Guardian and Observer style guide: H (original) (raw)
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Illustration: Jakob Hinrichs
Häagen-Dazs
American ice-cream; despite appearances, the name was made up to give a European cachet to a product emanating from the Bronx in New York City
Haaretz
Israeli newspaper; no longer has an apostrophe
Haarlem
the Netherlands; Harlem New York City
habeas corpus
Haberdashers’ Aske’s school
Habsburg
not Hapsburg
haemorrhaging
is best avoided, even if you manage to spell it correctly, as it has become a cliche – in expressions such as “haemorrhaging cash” – and completely wrong as an adjective meaning big, eg “in the face of haemorrhaging financial losses”
haemorrhoids
Hague, The
always cap up the The
ha ha
laughter; ha-ha concealed ditch in a garden or park; Minnehaha Hiawatha’s wife in the Longfellow poem The Song of Hiawatha
hail
fellow, well met; hale and hearty
hairbrush, haircut, hairdresser, hairdryer, hairstyle
all one word
Haiti
is not an island: Haiti and Dominican Republic make up the Caribbean island of Hispaniola
hajj
pilgrimage to Mecca; haji Muslim who has made such a pilgrimage
haka
as performed by the New Zealand All Blacks rugby team, it is a welcome or challenge, rather than a Maori war dance (although routinely described as such)
HAL 9000
computer in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey
Hale-Bopp comet
its appearance in 1997 prompted mass suicide in the Heaven’s Gate cult
half
No hyphen when used adverbially: you look half dead; half wine, half water; his trousers were at half mast (see exceptions below).
Hyphen when used adjectivally: a half-eaten sandwich; a half-cut subeditor; half-time oranges.
The boy is six and a half but a six-and-a-half-year-old boy
half a dozen, half past six
half-life
(radioactivity)
half-term
known as mid-term in Scotland
half-time
halfway, halfwit
hallelujah
Hallé
orchestra founded in Manchester by Karl Hallé in 1857, normally referred to as simply “the Hallé”
Halley’s comet
halloumi
Halloween
no apostrophe
halo
plural haloes
Hambros
former British bank, now SG Hambros Bank, the private banking division of Société Générale
Hamed, Prince Naseem
former boxer; Hamed at second mention
Hamilton Academical
not Academicals; nickname the Accies
Hamleys
toyshop
handbill, handbook, handbuilt, handheld, handmade, handout
no hyphens
handicapped
should not be used to refer to people with disabilities or learning difficulties
hangar
aircraft; hanger clothes
hanged, hung
the woman was found hanged; the sheet was hung out to dry
hanging participles
An unfortunate example from a leading article in the paper: “Due out in January as a white paper, Ms Kelly may be unable to overcome Mr Blair’s apparent determination to stick with A-levels ... “
hangover, hungover
Hanover
Hanukah
happy-clappy
avoid
hara-kiri
known less vulgarly in Japan as seppuku
harass, harassment
hardcore
one word, whether noun or adjective and whether you are talking about music, rubble, a hardcore of rebels or hardcore pornography
hardline
adjective, hard line, hardliner nouns
harebrained
not hairbrained
hare lip
never use: say cleft lip or cleft palate
Hargeisa
not Hargeysa; capital of Somaliland, an autonomous region of Somalia
Haringey
north London borough, one ward of which is Harringay
Hariri, Rafik
former prime minister of Lebanon, assassinated in Beirut in 2005
Harley-Davidson
HarperCollins
Harper’s Bazaar
US fashion magazine marketed as Harper’s Bazaar UK in Britain, where it was known as Harpers & Queen from 1970 to 2006
Harpers Bizarre
60s US harmony group and exponents of “cotton candy rock”, named after the magazine
Harris tweed
Harrods
Hassidic
hat-trick
haven
a haven is by definition a place of safety, so you really do not need to call it a “safe haven”
haver
widely used to mean hesitate, but in some places (notably Scotland) means to talk nonsense
Haverfordwest
in south-west Wales, not “Haverford West” as we managed to say
Havisham, Miss (not Haversham) in Dickens’ Great Expectations
Hawaiian
Hawk-Eye
(not Hawkeye) tracks the ball in cricket and tennis
Hay festival
the former Guardian Hay festival, which takes place at Hay-on-Wye, is now sponsored by the Daily Telegraph
hay fever
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)
Syrian Islamist group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime
hazard or risk?
