any rod-shaped bacterium. Bacillus anthracis causes anthrax.

get off on the back foot

if you mean a change of mind, it’s better to use ‘about-face’ . When you do a backflip you end up still facing the same way.

police backup, but you back up to a door, or back up your files

to scoop water from a boat, or pay to get someone out of custody

one word, as in $700 billion bailout but two words, no hyphen, in 'If the EU and the USA can find billions to bail out the banks...'

it was a balmy summer night, but you drive me barmy

trademark, so capitalise

the rail at the side of a stair, but Sir Roger Bannister was the first to run a mile in under four minutes

not Barak. He may be losing popularity but we still need to spell his name correctly.

primitive, uncivilised but not bad (barbarous is more likely to be cruel as well as unrefined).

not BBC or barbeque

barometer of style, barometer of public opinion. Car sales have always been a barometer of how the economy is travelling should be rewritten as 'car sales have always been a barometer of the economy' or 'car sales have always been an indicator of how the economy is travelling.'

London-based writer, Australian-born artist, Chicago-based poet, Russian-born dancer. You can be born Russian, Australian etc, but you can't be based Russian or Australian. So 'English-based' is wrong. Better to say 'based in England', or if you can narrow it down to a city or town use 'London-based' etc.

a market, but bizarre is odd

trademark, so capitalise

this means to evade the issue (strictly to assume as the resolution of an argument the point being argued). It does not mean to raise the question, as in 'that raises the question of whether politicians should get funded study trips at all'. So when you mean to raise the question, please use raise, not beg.

indescribable

leader of opinion (literally a castrated ram with a bell around its neck, used to lead a flock of sheep). Not 'bellweather'

back bench, front bench, back bencher, front bencher

intellectually or morally ignorant

doesn't need a circumflex accent

not between you and I

twice a year (biennial is every two years)

capitalised when referring to the Old and New Testaments, but lower case for biblical and fishermen's bible.

Bible references should be written like this:
Book (Mark, Psalms, Genesis etc) followed by letter space, followed by chapter number, or psalm number, followed by colon, followed immediately (no letter space) by verse number(s). For instance, Mark 6:3 or John 3:2–4 or Psalms 12:1–2

200th anniversary

every two years (biannual is twice a year)

needs caps when used as a nickname referring exclusively to New York

lower case while a bill is being introduced in parliament, upper case once it's become law

trademark, so capitalise

a sound bite (a byte is a number of binary digits, or bits, usually 8)

one word, capital B and T

strange (bazaar is a market)

always needs its acute accent

means showing the way for others who come after you. So blazing a new trail is a tautology.

political group

indented quotations of more than a few lines are achieved in Wallace by using the HTML blockquote tag

as in 'a blonde' (f) or 'a blond' (m) but it's blond hair for everyone

should appear in italics when in body text (not in headings)

correctly known as the Man Booker prize from 2003 on, because it's now sponsored by the Man Group, but still colloquially referred to as 'the Booker'.

(Nielsen BookScan) one word, capital S

carried by, as in airborne, or 'our conjecture was borne out (corroborated) by events. Borne is the past tense of the verb 'to bear'. But we say 'her fear was born of childhood trauma.'

not Botanical

often superfluous, as in 'John and Joe both hate one another'.

breed of cattle. Brahmin describes the Hindu priestly caste and sacred cattle.

capital of Brazil

a family breakdown might give us a nervous breakdown, but we might say a relationship is likely to break down, or 'Let's break those figures down.'

better to be more precise and refer to English, Scottish, Irish, or Welsh

download speed (data transfer) is measured in megabits per second, not megabytes. Megabytes describes units of storage capacity, not data transfer. Megabits per second can be abbreviated to Mbps.

Washington-based think-tank. Institution is its title, not institute

to make brutal (not to treat brutally)

federal Budget capital B, but federal budgets, state budget, lower case

dot points that are not complete sentences need no end-of-line punctuation (comma, full stop or semi-colon). The final dot point in the series, though, should end with a full stop.

not bureaux

I burned the toast (past tense of verb). You'll get your fingers burnt (adjectival participle). This is like learned and learnt—always contentious, but this is a style guide so we won't sit on the fence.

butt together, butt out, sit on your butt

the government plans to buy back irrigation licences, but the government has been accused of having a buyback mentality

a number of binary digits, or bits—usually eight (but it's a sound bite)