LITMIR.BIZ

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is a cliché and to be avoided. For “employment on a part-time basis” say “part-time employment”. Other usages are similarly redundant (“on a regular basis” — “regularly”; “on a daily basis” — “daily”; “on a voluntary basis” — “voluntarily”, “willingly”, or “without pay”, depending on context; and so on)

      Basle (Switzerland), not Basel or Bâle. But note, FC Basel, the football team, and Art Basel, the art fair

       Basque country, the

      bated/baited note the difference: bated breath; baited hook; bait as a verb is to persecute, tease or torment (as in bear baiting); bate is the verb to use of a tethered hawk beating its wings and trying to jump from its perch, should you have occasion to write about such a thing

      battalion never batallion. Say the 1st Battalion, the 7th Battalion etc (not First, Seventh)

      battle try to avoid using as a transitive verb as in “The students battled the police …”; use “fought” or “battled against” instead; be wary of using at all (along with similar language) in relation to illness (battle against cancer etc)

       battle cry

      battleship a heavily armoured warship of the largest type, with many large-calibre guns. Beware. Battleship is not synonymous with warship: eg cruisers and destroyers are warships but they are not battleships. Historically, a battleship (line-of-battle ship) was any warship of sufficient size and armament to take her place in the line of battle; in other words, a ship of the line

      BBC no need to spell out as British Broadcasting Corporation, although “the corporation” is a useful alternative in text. Avoid “the Beeb” except, on rare occasions, in columns or commentaries . The BBC is an organisation fond of capitals. Most are unnecessary. BBC job titles, like any others, are lower case: controller, chairman, director-general, governor. So are BBC television and BBC radio and the BBC charter. The BBC Trust may be capped when there is a risk of ambiguity, but is generally lower case. Caps for the historic radio stations: the Light Programme, the Home Service and the Third Programme

      BC See AD

      be-all and end-all note hyphens

      beanbag one word

      Beatles, the no need to cap the unless at the start of a sentence; similarly the Clash, the Killers, the Rolling Stones, the Smiths, the Who etc (now even the The, should there ever be any need to refer to them again)

      becquerel lower case for the radioactive unit, symbol is Bq

      bedizened archaic but lovely word meaning dressed or decorated gaudily or tastelessly

      Bedouin prefer to Beduin for the nomadic peoples of Middle Eastern and north African deserts

      beg the question refers in logic to an informal fallacy whereby an argument assumes its own conclusion: eg “this usage is unattractive because it is ugly”; that sense seems worth preserving. More commonly used as just another (less good) way of saying “raise (or ask) the question”; some readers are (logically) annoyed by this

      beleaguered a cliché, especially in a political context, so best avoided

      Belfast north, south, east and west, lower case

      bellringer, bellringing, belltower no hyphens

      bellwether not bellweather

      benchmark no hyphen

      bendy bus two words

      benefited not benefitted

      benzene is a substance obtained from coal-tar; benzine is a spirit obtained from petroleum

      Beretta a type of pistol favoured by James Bond, not to be confused with a biretta (not berretta), a hat worn by Catholic clergy

      Bermudian not Bermudan; but Bermuda-rig to describe the most common configuration of sails on modern cruising and racing boats (a fore and aft rig with a tall triangular mainsail and single headsail)

      Berne use the anglicised version of the Swiss capital’s name (not Bern)

      berserk not beserk

      Berwick-upon-Tweed the northernmost town in England. North Berwick is in Scotland

      beseeched prefer to besought

      best loved, best-loved etc ensure there is a hyphen if you mean a best-loved writer rather than a best loved writer

      bestseller one word; likewise, bestselling

      bête noire no longer italic; final e on noire; bugbear is a good English word that you might prefer

      betting odds use a hyphen (16–1, 6–4 etc), not a slash (16/1). For odds-on, smaller figure comes first (1–2, 4–11 and so on). The higher the odds, the less likely something is; if the chances of something happening are raised, the odds are lowered. Not everyone understands odds as well as they think they do. If in doubt, consult the racing desk

      bi- take care with this difficult prefix. Its correct use is in Latin compounds, where it has the force of two, not half, such as bicentenary/bicentennial (a two-hundredth anniversary), or biennial (recurring every two years). Biannual means twice a year; to avoid confusion, write out twice a year

       biased

      Bible cap and roman, not italic, in the religious context; but biblical (lower case); biblical references thus: II Corinthians ii, 2; Luke iv, 5. Write bible (lower case) in a metaphorical sense, eg “For many, Vogue is the fashion bible”

       Bible belt

      biceps, triceps same form for the singular and the plural of these muscles

      bid prefer not to use in text as synonym of effort, attempt or try, although it may be used sparingly in headlines in this sense

      big bang lower case for the event postulated by cosmological theory relating to the beginnings of the universe (lower case); note big-bang theory (hyphen as modifier). But Big Bang (caps) to distinguish the modernisation of the London Stock Exchange in October 1986

      bight is a curve in a coastline or river; bite involves teeth; bytes are units of digital information in computing. Do not confuse

      Big Society, the philosophy of community involvement once espoused by the Conservatives under David Cameron

      Bill and Act caps only when fully identified or when clarity demands

      billion one thousand million, not a million million. Write £5 billion, £15 billion (£5bn, £15bn in headlines), three billion, 15 billion etc

      bin Laden, Osama note lower case “bin”, except where it is the first word of a headline or sentence. Avoid the “Mr” designation, as with Saddam Hussein etc. The organisation founded by bin Laden is al-Qaeda (not al-Qaida). Bin Laden was killed in his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in the early hours of Monday, May 2, 2011 (time differences mean it was still May 1 in Washington and London)

       bin liner

      biological terms with Latin terms, cap letter for first (genus) word, then lower case for the second (species); and italicise for all but the most common, eg Turdus merula,

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