Scientists use hazard to mean a potential for harm and risk to mean the actual probability of harm occurring; though headline writers may feel more at home with risk than hazard, the distinction is worth bearing in mind
HBOS
(not HBoS) created in 2001 by the merger of Halifax and Bank of Scotland
HDTV, HD DVD
head-butt
but butt should normally suffice
headdress, headhunter, headroom
but head-on
headed or heading?
The former is most commonly used as past tense (“we headed for the exit”) and the latter as present participle (“we are heading in the right direction”); try not to mix them up – “we are headed in the right direction” sounds inelegant at best
headlines
What makes a great, or at least memorable, headline? They can be historic (“Man walks on Moon”), campaigning (“He lied and lied and lied”), classical (“Between Cilla and Charybdis”), subtle (“Flo quiets the Dons”), funny (“Super Caley go ballistic – Celtic are atrocious”), notorious (“Gotcha!”), scurrilous (“Zip me up before you go-go”), or downright absurd (“Freddie Starr ate my hamster”). There is no magic formula but here are a few guidelines.
Use active verbs where possible, particularly in news headlines: “Editor updates style guidelines” is much better than “Style guidelines updated”.
Avoid tabloid cliches such as bid, brand, dub and slam, and their broadsheet counterparts such as insist, signal and target. Imagining that you are describing an event, in words, to real people, is a good antidote to journalese: no one in a pub says “Did you see that Brown slammed Blair in a dramatic power bid?”
Just as we would in copy, we need to take care with words such as debacle, farce and fiasco, especially when combined, which we contrived to do in the headline “Hips fiasco descends into farce”– the fact that “Hips farce descends into fiasco” would work just as well tells you something is probably wrong here.
Strive to be fresh: tired plays on the phrase “Mind the gap”, heard only occasionally these days by passengers on the London underground, have become tedious, as well as either baffling or infuriating to readers who do not happen to live in the capital.
Take care over ambiguity: “Landmine claims dog UK arms firm”, which appeared in the paper, contains so many successive nouns, some of which may or may not be verbs, that you have to read it several times to work out what it means.
Exclamation marks – look, I’ve written something funny! – should never be used. Question marks are also to be avoided, as are quotation marks, unless essential to signify a quote or for legal reasons. And we should resist the temptation to save space by replacing “and” with a comma: “Blair and Brown agree euro deal” not “Blair, Brown agree euro deal”.
Puns are fine – “Where there’s muck there’s bras”, about a farmer’s wife who started a lingerie business from a barn, was voted headline of the year by our staff – but do not overuse, or resort to tired puns such as “flushed with success” (this story has got a plumber in it). It is possible to try just a little too hard (“To baldly grow where no mane’s grown before”). In the 1970s and 80s the Guardian suffered from a reputation for excruciating puns; today, we want to be known for clever, original and witty headlines.
Unexpected twists, or subtle plays on words and phrases, show the subeditor’s craft at its best: a power failure in a theatre became, in the Guardian, “Bad lights stop play”. A light touch can work beautifully: “Drop dead, gorgeous”, on a story about office jealousy, added one comma to a well-known film title to create the perfect headline. When Tate Modern exhibited a giant sun, to create its own indoor climate, the beautiful headline written by the Guardian’s Steve Chamberlain – “But is it weather?” (a rare example of a question mark being required) – deserved to be framed and exhibited in a gallery in its own right.
Be careful when making references to popular culture: “Mrs Culpepper’s lonely hearts club banned” works, because most people are familiar with the Beatles’ Sgt Pepper album, but allusions to your favourite obscure prog-rock LP are likely to pass over most readers’ heads. Long after most people had forgotten the 1960s movie Charlie Bubbles, tabloid sports subeditors continued to mystify their readers by using the headline “Charlie bubbles” whenever anyone called Charlie scored a goal. “Book lack in Ongar”, about a shortage of resources in Essex libraries, remains one of the all-time great headlines, but it only works if you get the reference to John Osborne’s 1956 play Look Back in Anger (or at least it did until Oasis helpfully recorded a song called Don’t Look Back in Anger).
