residents: Basel, Ticino plans plaster of paris Plasticene players pleonasms plethora plurals are by definition for the future so calling them future plans is irritating the rapidly-setting plaster was so called because the gypsum originally came from Montmartre but common usage has now lost its the initial capital letter is a trade name is fine for games but can seem condescending when referring to serious matters, so it should be used sparingly in stories about financial matters (so many players in the banking market) clutter prose and irritate readers; avoid phrases like future prospects, future plans (unless of plans to be made in the future but even that may confuse), major disaster, past history, foreign imports, joint agreement, unfilled vacancy does not just mean lots but an unhealthy excess, a superabundance produce so many problems there can be no general rule Greek and Latin words should generally follow the classical language version: addenda, alumni, bacilli, bacteria, bronchi, cacti, consortia, crematoria, data, foci, fungi, genera, gladioli, graffiti, errata, media (but mediums for those in touch with the spirit world), narcissi, nuclei, phenomena, memoranda, radii, referenda, stimuli, strata, stigmata, termini, traumata BUT abacuses, stadiums, compendiums, craniums, hippopotamuses (or better still hippos), honorariums, rostrums, vacuums, nostrums, quorums, agendas, panaceas, ultimatums practice varies also for words ending on o: bravoes (for thugs), buffaloes, calicoes, cargoes, dominoes, echoes, embargoes, grottoes, haloes, heroes, innuendoes, mangoes, mementoes, mosquitoes, mottoes, negroes, porticoes, potatoes, salvoes, tomatoes, torpedoes, vetoes, volcanoes

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BUT altos, avocados, bravos (for cheers), commandos, concertos (in preference to concerti), dingos, dynamos, embryos, Eskimos, fiascos, gigolos, gizmos, innuendos, manifestos, tobaccos, pianos, provisos, radios, solos, sopranos, stilettos, virtuosos words ending in a should be pluralised by adding s BUT algae, alumnae, formulae, lacunae, laminae, larvae, nebulae, papillae, vertebrae words ending in -ex and -ix are pluralised by adding -es BUT appendices, calices, cortices, helices, indices (for mathematics only) Latin and Greek words ending in -is change that into -es: analyses, axes (from axis), oases endings in -f are unpredictable: dwarfs, handkerchiefs, roofs, turfs BUT calves, hooves, scarves, sheaves, wharves proper names ending in a y merely add an s: Marys, zlotys French words ending in -eau are anglicised by adding an s in the plural: bureaus (for furniture), tableaus, plateaus BUT chateaux, bureaux (for offices) composite words pluralise the key indicator: secretaries-general, governors-general (since they are not generals), major generals (they are not majors), aides-de-camp (most of them not very camp), runners-up (to show they are not uppish), lord mayors, lord lieutenants, aide-memoires BUT lords justices see the entries under none, verbs (for agreement with subject) point-blank pointed out point up political correctness pomposity suggests you believe the speaker, so deploy with care should be avoided in the sense of emphasised avoid the phrase except in quotation, as it is derogatory and contemptuous and news stories should not express opinions; in comment writing try to be sure it is not just to make you feel superior or reinforce prejudice. See entry for labels is almost always a sign of something dodgy about the writer or the message: a blatant attempt to impress, mislead, or obscure. The effect is produced by long or latinate words which are either superfluous or easily replaced by shorter ones ongoing, escalating, prestigious, meaningful, facility, confrontation see also the entry for simplicity populace populist port Portakabin posh positive is another word for population; populous means densely populated panders to mass tastes and is not therefore the same as popular is the left side of ship when facing towards the front (bows) and starboard is the right is a trade name for a portable building do not use as a word is not a synonym for favourable; positive thoughts or reactions are nonsense in the tone of writing even an absence or a negative is easier to read and understand if stated in a positive fashion: instead of the government has decided not to impose the planned tax increase, say the government has abandoned plans to increase tax possessives Post-it Notes post mortem Post Office practicable practice precipitate see entries under genitive, punctuation are trademarked means only after death, so the autopsy is a post mortem examination is capitalised for the organisation but not its individual branches means capable of being effected; practical means adapted to actual conditions is the noun, practise is the verb has a number of meanings: as a verb it means to throw down or fall, from which derives the scientific use of causing a deposit from a solution, or it can mean to hasten the occurrence of something or to rush headlong; as a noun it is the deposit from solution; as an adjective it can mean that hasty or rash action; and it is therefore quite different from precipitous precipitous precondition pregnant premise means very steep, as in the face of a cliff; do not confuse with precipitate almost always condition will suffice is preferred to expectant, enceinte etc; impregnate for to make pregnant is a basic statement or assumption in a logical argument; premises may be plural of that, or applied to property/land in which case the word is always in the plural but in that sense it would be clearer to specify whether offices, factory, laboratory pre-owned is a mealy-mouthed phrase suggesting a second-hand item has been owned but not used, which is seldom true, so avoid

