The Guardian style guide Introduction

words in danger of losing all meaning after more than 1,000 appearances in the Guardian during 2003, lazily employed to describe anything vaguely memorable or well-known — from Weetabix, Dr Martens boots and the Ferrero Rocher TV ads to Jimi Hendrix's final gigs and the vacant fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square

no full points

if a Dutch word starts with IJ then both letters are always capped (there is a waterway called the IJ so a lot of places have IJ in their name, eg IJsselmeer, IJmuiden, etc)

do not use to refer to children born outside marriage (unless in a historical context, eg “the illegitimate son of Charles the Good”)

to arrive in a country emigrate to leave one

not immune from

no commas

not imposter

impossible, it cannot be done impractical possible in theory but not workable at the moment

just beginning or undeveloped, not chaotic or disorderly

be wary of this word, another — “attack” or “clash”, for example —will often stand better in its place; within a couple of years of the massacre in Tiananmen Square the Chinese government was referring to it as an “incident” or even “alleged incident”

plural indexes, except for scientific and economic indices

music, films, etc Indy short for the Independent, a newspaper

not indispensible

have not existed since 1998, when they became employment tribunals; they still appear in the pages of the paper with embarrassing frequency despite regular entreatries from the readers’ editor in his corrections and clarifications column

to infer is to deduce something from evidence; to imply is to hint at something (and wait for someone to infer it)

without limit; does not mean very large

means the same as flammable; the negative is non-flammable

no spaces or points, whether businesses or individuals, eg WH Smith, PCR Tufnell

the Revenue on second reference

noun two words, adjective hyphen: inner-city blues made Marvin Gaye wanna holler

plural innuendoes

not innoculate

not enquiry

means “God willing” in Arabic

are plural

overused, especially in political stories; just use said

followed by into

not Institute of Fiscal Studies

against risk assure life ensure make certain

not “authority”, its director general is Mohamed ElBaradei

net, web, world wide web, website, chatroom, homepage all lc

Never use the following construction to introduce a speaker or a subject: “School standards minister David Miliband said … "

but on to

not Eskimos, an individual is an Inuk

means not valid or of no worth; do not use to refer to disabled or ill people

unchanging; often used wrongly to mean hardly ever changing

Use these spellings for Iraq's biggest cities and towns: Amara, Baiji, Baghdad, Baquba, Basra, Diwaniya, Dohuk, Falluja, Haditha, Hilla, Irbil, Kerbala, Kirkuk, Kut, Mosul, Najaf, Nassiriya, Ramadi, Rutba, Samarra, Samawa, Sulaimaniya, Tikrit (note that these transliterations do away with al- prefixes and the final h)

not Eire
Irish Travellers

uc, recognised as a distinct ethnic group under race relations legislation
ironfounder, ironmonger, ironworks
iron curtain
ironically

Avoid when what you mean is strangely, coincidentally, paradoxically or amusingly (if you mean them say so, or leave it up to the reader to decide). There are times when ironically is right but too often it is misused. As Kingsley Amis put it: “The slightest and most banal coincidence or point of resemblance, or even just-perceptible absence of one, unworthy of a single grunt of interest, gets called ‘ironical’.” The idiotic “post-ironic", which Amis would be glad he not live to see, is banned

individual savings account, but no need to spell it out

not -ize at end of word, eg maximise, synthesise (exception: capsize)

Muslims should never be referred to as “Mohammedans”, as 19th-century writers did. It causes serious offence because they insist that they worship God, not the prophet Muhammad.

an advocate or supporter of Islamic fundamentalism; the likes of Osama bin Laden and his followers should be described as Islamist terrorists and never as Islamic terrorists

Use roman for titles of books, films etc; the only exception is the Review, which by special dispensation is allowed to ignore the generally sound advice of George Bernard Shaw: “1 I was reading The Merchant of Venice. 2 I was reading ‘The Merchant of Venice’. 3 I was reading The Merchant of Venice. The man who cannot see that No 1 is the best looking, as well as the sufficient and sensible form, should print or write nothing but advertisements for lost dogs or ironmongers’ catalogues:literature is not for him to meddle with.”

not “the Ivory Coast" or Côte D'Ivoire; its nationals are Ivorians

Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth College, Harvard, Princeton, University of Pennsylvania, Yale