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English Usage

Don't let's get carried away by small stuff. But here, for those hesitating between alternatives, are suggestions about some common English words or word patterns for which variant forms or practices exist. Nobody is in charge of the English language, and all we have as guidelines in difficult cases is an educated preference. We here share some of our own preferences, for consideration by contributors to the Project's journals.

On the whole we prefer single-l to double-l forms when no ambiguity results. We prefer to hyphenate rather than close up compounds whose elements are indistinct or misleading if run together, especially when the second element begins with a vowel (eg, reeducate). We prefer apostrophe-plus-s forms where the base word ends in a sibilant or is the name of a letter, while recognizing an argument the other way for certain proper names (Confucius' or Jesus'). We avoid periods after abbreviations, so as to reserve them for the ends of sentences; in the same spirit, we use the British-style raised period for the decimal point. We deplore the current rage for decapitalization: proper nouns (and their adjectives) have their uses. Don't use intrinsically pejorative words; a slur is not an argument. Some other prohibitions are highlighted in the list below.

References to "CM14" have in view the Chicago Manual of Style, 14ed, from which we depart on some key issues, We are in general sympathy with the judgements of Fowler's Modern English Usage (1926 and reprints), and authors citing Fowler in support will usually find that they have a winning argument.

To skip to a particular alphabetic entry in this list (except for the initial punctuation and numeral sections), use these shortcut links:

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

Punctuation and Spacing

• 04c "04th century" [close up without periods]
• 2v "2 volumes [closed up, without periods]
• ABC [close up all acronyms, without periods]
• b "born" [not closed up, because a circa data may follow]
• c0480 "circa" [closed up]
• d c0480 "died [not closed up, because a circa date may follow]
• eg "exempli gratia," no periods
• ibid [avoid this loathsome form altogether]
• Mr [no period]
• n4 [closed up]
• p64 [closed up]
• PhD [no periods]
• quotes: put all punctuation, not just final periods, inside quotes. Prettier
• qv "quod vide," [closed up, no periods]
• r "reigned" [not closed up, because a circa data may follow]
• series: use commas throughout. Bell, Book, and Candle
• v25 "volume 25" [closed up; no periods]
• vs "versus" [no period]

Numerals

• 1980's [cf "P's and Q's"]
• 2ed "2nd edition"
• 3x "three times" [occurrences of some term in a text]
• 3x5 in card [three-by-five-inch card; to avoid the sense "three 5-inch cards;" cf "x"]
• 40 km [spaced, because of the possibility of 40 km/hr]
• 5 May 2001 [we are pleased to concur in this recommendation with CM14 302]
• 6's and 9's [as obtained in divination; cf "sixes and sevens," below]
• 7/24 operation [properly a coordinate noun, thus slashed rather than hyphenated]
• 8's place [in binary notation, the 4th position left from the decimal point]
• 9° 14 N [the "minutes" sign on the 14 is unnecessary and is thus omitted]