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prepositions

should not end sentences in elegant writing; it is not a grammatical mistake to do so - the fetish arose from a grammar book by an 18th century Bishop of London, Robert Lowth who disregarded good writing of previous generations, including Shakespeares the heartache and natural shocks that flesh is heir to, which sounds all right; once the absence of any logical basis for the rule was discovered it grew to be called a pedantic affectation, but it still irritates some readers and, what is even worse, can make sentences sound ill thought out and lame; on the other hand it is preferable to convoluted syntax which is the point Churchill was saying when complaining that was the sort of writing up with which I will not put, or as Kessler and McDonald put it in When Worlds Collide, it is like cracking eggs with one hand, do it as long as you dont make a mess. many prepositions are superfluous with transitive verbs: up is unnecessary with verbs such as tighten, buy, free, head, join, polish, hurry, hoist, divide, drink, eat, gather, ended, settle, fill, check off is superfluous in sell, cut with is almost pleonastic when used with consult and unnecessary with meet down should be omitted: slow out is not needed with; pay, win, stressed, lose, check avoid lucked out altogether multiple prepositions are even worse: met rather than met with or met up with, faced rather than faced up to, check rather than check up on appeal against, compare with, protest against, prefer to prepositional phrases are usually verbose and superfluous (in order to, in accordance with, in receipt of, in the wake of)

prescribe presently press prestigious

means to outline or recommend a rule, conduct or medicine; proscribe means to prohibit can mean in a little while or currently and this ambiguity suggests it is best avoided lower case for newspapers really means cheating, deceptive, illusory, conjuring; the struggle by the insisters on precise meanings against using it to denote having prestige is probably pretty well lost; all the same, it does no harm to use some other formulation such having high prestige, eminent, distinguished, admired

presumptive presumptuous prevaricate preventive prices PricewaterhouseCoopers pride priests

is having reason to presume (the heir presumptive will inherit unless another child is born to someone else) means impudent, impertinent means to be evasive, to quibble, or equivocate and is not therefore a synonym for procrastinate which means to put off or delay preferred to preventative can be high but not expensive, or low but not cheap is the clumsy name for the large accountancy firm, abbreviated to PwC goes before a fall is a misquotation; the Bible actually says pride goeth before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall the Reverend James Long, not the Reverend Long Anglican bishops are consecrated, Catholic bishops are ordained the Archbishop of Canterbury is Primate of All England, the Archbishop of York is Primate of England

Princes Street principal principle prior to pristine privilege Privy Council pro proactive probe pro bono

Edinburgh capital, chief, important; so it is a noun (as used of the principal of a college), or an adjective (eg the principal needs of a company) concept, ideal, moral; it is applied to fundamental beliefs (as in, it is not the money but the principle) and basic truths; somebody holding such moral tenets is sometimes called principled means before so say so means in the original untouched state, and does not mean spotless or clean but Privy Counsellor avoid as contraction for both professional and prostitute is officialese and management-speak; English alternatives are energetic, taking the initiative, active and instrument used by dentists, geologists et al; do not use as an alternative to investigation means for the good and it is therefore meaningless to say a lawyer is doing pro bono work; it would make more sense if the full phrase were spelled out - pro bono publico - which means for the public good, but then that is what all lawyers are

