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Online style guide

Hague, The

it's always 'The Hague', never 'Hague' or 'the Hague'.

halcyon
hale

and hearty, hail a taxi

hallelujah
Halley's comet
hallowed ground

not hollowed

hallucinogen, hallucinogenic
hanged, hung

people are hanged, pictures hung

hanging participles

'Born in Hobart in 1909, his daughter Rory has now donated her father's memorabilia to the Tasmanian Museum...' That would make Rory 99—not unreasonable except this is the second paragraph of a story about Errol Flynn and his daughter Rory. Much better to repeat the name: Errol Flynn was born in Hobart in 1909, and his daughter Rory has now donated her father's...etc.

hara-kiri
harass, harassment
hard line, hardline

The premier took a hard line on the proposed tax. What kind of line? Hard. The minister proposed a hardline policy. What kind of policy? Hardline.

harebrained
haybaling

not bailing

head-to-head
heading or headed?

'Is Australia heading (not headed) for a hung parliament?' Best to avoid 'headed' here because its use as anything other than the past tense of the verb 'to head' is hard to justify in Australian usage.

heading to

please consider using other verbs such as going, travelling, flying. 'Heading to' is overused.

headings

please use newspaper headline style, with the first word capitalised but the rest lower-cased. 'Lebanon update', not 'Lebanon Update'; 'Live concert from Port Fairy', not 'Live Concert from Port Fairy'.

Hedland, Port

town in Pilbara Region of Western Australia

heinous crime
hello

not hullo or hallo

Hepburn, Katharine

not Katherine

heyday

one word

hi-tech
hidden line breaks
hierarchy
Hillary Clinton
Hills hoist
hip hop

no capitals, no hyphen

hip pocket

hip-pocket nerve

historic, historical

the fall of the Berlin Wall was a historic event, but most public libraries hold historical documents

history repeating itself

'More than one million people died in that famine and now there are fears that history could be repeating.' Propellerheads and Shirley Bassey have made 'history repeating' stick in our brains, but in a serious discussion of world hunger we should write '...history could be repeating itself.'

HIV

Human immunodeficiency virus which may lead to AIDS (acquired immune deficiency syndrome)

hoi polloi

the masses, the people (it doesn't mean high and mighty, which is hoity-toity

hoist with [one's] own petard
hoity-toity

snobbish, haughty

hokey-cokey

the dance

hokey-pokey

hocus pocus, or trickery, or brittle toffee in New Zealand

hold fast

to your sanity

holdfast

a clamping device

holey

full of holes (holy, holiness is spiritual excellence)

holier-than-thou

self-righteous

Holy Grail
home in on
hone your skills
horde, hordes

of people ... a hoard of treasure

hors d'oeuvre

(singular and plural)

hotdog

one word

hotel

a hotel—and all other words beginning with H where the H is pronounced. So it's a historian, a historic occasion, but an honour, an heir.

hullaballoo
hummus

the pureƩ

humour, humorous, humorist

If you're writing in America you use humor. In Australia it's still definitely humour. But just to be contrary, it's humorist and humorous everywhere.

humus

the rotted vegetation

hurly-burly
hyphens

never after adverbs ending in -ly, as in 'fully financed', 'partly paid' (but part-paid does need one). And be careful where you put hyphens: anti-sexual assault classes might suggest a new kind of martial art. Anti sexual-assault classes has a clearer meaning.