Letters and Words

• a historian [not "an 'istorian," following CM14 208]
• a number of contractions [plural in sense, and takes plural verb; thus CM14 202]
  • a number of things ~ lots of things ~ many things
• Abelian [mathematics; see Lie groups]
• advisor [not "adviser" because of "advisory"]
• ae- [we slightly prefer these variants to the modernized e-forms; cf next two]
• aesthetic
• aetiology
• all together [in sum: "all together, there are 14 of them;" cf "altogether"]
• also [do not set off with commas; cf "I too" below, and note Gm "ich auch nicht," Fr "moi aussi"]
• altogether [entirely, very much: "there were altogether too many of them;" cf "all together"]
• AM [capitals help to distinguish abbreviations; the further distinction of periods is unnecessary, but cf J S Bach]
• ambience, because of "ambient"
• anti-intellectual [normally hyphenate between vowels at morpheme junctures]
• appendices [supplements to an article; cf next and "indices"]
• appendixes [organs of the body, cf previous]
• Arabic numerals
• archaeology
• artifact [because of "artifice, artificial"]
• at large [do not hyphenate; the case of "sergeant-at-arms" is not parallel]
• bamboo strips (the minority usage "bamboo slips" is also acceptable)
• benefited [we prefer not to double consonants on weak syllables; cf "fitted," but contrast "paralleled"]
• beside [physically next to: sat beside him]
• besides [in addition to]
• Biblical [as derived from the properly capitalized word Bible, on which see CM14 269]
• bioluminescent
• C minor [retain capital "c" in names of minor as well as major keys]; note:
  • Prelude in C Minor ["Minor" is capitalized as part of the title]
• cents' worth
• cf [OK, but do not begin a sentence or a note with it; use instead "See" or "Compare"]
• Chinese characters: full forms only. Give on first occurrence of a key term, but romanize thereafter.
• color
• colour (permitted if you are yourself British; so elsewhere)
• commentarial
• commentary on [the Analects, a book]
• commentary to [LY 4:15, a passage]
• Confuciuses [plural of the Anglicized term]
• Confucius's [possessive, and similarly when the main word ends in a sibilant; cf "Horace's." But see also Jesus']
• criticise [and other -ise forms): OK if you are yourself British; otherwise use -ize; cf colour.
• crossing the T [naval maneuver; notice the capital form when citing letter names]
• Crucifixion [capitalized when referring to that of Jesus in particular, not as a reverential device, but because it is a proper noun; cf "Peter's crucifixion"]
• cruxes [plural of the Anglicized word; "cruces" is good Latin but pedantic English]
• Dadaism [we continue to capitalize many proper nouns longer than does CM14. On -ism, cf "geisha-ism"]
• Darwinism
• decapitalization [do not follow the French practice of decapitalizing all adjectives]
• decimated (avoid in the sense of "almost entirely killed;" it means losing 10% of one's force in a battle)
• deconstruct (avoid, since always misused; it is not a synonym of 'analyze")
• de-institutionalize [hyphenate de- before a stem beginning with a vowel]
• despite [OK usage, but cf "or perhaps because"]
• deuteroPauline and deuterocanonical, but cf post-Apostolic, Deutero-Isaiah
• Dr [no period. But titles of respect are normally avoided in our usage anyway]
• du Halde [cf van Beethoven]
• e- [see under ae-]
• E E Cummings [be aware that Cummings never decapitalized his own name]
• eg [exempli gratia, but without all the periods]
• E-mail [in titles or headings, capitalize as E-Mail]
• enfief [not enfoeff, but rather as formed anew from "fief"]
• etiology, see rather aetiology
• fast-sailing ship [hyphenated to avoid confusion with "fast sailing-ship"]
• Franz Liszt [but cf Liszt Ferenc]
• filled [but cf "fulfil"]
• fitted [normally double final consonants on stressed syllables, as in "fitted," cf "benefited"]
• focused [cf "totaled"]
• four and a half [but cf "one-half"]
• four thousand [do not hyphenate this or similar forms]
• fulfil, fulfilment (but "fulfilled")
• geisha-ism [the coyness of citing scholars without saying what they say; cf "Dadaism"]
• gratuitous adjectives. Don't sneak in an evaluation this way, eg "Harnack's brilliant study." If you need to establish its adequacy for the task in hand, use a sentence. Otherwise, leave it alone; your citation proves your approval.
• great [forbidden if the following word is "historian"
• great-grandfather
• great-great-grandfather
• half-baked
• halfway
• he [in ancient times, normally so. Not necessary to continually indicate "he or she." For an alternate, see they]
• Homeric
• Horace's [this clear case is phonetically quite parallel to "Confucius's," qv]
• hotshot [now a standard locution; so also "wiseguy"]
• however [often gives a too fussy appearance if surrounded by commas; put it first with only one comma]
• However, [initial "however" implies a contrastive pause which the comma nicely represents]
• hyphenation [compounds are written together as they become familiar; there is no fixed rule].
• I too dislike it [revising Marianne Moore; do not set off "too" or "also" (qv) by commas; cf German"ich auch nicht"]
• I-beam
• Imperial [as referring to the specific British or Chinese Empire]
• imperialism [a general phenomenon, occurring in the history of several countries]
• indexes [more than one text index; as a concordance series; cf next and "appendices"]
• indices [more than one indicator, as population indices; cf preceding]
• Indology, Indological [no reason to have a different rule for adjectives; cf "Sinology"]
• interpretive (from "interpret") or interpretative (from "interpretation")
  • if an author has no clear preference, we recommend the shorter form
• instalment
• instil [cf "instilled"]
• -ise [in verbs]: permitted if you are yourself British; see "colour"
• -ism [hyphenate if a neologism, or if the stem ends in a vowel; cf "geisha-ism"]
• it's me [standard grammar for exposed or predicate pronouns; cf Fr "c'est moi," not "c'est je"]
• J S Bach [do not close up initials as though they were an acronym]
• Jesus' [the alternate Jesus's will always seem less respectful, but if you adopt this form, be consistent, hence James' etc]