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supposed to be working for as servants of the court, so it might be best to avoid the pretentious Latin tag altogether and say the lawyer worked for no fee procrastinate prodigal prognosis program pro-life campaigner prone pronoun means to put off or delay; do not confuse with prevaricate which means to quibble, evade means being extravagant and a spendthrift and has nothing to do with going away; the prodigal son of the Bible recklessly spent all his money while away from home is a forecast for the likely outcome, usually of a disease (after a diagnosis); the plural is prognoses for computers, programme elsewhere avoid; use anti-abortionist instead means lying face down, so does prostrate according to the OED and several other authorities; supine is lying on ones back or spine; recumbent is just lying down traditionally the maxim was he embraces she so he was a generic singular pronoun; feminist sensibilities and political correctness produce objections to that but usages such he or she are clumsy so try to find another way of phrasing such as putting the sentence into the plural (by do try to avoid usages such tell every member to pay their subscription) or turning the sentence round proof spirit propellant prophecy proscribe prospects prostate protagonist proven punctuation is a measure of alcohol content with 70 proof being about 40% alcohol by volume has a propellent effect is the noun, the forecast; the verb is prophesy means to prohibit; prescribe is to direct or order, including for medicine not future prospects is a gland at the base of the penis, prostrate is lying face down means chief actor or performer, not advocate or champion, and there is only one of him is an archaic version of proved and best left unused except as part of the third verdict in Scottish criminal courts: not proven (see also diresis, capital letters, hyphens) an example of how much punctuation can change the meaning of a message was shown by a passage suggested by Cecily Roberts to Lynne Truss. One version runs: Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when were apart. I can be for ever happy - will you let me be yours? Jill. With alternative punctuation it can read: Dear Jack, I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When were apart I can be for ever happy. Will you let me be? Yours Jill. Another example is woman, without her man, is nothing," and "woman: without her, man is nothing". Toronto's Globe and Mail, 6 August 2006 reports a true story of a misplaced comma in a contract to string cable lines along utility poles costing a Canadian company $2.13 million. In 2002, Rogers Communications Inc signed off on what was assumed to be a longterm contract with Aliant Inc but in early 2005 Aliant gave notice of a hefty rate-hike and was backed by regulators with the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission. Page seven of the contract says the agreement "shall continue in force for a period of five years from the date it is made, and thereafter for successive five year terms, unless and until terminated by one year prior notice in writing by either party. Based on the rules of punctuation, observed the regulators, the comma in question allows for the termination of the [contract] at any time, without cause, upon one-year's written notice. Without that second comma after "successive five year terms," terminating the contract would apply only to successive terms, which is what Rogers' lawyers thought they were agreeing to. However, with the addition of the comma, the phrase "and thereafter for successive five year terms" is treated as an interruption. That is how Aliant treated it, and could. This is a classic case of where the placement of a comma has great importance, Aliant said. apostrophes singular words and plural words not ending in s form the possessive by adding s, eg Boeings new airliner, the childrens books. plurals without an s on the end such as men, women, children take s for the possessive (childrens games, womens studies, gentlemens outfitter) possessives of singular nouns ending in -s have an apostrophe, with second s if normal pronunciation demands it, eg classs performance, Mr Jamess book, the Bridges house; St Jamess Street; Brookss Club; Charless; plural possessives take an apostrophe after the final s BUT some ancient proper names Jesus and Moses do not take the extra s; nor do multisyllabic Greek names, so Aristophanes plays, Archimedes principle, Achilles heel; though it is probably neater to turn the phrase around (of Jesus,

