Recently updated terms
- into
one word except where 'in' and 'to' belong to separate phrases, as in 'sworn in to the presidency' or 'I walked in to work'. Into is being used more and more often where 'in' by itself is enough. For instance, 'enter a film into the festival.' is too thrusting by far. All that's needed is enter a film in the festival.
- long-term, long term
My long-term goal is to become a billionaire. In the long term I'd like to be rich, but for now I'm happy being poor.
- worse, worst
Remember the scale of badness: bad, worse (comparative), worst (superlative). The headline 'Pakistan's children worse hit by floods' is wrong. Here we need the superlative: Pakistan's children worst hit by floods.
- 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.
- wordiness
'There is an increasing number of overseas players buying into Australian agriculture.' This is too wordy and might be better like this: More and more overseas players are buying in to Australian agriculture.
See: plain English please- based, born
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.