It’s time for some formulaic headlines to be given a decent burial, or at least a long rest. “The kids are alright” (based on a song by the Who, and subsequently a film) crops up, with minor variations, on a weekly and sometimes daily basis in British newspapers: “The kids are alright online”, “The kids are all right (and left)”, “The kids are all right, left and centre”, and so on.
Even more ubiquitous are “Size isn’t everything” and its close relative “Size doesn’t matter”, used to refer to a car (in two different newspapers), school uniforms, the actor Simon Callow’s height, a hotel in Turkey, new houses, national economies, motorbikes, a footballer, the gallery following a golf tournament, and – once – penis size.
The ever-popular “Brighton rocks” and its variations are an allusion, still common, to the Graham Greene novel and subsequent film, both more than 50 years old. How many people still understand the reference? “So lucky, lucky, lucky”, a recent headline we used above a photograph of Kylie Minogue, quoted lyrics from a hit she had in nearly 20 years ago. How many of our readers would be aware of this? You have to use your judgment.
If you are quoting, be sure to get it right. “Talkin’ about their generation”, from a classic 1960s song by the Who, fails as a headline because it literally lacks rhythm (it should be “Talkin’ ‘bout”). We claimed that Millwall fans sing “No one likes us and we don’t care”; they don’t sing that, and the mistake made it look as if we don’t care.
As always, the most important thing is to think of the readers and remember that we are writing headlines for their benefit, not for our own amusement or to show how clever we are.
headquarters
can be used as a singular (“a large headquarters”) or plural (“our headquarters are in London”); HQ, however, takes the singular
headteacher
one word, not headmaster, headmistress; but National Association of Head Teachers
Health and Safety Executive
HSE on second mention
healthcare
hear, hear
exclamation of approval that we have misspelt as “here, here” on more than one occasion
heart attack
when blood flow to the heart is blocked, as opposed to a cardiac arrest, when the heart stops beating unexpectedly
heartbroken, heartfelt, heartsearching, heartwarming
but heart-rending, heart-throb
Heart of Midlothian
Edinburgh football club commonly known as Hearts; said to be named after a dancehall that in turn took its name from Sir Walter Scott’s 1818 novel The Heart of Midlothian
Heathrow airport
or simply Heathrow; not “London’s Heathrow”
heatstroke
heatwave
heave
There is confusion about the past tense, which is heaved in the senses of “she heaved a sigh of relief as he heaved the knife away” but hove in a nautical context, literally or metaphorically (they hove into view, hove up the anchor and hove alongside). In all the above cases, the present tense is heave or heaves, so it would be “they heave into view”
heaven
hectares
should be converted to acres in brackets at first mention by multiplying by 2.47, so 10 hectares is 24.7 acres; to convert acres to hectares, multiply by 0.4, so 10 acres is 4 hectares (we get this the wrong way round embarrassingly often)
height
in metres with imperial conversion, eg 1.68 metres (5ft 7in)
heir apparent
someone certain to inherit from a deceased unless he or she dies first or is taken out of the will; don’t use to mean likely successor
hell, hades
hello
not hallo (and certainly not “hullo”, unless quoting the Rev ARP Blair)
Hells Angels
no apostrophe
helm
a noun; “helmed” should not be used as an alternative to “directed”
help
help to decide or help decide, not “help and decide”
help to buy, right to buy, buy to let
no initial caps; hyphenate before a noun, eg help-to-buy programme, right-to-buy scheme, buy-to-let mortgages
helpline
hemisphere
northern hemisphere, southern hemisphere
herculean
here
generally avoid if what you mean is in Britain (your readers might not be)
Hergé
pen name of Georges Remi (1907-83), Belgian creator of Tintin
Heritage Lottery Fund now called the National Lottery Heritage Fund
hermaphrodite
is a term used in biology to describe an animal that can reproduce in either a male or female manner. The appropriate term for a person of undetermined sex is intersex
Hermès
scarves and shawls; Hermes Group stocks and shares
hero, heroine either form is acceptable to refer to females
heterogeneous
composed of unrelated elements, the opposite of homogeneous; heterogenous (biology) originating outside the body; the latter is often misused for the former
Hewlett-Packard
or HP
Hezbollah
means “party of God”
Hibernian
Edinburgh football club commonly known as Hibs
hiccup
not hiccough
Hi-de-Hi!