• -jou [normally close up this placename element, eg Hangjou; cf -syen]
• judgement [see Fowler p310; the "e" here usefully signals the "soft g" sound in English spelling]
• King of Chi [our paradigmatic proper noun; cf the general term "Chi kingship"]
• last but not least [this toastmaster's joke is overworked; reduce to "last" or "finally"]
• Lie groups [mathematical; cf Hilbert spaces, Abelian functions]
• Liszt Ferenc [retain Hungarian order if name is in Hungarian form; cf Franz Liszt]
  • respect familiar exceptions, eg Ferenc Molnar
• Lombardy poplar [the proper-noun origin remains visible in the common noun]
• -ly [however grammatical, don't use two successive words ending in -ly. Rewrite]
  • "simply beautifully" > "just beautifully" (or just "beautifully")
• MA (cf PhD)
• Mawangdwei [an accustomed form, hence not hyphenated; cf hyphenation]
• me too [without comma, following natural intonation; cf "I too" and "also"]
• mediaeval [in general, prefer "ae" over "e" options; cf "aesthetic," "archaeology"]
• mid-04c [as an adjective, but "the mid 04c" as a noun]
• mid-Atlantic [but "middle Atlantic States"]
• minor; see C minor
• Mr [but normally use the plain surname; the effect of titles is often sarcastic]
• NE
• neo-Baroque [but cf next]
• neoclassical [but cf preceding]
• nitpick [but objections to someone else's detail are really better if simply given in detail]
• no one [phonetically a single word, but looks stupid if written together]
• non-integral [hyphenate "non-" compounds if the following word begins with a vowel]
• non-Sinitic [hyphenate "non-" compounds before a capital letter; cf "Sinitic"]
• nor [best restricted to the pattern "neither A nor B," and that not too frequently]
• of course [intrinsically offensive, and often used to smuggle in a unproved statement]
• one-half [as the name of a fraction, but cf "four and a half" and "one lousy half"]
• on-line
• or perhaps because [this device (cf despite) is overworked; give only your preferred conclusion]
• over-educated [the hyphen is useful if the next word begins with a vowel; cf next]
• overstuffed [cf preceding]
• p64 "page 674;" cf r
• paradoxically [use with care; most paradoxes vanish with clear thinking]
• paralleled [for non-doubled consonants on weak syllables, cf "fitted," "benefited"]
• PhD
• pitsi-pitsi ["quiddling;" hyphenate this and other onomatopoeic or affective expressions]
• place names [note the structurally parallel "personal names"]
• PM
• post-Apostolic, but cf deuteroPauline
• postmodernism [the term is printable; the stance is forbidden.
• P's and Q's [an example of the apostrophe in the plurals of letter names, but cf "X's and Y's"]
• pseudo-intellectual [a perhaps needless term; are there non-pseudo intellectuals?]
• QED [without periods as an abbreviation, the better to take a final period as a sentence]
• quasi-authorial
• quite [avoid as an adverb; tends to sound snotty, but "not quite" is OK]
• real time [as a noun phrase, as "in real time;" cf next]
• real-time [as an adjective, as "at our real-time Conferences;" cf preceding]
• relegate [often misused, and very limited when correctly used; such words are best avoided]
• SA [our standard compact form for the "Spring and Autumn" period]
• self-plonking idioms: do not use [see nitpick]
• self-styled [see "soi-disant"]
• sensei-ism [the demand that students parrot their teacher; avoid and penalize]
• Sinitic [use for "Chinese" in the pre-Chin period when "Chinese" is strictly speaking anachronistic]
• she [in ancient context, use only where known to be the case]
• Sinology, Sinological [this is what they invented capital letters for; cf "Indology"]
• sister-in-law
• sixes and sevens [but 6's and 9's, as in Yi divination results; cf "X's and Y's"]
• skeptical [the less unnatural spelling of this somehow always awkward word]
• soi-disant [insufferably arch in English; substitute "so-called." And then delete; avoid all pejoratives]
• -syen [normally hyphenate this place name element, eg Ding-syen; cf -jou]
• T S Eliot [we avoid many rules, eg CM14 198, by eliminating periods after abbreviations. cf J S Bach]
• Takigawa Kametarô (not Takikawa; so adjudicated on WSW 16 May 2003)
• that [do not use to globally replace "which;" each has its own uses]
• they [available as a substitute for "he or she"]
• thirty-four (hyphenate; see next)
• three hundred members (do not hyphenate; see next)
• the three-hundredth time (hyphenation is helpful in compound adjectives generally; cf preceding)
• too [as an adverb, do not set off by commas; cf "I too"]
• totaled [generally, prefer single-l forms in unaccented syllables]
• twenty-odd
• twenty-some
• two hundred [not hyphenated]
• underhanded
• updatable
• user-friendly
• van Beethoven [by preference, do not capitalize de, du, ibn, ten, ter, von; but follow any known author preference]
• Vedic [always capitalize; cf Biblical]
• vice-regent [hyphenate most "vice" compounds for clarity, but cf next]
• viceroy [established term]
• von [alphabetize German surnames by the following word, eg Falkenhausen]. At the beginning of a note or sentence, retain the noncapital form, thus "34. von Falkenhausen 1998 is of the opinion . . ."
• vs "versus" [no period]
• which [the only unambiguously relative pronoun; cf "that"]
• wiseguy [established slang term; cf "hotshot." But do you really need slang in formal writing?]
• WS [our standard compact form for the "Warring States" period]
• x [close up any preceding numerals, eg 3x "three times" as an occurrence frequency]
• X-ray
• x-ref [but: cross-reference]
• X's and Y's [when pluralizing the name of the letter; may be decapitalized in algebraic context]
• x's and y's [in algebraic context (cf previous); preferable to quotes around the letter name]
• Yangshau
• Yarbro Collins [alphabetize under Y, following known author preference, and not under C, as per the SBL Handbook of Style]
• zazen [as a mere term; cf next]
• Zen [the movement or cultural phenomenon; cf preceding]

These are some editorial preferences and default solutions. Reasoned departures from them are nearly always discussible.

21 Mar 2014 / Contact The Project