Online style guide
- a lot
is two words, as is all right
- a or an before H
all words beginning with H now take ‘a’, not ‘an’: a hotel, a historian, a hero, and so on ... except, of course, for silent H words like ‘an heir’.
- abattoir
- abbreviation
- abject
degrading (as in abject poverty), or humble (as in abject apology), not 'total'
- Aboriginal (adjective)
and Aborigine (noun) always capitalised to describe Australia’s original inhabitants
- abridge, abridgment
- abscess
- Abu Ghraib
prison
- AC Nielsen
the pollsters
- academic departments
department of history, department of economics (no caps)
- academic qualifications
PhD (Doctor of Philosophy), DipEd (Diploma of Education), MA (Master of Arts), MSc (Master of Science)
- accents
French words in common use like résumé and paté probably do need their accents to indicate the pronunciation of the final E that distinguishes them from similar words. Deja vu, chateau and cafe can be written without accents because they can't be confused with any other words. Follow the link below for HTML code to display the most common French accents.
- accents (German)
For a letter U with an umlaut (ü) to publish successfully online it should be written in HTML code as follows:
ü
- accessible
- accidentally
- accommodate, accommodation
- accordion
- accrue
does not mean 'acquire'. It means to come as a natural increase, usually financial.
- achilles heel
- acid test
(cliché) the success or failure of something
- acknowledgment
- acquiesce
- act, Act
capitalised in 'Native Title Act 1993', lower case in 'the act was passed in 1993', or 'we don't need an act of parliament to do it.'
- AD250
but 300BC
- adaptation
not adaption
- adapter
someone who adapts something (but electrical double adaptor)
- Addis Ababa
- administration
Bush administration, Clinton administration, etc.
- adrenalin
- adverse, averse
adverse weather conditions, but risk-averse
- adviser
American spelling is advisor, but we're holding out for adviser in Australia—at least for the moment.
- advisory
- AEDT, AEST
AEDT stands for Australian Eastern Daylight Time, and is used when daylight saving is in force. AEST stands for Australian Eastern Standard Time, and is used when daylight saving's over. We're still getting them confused because we think the S stands for summer. It doesn't; it stands for standard.
- aerate
- aerobics
- aeroplane, aerodrome, aerodynamics, aeronautics, aerospace
but aircraft, aircraft carrier, airline, airport
- aerosol
- affect, effect
(it affected me badly, to affect indifference, but: it had a bad effect on me.)
- affinity with or between
- afforestation, reforestation
not reafforestation
- aficionado
- Afrikaans
language, Afrikaner person
- aged care facility
Even though this has, regrettably, become standard usage, there's nothing wrong with 'home'.
- ageing
not aging
- aide
assistant
- aide-mémoire, aides-mémoire (plural)
- AIDS
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome. HIV is the human immunodeficiency virus which may lead to AIDS.
- aircraft, aircraft carrier, airline, airport
but aerodrome, aeroplane, aeronautics
- airhead
- al-Qaeda
(al- means 'the' in Arabic) so 'the al-Qaeda' is wrong
- Albright, Madeleine
- Albuquerque
New Mexico
- all right
not alright
- all together
as in 'we went all together in a group'. Not synonymous with 'altogether'
- all-time classic
- Allen and Unwin
- allies
no caps
- allude to
refer to indirectly (sometimes confused with elude which means to escape or avoid.)
- Almodovar, Pedro
film-maker
- along with
- alongside
- alternate
my mood alternates between rage and indifference
- alternative
If you don't like potatoes, rice might be a good alternative ... or alternatively you can go without.
- altogether
means wholly, completely, as in 'it's altogether disastrous'
- Alzheimer's disease
- am, pm
8.30am Thursday, 7pm Friday ... not 8.30am Thursday morning
- American spellings
are a giveaway if you're copying (rather than quoting) from a US-based website. Center, meter, theater, and so on, in Australian spelling have 're' endings. Other common American spellings are defense, skeptic, traveler, advisor, color, humor; which in Australia are spelled defence, sceptic, traveller, adviser, colour, humour.
- amid
not amidst
- amok
run amok (not amuck)
- among
not amongst
- ampersand (&)
please avoid unless part of company name or trademark
- analogous
- analogy
- analysand
person being analysed
- analyse, analysis, analyst, analytic, analytical
- Anangu
Anangu is the term that Yankunytjatjara and Pitjantjatjara Aboriginal people from the Western Desert region of Australia use to refer to themselves.
- anathema, anathemas
acid jazz is anathema to me
- ancestor
anyone you're descended from (your descendants are your offspring)
- and
please spell out in full ... don't use the ampersand symbol (&) unless it's part of a trade mark or title.
- Anglophile
someone who loves everything English
- Anglophobe
someone who fears or hates England and the English
- anglophone
an English-speaker
- annex (verb) annexe (noun)
- anoint, anointed
- Antarctic, Antarctica, the Antarctic
- anteroom
- anti-Semitic, anti-Semitism
- anticipate
means to prepare in advance for something, not the same as to expect.
- any more
but anyhow, anyone, anything, anyway, anywhere
- Anzac
not ANZAC
- apocalypse
- Apostles Creed
no apostrophe
- apostrophes
for tips on how to use apostrophes in joint ownership and after names ending in 's', follow link below:
- appal, appalling
- apparatuses
- apparel
- apparent
- appraise
to assess (apprise is to inform)
- APRA
Australasian Performing Right Association
- Arrernte
Central Australian Aboriginal tribe (formerly Arunta or Aranda)
- art nouveau
- artefact, artisan, artifice
remember the artefact is the object made by the artisan, who might show some artifice in the process.
- articles
in journals, chapters in books: titles appear in single quotes
- asphalt
- aspirin
generic term, so no caps
- assassinate
- attorney-general, attorneys-general
- auger
a hole-boring tool
- augur
it augurs well for the future
- Aung San Suu Kyi
Burmese democratic leader
- AusAID
- Austen, Jane
- Austin, Texas
- authoritative
not authoritive
- avant garde
- avenge
Catwoman does not avenge her killers, she avenges herself on her killers. To avenge someone means to seek vengeance on their behalf.
- averse to
disinclined, reluctant (adverse means opposed, unfavourable, as in adverse weather conditions). The Cambridge Australian English Style Guide says: With such adverse results from the election, he was not averse to a little whisky...
- Ayatollah Khomeini
- Ayers Rock
Uluru
- Azerbaijan