1980s sitcom set in a holiday camp
hi-fi
short for high fidelity; how we listened to music in the days before iPods
highchair
high commissioner
sent from one Commonwealth country to another (rather than an ambassador)
high court
highfalutin
high flyer
noun; high-flying adjective
highland fling
the Highlands
of Scotland
high net worth individual
classification used by the financial services industry. The figure differs by institution and region, but the most commonly quoted is 1minliquidfinancialassets(belowthatyouaremerely“affluent”).Morethan1m in liquid financial assets (below that you are merely “affluent”). More than 1minliquidfinancialassets(belowthatyouaremerely“affluent”).Morethan50m in wealth classifies someone as “ultra high net worth”.
Unless specifically referring to such a classification, terms such as “rich person” or “wealthy people” should suffice
Higgs boson
high street
lc in retail spending stories: “the recession is making an impact in the high street”; capped only in proper name: “I went shopping in Godalming High Street”
high-water mark
Hiit high-intensity interval training
hijab
covering for the head and face worn by some Muslim women
hijack
of movable objects only, not of schools, embassies, etc
hike
If using metaphorically, take care: the headline “Motorists face new petrol hike” evoked a long walk to a garage
Hindi
language; Hindu religion
Hips
home information packs, scrapped by the new government in 2010
hip-hop
hippopotamus
plural hippopotamuses not hippopotami
hippy
plural hippies
Hirst, Damien
His Master’s Voice
TM (picture of Nipper the dog with gramophone)
Hispanic
Refers to someone from a country where the primary language is Spanish
historic or historical?
A historic event is notable, a historical event simply something that happened in the past. So someone might be accused of historical crimes that happened years earlier.
However, avoid using the term historical to describe sexual abuse crimes from the past. Survivors, particularly adults who were abused as children, feel the term undermines the long-lasting impact of the crimes. Try to date the crimes (year, decade etc) instead, or say they happened in the past eg “Detectives are investigating allegations of child sexual abuse from more than 30 years ago.” Exceptions may be necessary in court cases where specific wording is required.
Note that it’s “a” not “an”, unless directly quoting: “an historic” is considered old-fashioned, and in modern English “a historic”, “a hotel” and so on sound more natural. Before silent H, the opposite applies: an heir, an honest man, etc
Historic England
Government service, formerly part of English Heritage, dealing with listing, planning, grants and heritage research and advice
HIT Entertainment
hitchhiker, hitchhiking
no hyphens
hi-tech, hi-vis
hitlist, hitman
HIV
a virus, not a disease, but do not call HIV “the Aids virus” or an HIV test an “Aids test”; an HIV-positive man (hyphen) is HIV positive (no hyphen)
HM
or his majesty for the king, not HRH
HMS
stands for his majesty’s ship: does not need the definite article, so it is “HMS Pinafore” rather than “the HMS Pinafore”
hoard or horde?
a hoard of treasure; a horde (or hordes) of tourists. Often confused
hobnob
as in “she likes to hobnob with the rich and powerful”; Hobnobs biscuits
Hobson’s choice
a “choice” between taking what is offered and nothing at all
Ho Chi Minh City
formerly Saigon
hockey mom
We “translated” this to describe Sarah Palin as a “hockey mum”, which sounds daft
hoi polloi
common people, the masses; “the hoi polloi” is acceptable, even for speakers of ancient Greek
holidaymaker
Holland
should not be used to mean the Netherlands (of which it is a region)
Holocaust
Do not trivialise by comparing piles of cattle during a foot-and-mouth outbreak to the Holocaust, or through phrases such as “Belsen-skinny” which, incredibly, found its way into one of our stories about Kate Winslet
holy communion, holy grail
but Holy Land, Holy See, Holy Week
Holyrood
home of Scotland’s parliament, in Edinburgh. Not necessarily a synonym for the Scottish government, which is run by the largest party or coalition in Holyrood
Holyroodhouse
the king’s official residence in Scotland
Hollywood
California; Holywood County Down
homage
a homage, not “an homage”; pay homage to.
hommage is a French word
homebuyers, homeowners but first home buyers and home ownership
home care but homecare workers
home counties
home in on
not hone in on
homeland
but home town
homemade
Home Office
but home secretary (although the official title is “Secretary of State for the Home Department”)
homeopathy
homepage
home schooling
home working
homogeneous or homogenous?