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of Moses); also for goodness sake, Siemens results, St Thomas Hospital; but some look odd (Paris/Pariss, Tunis/Tuniss) so recast the sentence when the possessive refers to ownership jointly by two people, only the one nearest the possessed needs the apostrophe (Helen and Georges house) an apostrophe is need in phrases such as in two days time, 12 years waiting where the time period modifies the noun (time), but not where the time period is adverbial (modifying the adjective) as in nine months pregnant, three years old if in doubt test with the a singular (such as one month pregnant) an apostrophe is also needed to indicate the omission of a letter (dont) but no longer needed to show the omissions in phone, cello or flu greengrocers apostrophe is the scornful term for evidence of ignorance in inserting unnecessary apostrophes in plurals (carrots 1960s) unnecessary in all cases the confusion of the possessive its (no apostrophe) with the contractive its is an unequivocal sign of illiteracy and sends off a simple Pavlovian kill response in the average stickler. Such people deserve to be struck by lightning, hacked up on the spot and buried in an unmarked grave said Lynn Truss in Eats, Shoots and Leaves. Others offended by such silly mistakes are Keith Waterhouse who started the Association for the Abolition of the Aberrant Apostrophe. Steven Pinker The Language Instinct as an indication of the way apostrophes can alter meaning my sisters friends investments my sisters friends investments my sisters friends investments my sisters friends investments which all mean something very different. brackets a useful way of interpolating a thought that is too separate to be encased merely in commas, but despite the mark of separation being clearer the inserted passage should still be short enough to prevent confusion by the reader forgetting what the main point of the sentence was. If a prolonged passage seems to be needed, a separate sentence would be easier for the reader. if the whole of a quotation is inside brackets, the full point should be as well, if not the full stop is outside. words interpolated as explanation into quotations should be encased in square brackets If a bracketed section in the middle of a sentence is followed by a comma, it also goes outside the bracket. colons colons introduce a list promised in the previous phrase or sentence (my needs are few: a jug of wine and thou) though not in a way that separates a transitive verb from its object (a painter needs: paints, canvas, a model and money - either the colon should just be removed or the sentence rewritten (a painter needs four things: money, drink, praise and sex); or if the second phrase or clause explains, amplifies or interprets the first; use lower case following one they do not need to be accompanied by a dash (:-) commas provide a guide to sense, to break a sentence into logically discrete parts, but not so much they break the flow of a sentence or make the text look flyblown commas are needed in non-defining relative clauses and when the information is parenthetical, ie is not essential to complete the meaning of the sentence (my wife, who is in America, is suing for maintenance; Benjamin Disraeli, Chancellor of the Exchequer, spoke fluently) but not in defining relative clauses ie clauses or phrases which cannot be removed without affecting meaning (the airliner, which was seven years old, crashed but the airliner that crashed was seven years old, but the plane crashing the previous week was brand new), nor if the definition precedes the person (the emperor Julius, the writer Anthony Trollope), nor when the name and designation are a single unit (Sammy Davis Junior, Billy the Kid, Frederick the Great). So a sign which said No dogs please is wrong because many of them work hard at being fun - a desire to exclude canines needs a comma. commas are also used to encase parenthetical statements (Sir, your wife, under the pretence of keeping a bawdy house, is a receiver of stolen goods), but when the clauses are complete and not joined by a conjunction, use a semicolon commas are also used to separate titles and forms of address (Now, Sir, there is liberty of the press) commas separate lists and are usually omitted before the final one where and is used instead a dusting of many commas suggests the sentence could benefit from being rewritten

