Online style guide
- obbligato
- occasion
- occur, occurred, occurring, occurrence
- octagon
- octogenarian
- odyssey
- offshore
one word
- Olympic games, the Olympics
the Games
- ombudsman, ombudsmen
- omelette
- on to
two words ... 'how much the banks pass onto their customers' is wrong, how much the banks pass on to their customers is right. 'They drove onto Europe' is very wrong. They drove on to Europe is right.
- one-time
one-time adviser to the Liberals
- online, offline
working online, etc
- only
'The party won only one Senate seat' is stronger than 'the party only won one Senate seat' because 'only one' is the point you're making, not 'only won'.
- onscreen, offscreen
she's likeable onscreen; offscreen less so
- op art
- opera, operetta, musical and music theatre titles
should appear in italics
- ophthalmologist
- orang-utan
- ordnance
military weaponry (ordinance is a decree or regulation)
- orient, disorient
same as (and preferred to) 'orientate', 'disorientate'
- outlook
The outlook is good. Not the outlook looks good, which is tautological.
See: tautology- ownership
'What would be going on in Rudd and Abbott's offices this morning?' This has Rudd and Abbott sharing a suite of offices, and we know that's not right. So we need an apostrophe after Rudd as well: 'What would be going on in Rudd's and Abbott's offices this morning? Now each has his own offices.