The latter, a biological term meaning having common descent, is often misused for the former, which means of the same kind, uniform
“homosexual rape”
is rape (or male rape if necessary)
honeybee
Hongkongers
one word
Hong Kong names
like Taiwanese and Korean names, Hong Kong names are written in two parts with a hyphen, eg Tung Chee-hwa (Tung after first mention)
hon members
of parliament
honorarium
plural honorariums
honorary knights
are not given titles, so it is still plain Geldof rather than Sir Bob
honorifics
Use just surname after first mention, except in leader columns.
So: Boris Johnson at first mention, thereafter Johnson; Harriet Harman at first mention, subsequently Harman; Sir Richard Branson at first mention, thereafter Branson; Sayeeda Warsi at first mention, then Lady Warsi, and subsequently Warsi (see entry on peers); Prof John Wells at first mention, thereafter Wells; Dr Bill Bailey (there are some exceptions, see entry on Drs) at first mention, subsequently Bailey; the Rev George Herbert at first mention, thereafter Herbert, etc.
As always, use common sense: in a story where two people have the same name (eg a court case about a husband and wife or brothers), it may be necessary to use Mr and Mrs or Ms, or forenames.
Follow traditional Guardian style in leading articles (but not other comment pieces and columns on leader pages): use honorifics after first mention, unless writing about an artist, author, journalist, musician, sportsperson, criminal or dead person; use Ms for women on second mention unless they have expressed a preference for Miss or Mrs.
So: at first mention David Cameron, Harriet Harman, Sir Richard Branson, Lady Warsi, Prof John Wells, Dr Bill Bailey, the Rev George Herbert; thereafter Mr Cameron, Ms Harman, Sir Richard, Lady Warsi, Prof Wells, Dr Bailey, Mr Herbert, etc.
Under-18s should normally be referred to by their first names
honour
When Hamlet says that a custom is more honoured in the breach than the observance, he means that it is more honourable to break than to keep it; the phrase is often misused to mean a rule that is more often broken than observed
“honour” killings
always in quotes; as a reader says: “There is no honour involved in these murders and calling them honour killings belittles the victims and plays down the crime”
HONY
Humans of New York website
hoodie
a hooded top, as well as someone who wears one
Hoover
TM; say vacuum cleaner unless you are sure it is a Hoover (uc); but lc for figurative hoovering up (eg “the Guardian website hoovered up all the awards”)
Hope Not Hate
hopefully
Like many other adverbs, such as frankly, happily, honestly and sadly, hopefully can be used as a “sentence adverb” indicating the writer’s view of events – “hopefully, we will reach the summit” – or as a “manner adverb” modifying a verb – “we set off hopefully for the summit”. Why some people are upset by “hopefully we will win” and not “sadly we lost” is a mystery
horrendous
sounds like a rather ugly combination of horrific and tremendous, but is in fact from the Latin for fearful; horrific is generally preferable
horticulturist
not horticulturalist
hospitalised
now accepted in British English but best used as a noun – hospital – not a verb; say someone was taken (never “rushed”) to hospital
hospitals
lc for the generic part, eg Derby district general hospital, Great Ormond Street children’s hospital, Royal London hospital, Royal Free hospital, but uc for infirmary eg Bristol Royal Infirmary
hospital trusts
As with hospitals, lc for everything that is generic: hospital, hospitals, healthcare, partnership, etc, plus foundation (which can normally be omitted) and trust.
A few examples:
Papworth hospital
Papworth hospital NHS foundation trust (if you want to give the full name), Papworth hospital NHS trust (normal style on first mention), the trust (subsequent mentions).