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dashes the dash may be used for parenthesis as alternatives to pairs of brackets, but not as substitute for commas and not more than one pair per sentence in some circumstances it can also serve as an alternative to a colon when the subsequent clause is more an elaboration than a direct amplification exclamation marks exclamation marks are to emphasise a shout so the few correct uses are for genuine exclamations or yelps of intolerable agony or enthusiasm or peremptory command (Halt! Help!); except in those usages they are generally best avoided; as a way of indicating you have made a joke they merely emphasise the absence of something really funny (Lynne Truss reckons it is like canned laughter at TV shows, F Scott Fitzgerald said it was like laughing at your own jokes, and Miles Kington dismissed as the literary equivalent of a man holding up a card reading LAUGHTER to a studio audience ie shows an absence of confidence the joke was funny); as a form of emphasis they generally show the failure to phrase the sentence appropriately and do not add anything; in any case people do not care to be shouted at hyphens should be used when the sense of the word might otherwise be obscured, the word would be difficult to read, and for compound nouns and adjectives: anti-submarine, fine-tooth comb, micro-organism, non-payment, two-thirds, vicepresident, a long-awaited buy-out, a re-formed government which is quite different from a reformed government, extrajudicial duties (duties other than judicial ones) as opposed to extra judicial duties (additional judicial duties), extra-marital sex, three year-old horses are different from three-year-old horses, a little-used car which is different from a little used car (The Guardian newspaper was once attacked for its unnecessary references to ethnic origins because it printed news of a black cab driver, but could have avoided the problem if it had printed, as it meant, a black-cab driver.); also to replace preposition to as in Burma-Siam railway with some prepositions as co-respondent, neo-classical, ex-president (though former president is probably better), nonnuclear, and to make reading easier when two vowels would come together to make reading difficult, eg pre-empt, reestablish BUT: blueprint, ceasefire, coastguard, cooperate, multilingual, nonconformist, nonplussed, overpaid, shipbuilding, workforce, gunrunner compound nouns and adjectives are hyphenated (actor-manager, though there anomalies: machine-gun, sub-machinegun) but not the associated verb: a build-up but to build up; the left wing of the party, but a first-class result, the left-wing party BUT housekeeper hyphenate two adjectives or an adjective and a present or past participle when they are paired to form a new adjective, eg a dark-blue dress, a good-looking man, a well-tailored suit; but not with very: she was a very good cook where a verb and adverb are paired to form a noun, hyphenate if the verb ends and the adverb begins with a vowel, e.g. cave-in, flare-up. if written out, hyphenate fractions (three-quarters, two-thirds) if two terms are used put a hyphen with each (short- and long-range missiles) titles with one half a preposition need hyphens (under-secretary), but do not hyphenate when the noun follows the adjective, eg second lieutenant use the hyphen if its omission might lead to ambiguity, e.g. three year-old horses is quite different from three-year-old horses. hyphenate if pre- or re- is followed by an another e, eg pre-empt, re-employ words starting with non eg a non-aggression pact BUT nonconformist hyphenate secondary compass points: south-southwest hyphenate fractions: three-quarters, two-thirds. quotation marks quotation marks are double for reported speech, with single within double. If indicating so-called (girls) or a specialised use of a word, use single quotes. Punctuation falls outside if the quotation is less than full sentence within the text: Oscar Wilde said there is no sin except stupidity. The Press beginneth to be an oppression of the land. questionmarks

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 questionmarks do not follow a question in indirect speech: He wondered if she would stop talking. BUT He wondered, would she ever stop talking? semicolons semicolon is useful for replacing commas in long lists with attendant descriptions they should also be used when to separate two clauses complete enough in themselves to stand alone with a full stop between, without a conjunction but are sufficiently linked to create a unit (Anthony Burgess was versatile; he wrote under several pseudonyms.); if there is an adverb linking the sentences, a semicolon would still be preferable pundit punt punter purchase Pushtun pyrrhic victory is a learned Hindu versed in Sanskrit and ancient law or an erudite teacher; now often used colloquially to describe experts, especially if self-appointed, but it is loose, unclear and of equivocal approval; best avoided rather than Irish pounds, for the currency for a gambler is acceptable only as part of an elegant variation to prevent repetition; it is not acceptable as a label for the customer of a prostitute say buy is one of the main languages and peoples of Afghanistan; not Pathan note spelling and lower-case p; it is a victory gained at too great a cost and comes from the comment by Pyrrhus after his battle of Asculum against the Romans, which was victorious though with high casualties among his own soldiers: One more such victory and we are lost

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