ABC Radio National

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

give someone a bad rap, but wrap up the day's news

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...'

this came up in a story about the NRL grand final breakfast and was written as 'bay marie'. Phonetically close but not how it's spelled.

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

Secretary-general of the United Nations. Note lower-case 'm'.

are never italicised, no matter how strange you think they are

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

Ehud Barak is a former Israeli defence minister and Labour party leader, and Barack Obama is of course the US president.

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

not BBQ or barbeque

'...the right to bare arms' is not what this writer meant when referring to the Second Amendment to the American Constitution.

they bared their souls (not bore)

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

44 BC, 1250 AD. Fourth century AD, third century BC. Same arrangement for BCE (before the common era), CE (common era).

trademark, so capitalise

just the one bee

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 and plural is betes noires

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

Note that books of the Bible are not italicised (the Book of Genesis, etc).

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

author of a new biography of Gough Whitlam, not 'on'...

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, set in roman type (no italics) with no surrounding quotes (inverted commas).

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

is the capital of Colombia, not Columbia

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'.

are not italicised but are written in upper case: the Book of Genesis, the Book of Jonah, etc.

(Nielsen BookScan) one word, capital S

American-born, French-born, Welsh-born...New York-raised, Sydney-based, etc

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 redundant, as in 'John and Joe both hate one another'. 'Should appeal to both art lovers, newcomers and locals' is also wrong—both can apply only to two things or groups of things, not three or more. Correct usage would be: 'Last year the leaders of both Germany and Britain declared their multicultural policies had been a failure.' Here 'both' is useful because it underlines the perception that the policy failure is widespread.

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

capital of Brazil

a breach of protocol, the flood levee has been breached, but the baby is in breech position

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.'

brekkie (not breaky)

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

'...a massive fan base built in...' or '...a massive built-in fan base...'

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)