Blackpool teaching hospitals NHS trust
Colchester hospital university NHS trust
North Essex partnership university NHS trust
Sheffield children’s NHS trust
South Devon healthcare NHS trust
hostelling
two Ls
Hostomel
not Gostomel for the town in Ukraine known for its airport
hotdog, hotpot
hotels
a hotel not “an”; do not cap up “hotel”: the Dorchester, the Ritz, the Grand hotel, Brighton, etc (but don’t be silly and lowercase Hotel California)
hot flush
a hot flash in American English
hotline, hotspot
hot-water bottle
houseboat, housebreaker, housebuyer, householder, housekeeper
housebuilding
househusband, housewife
should be used with care; avoid sexist stereotyping such as lower food prices being “good news for housewives” (it’s good news for shoppers)
House Un-American Activities Committee (Huac)
anti-communist investigating body of the House of Representatives, often associated with “McCarthyism”, although Joseph McCarthy was in fact head of the Senate permanent subcommittee on investigations
hove
past tense and past participle of heave used in a nautical context, literally or metaphorically (they hove into view, hove up the anchor and hove alongside); so do not write, for example, “Woods and Mickelson had only to hove into view” (should be heave) or “Sweeney Todd now hoves into view” (should be heaves).
In other contexts, use heaved: she heaved a sigh of relief as he heaved the weapon away
hoverboard
also known as a self-balancing scooter, e-board or swegway.
Note that swegway is a lowercase generic term, while some of the many brands of board include SwegWay, Swagway, iSwegway etc
hovercraft
Howards End
by EM Forster: no apostrophe; Howards’ Way (vintage BBC TV series) had one
Hubble space telescope
Hudson Bay
but Hudson’s Bay Company
Human Genome Project
humanity, humankind, human-made
avoid man, mankind, man-made
See gender issues
humerus
bone; humorous funny
The “funny bone” is the ulnar nerve, which like the humerus is in your arm. Hence the not very humorous old joke: “Getting hit in the funny bone is not humerus”
hummus
you eat it; humus you put it on the garden
humour, humorist, humorous
hundred years war
hunky dory
Huntington’s disease
formerly known as Huntington’s chorea
huntsman
a paid servant of the hunt, rather than a hunter or hunt follower
Hurricane Alex, Hurricane Barney
etc
Hutchison Telecommunications International
(not Hutchinson) part of Hutchison Whampoa; Hutchison Essar in India, known as Hutch
hydroelectric
hyperbole
what used to be known in newspapers as “flamming up” a story – which, on the whole, we aim to avoid
See sexing up
hyperthermia
hot; hypothermia cold
hyphens
Our style is to use one word wherever possible. Hyphens tend to clutter up text (particularly when the computer breaks already hyphenated words at the end of lines). This is a widespread trend in the language: “The transition from space to hyphen to close juxtaposition reflects the progressive institutionalisation of the compound,” as Rodney Huddleston puts it, in his inimitable pithy style, in his Introduction to the Grammar of English.
Inventions, ideas and new concepts often begin life as two words, then become hyphenated, before finally becoming accepted as one word. Why wait? “Wire-less” and “down-stairs” were once hyphenated, and some old-fashioned souls still hyphenate e-mail.
Words such as chatroom, frontbench, gameplan, housebuyer and standup are all one word in our publications, as are thinktank (not a tank that thinks), longlist (not necessarily a long list) and shortlist (which need not be short).
There is no need to use hyphens with most compound adjectives, where the meaning is clear and unambiguous without: civil rights movement, financial services sector, work inspection powers, etc. Hyphens should, however, be used to form short compound adjectives, eg two-tonne vessel, three-year deal, 19th-century artist. Also use hyphens where not using one would be ambiguous, eg to distinguish “black-cab drivers come under attack” from “black cab-drivers come under attack”. A missing hyphen in a review of Chekhov’s Three Sisters led us to refer to “the servant abusing Natasha”, rather than “the servant-abusing Natasha”.
Do not use hyphens after adverbs ending in -ly, eg a hotly disputed penalty, a constantly evolving newspaper, genetically modified food, etc, but hyphens are needed with short and common adverbs, eg ever-forgiving family, much-loved character, well-established principle of style (note, however, that in the constructions “a character who is much loved” and “the principles of style are well established” there is no need to hyphenate).
-
When an adverb can also be an adjective (eg hard), the hyphen is required to avoid ambiguity – it’s not a hard, pressed person, but a hard-pressed one; an ill-prepared report, rather than an ill, prepared one.
Use a hyphen in verbs where necessary to stop this kind of thing happening:
Motorists
told: don’t
panic buy
petrol
(While not panicking may well have been advisable, they had actually been told not to panic-buy.)
Prefixes such as macro, mega, micro, mini, multi, over, super and under rarely need hyphens: examples are listed separately. Follow Collins when a word or phrase is not listed