Guardian and Observer style guide: O (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
OAPs, old age pensioners
Do not use: they are pensioners or old people; do not use old or elderly to describe someone under 75 (the editors reserve the right to increase this upper limit, as appropriate)
obbligato
not obligato
obesity
the word obese is not banned, but it is preferable to say someone has obesity, or is living with obesity
Obiang
Teodoro Obiang Nguema Mbasogo, president of Equatorial Guinea since 1979; Obiang on second mention
oblast a generic term for an administrative region in many countries including Russia and Ukraine. Therefore no need to cap it up in names such as Kyiv oblast. As an alternative you can say the Kyiv region
obliged
not “obligated”
O’Brian, Patrick
author of Master and Commander
obtuse
means “mentally slow or emotionally insensitive” (Collins); often confused with abstruse (hard to understand) or obscure
Occam’s razor
philosophical principle, attributed to the 14th-century English friar William of Ockham, that broadly means prefer the simplest explanation, adopting the one that makes the fewest assumptions and “shaving away” the rest
occupied territories
Gaza and the West Bank
occurred
two Rs
Oceania
a preferable term to Australasia, it is sometimes divided into Near Oceania and Remote Oceania, and comprises, according to the UN:
Australia/New Zealand
Melanesia
(Fiji, New Caledonia, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu)
Micronesia
(Guam, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Northern Mariana Islands, Palau)
Polynesia
(American Samoa, Cook Islands, French Polynesia, Niue, Pitcairn, Samoa, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Wallis and Futuna Islands)
oceans, seas
capped up, eg Atlantic Ocean, Red Sea
octopus, platypus
plural octopuses, platypuses, not the cod Latin octopi, platypi
Odesa not Odessa for the port city in Ukraine
Odisha
Indian state formerly known as Orissa
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development at first mention
oedipal complex
the female equivalent is electra complex
Ofcom
Office of Communications – the broadcasting and telecommunications regulator
Offa
eighth-century king of Mercia, best known for Offa’s Dyke, a giant earthwork that separated the kingdom from Powys
offbeat, offhand, offside
Office for National Statistics
ONS on second mention Office of Fair Trading OFT on second mention
off-licence
Ofgem
regulates the gas and electricity markets in Britain
Ofsted
the schools inspectorate in England. Its full name is the Office for Standards in Education, but normally no need to spell that out. The Welsh equivalent is Estyn, the Scottish is Education Scotland and Northern Ireland has the Education and Training Inspectorate
Ofwat
regulates the water and sewerage industry in England and Wales
Oh not O
except in phrases of invocation or hymn titles, eg O God, Our Help in Ages Past
oilfield, but oil well
oil painting
oil production platform
for production of oil
oil rig
for exploration and drilling
oilseed rape
OK
is OK; okay is not
Old Etonian
old Labour
but New Labour
old master
lowercase for paintings as well as ageing schoolteachers
Old Testament
olé!
needs the accent to stop it reading like “ole”
O-levels
GCE O-levels and CSEs were combined in 1986 to become GCSEs
Olympic Games
or just Olympics, or the Games
omelette
not omelet
omertà
code of silence; note accent
Omicron note the initial capital for the Covid-19 variant
onboard
one word: “Once onboard, they got so drunk that the onboard explosion went undetected.”
Avoid “aboard” except in the phrase “All aboard!”
one
One should find an alternative, preferably you (unless one is making fun of one’s royal family).
If you do use it, the possessive has an apostrophe: “the ones in the window are one’s favourites”
one in six, one in 10
Phrases of this sort should be treated as plural. There are good grammatical and logical reasons for this. Compare “more than one in six Japanese is 65 or older … “ with “more than one in six Japanese are 65 or older … “
Grammatically, we are talking not about the noun “one” but the noun phrase “one in six”, signifying a group of people. Logically, the phrase represents a proportion – just like “17%” or “one-sixth”, both of which take plural verbs. “Two out of every seven” and “three out of 10” take plurals too, functioning identically.
“One in six is … “ is also unnecessarily (and possibly misleadingly) specific, implying that of any six people from the group you take, exactly one will be as described. “One in six” means one-sixth on average over the whole group, and a plural verb better reflects this. We wouldn’t say “Only 1% of Republican voters is able to point to Iraq on a map” just because there’s a “one” in there
one-nation politics
but one nation Tory for individual Conservatives, and One Nation group for the caucus of Conservative MPs formed in April 2019
one-stop shop
Onetel
UK telecom company, not One.Tel, which is Australian
ongoing
Bureaucrats and business people love this jargon word and associated phrases such as “ongoing situation” or “on an ongoing basis”. Even some journalists are oddly fond of it, although the story has yet to be written that cannot be improved by removing it. “The case continues” is preferable to “the trial is ongoing”
online
only
can be ambiguous if not placed next to the word or phrase modified: “I have only one ambition” is clearer than “I only have one ambition”; however, be sensible: do not change the song title to I Have Eyes for Only You.
Say “the only” or “one of the few” rather than “one of the only”, which has found its way into the paper
on side or onside?
The referee kept the home crowd on side by ruling the goal onside
on stage
two words unless used adjectivally, for example in the phrase “her onstage persona”
on to not onto
Kingsley Amis, perhaps slightly overstating the case for this, argued: “I have found by experience that no one persistently using onto writes anything much worth reading”
00 gauge
(model railways) – the number 0, not the letter O, though pronounced “double-O” (as in Hornby Dublo)
oohing and aahing, oohs and aahs
Op 58, No 2
for classical music
Opec Organizationof the Petroleum Exporting Countries, but not necessary to spell out
Open Society Foundations
plural
opencast mine
openly gay
avoid, just say someone is gay. Or when the fact that someone is uncloseted is the story, out gay person is a good alternative, as in, for example, the first out gay royal
ophthalmic
opossum
opposition, the
or
need not be used when explaining or amplifying – rather than “the NUT, or National Union of Teachers” say “the NUT (National Union of Teachers)“ or, even better, “the National Union of Teachers” at first mention and then just “the NUT” or “the union”
orangutan
one word
orca
also known as the killer whale, but orca is preferable
orchestras
take initial capitals, eg London Symphony Orchestra (LSO after first mention), Berlin Philharmonic, etc
ordinance
decree
Ordnance Survey
Britain’s national mapping agency (ordnance because such work was originally undertaken by the army)
oriented, disoriented
not orientated, disorientated
Orkney
not “the Orkney Isles” or “the Orkneys”
Orthodox
capped up in the names of religious denominations eg Orthodox Judaism, ultra-Orthodox Judaism, Russian Orthodox church
Ottakar’s bookshop
taken over by Waterstones
O2, the
(cap O, not the number 0) is the name of the former Millennium Dome
Ötzi
the Iceman Europe’s oldest natural human mummy (dated to about 3300BC), found in the Alps in 1991
Ouija
TM; the generic name most commonly used, though not very satisfactory, is “talking board”
outback
(Australia)
outed, outing
take care with these terms: if we say, for example, that a paedophile was outed, we are equating that with a gay person being outed; use exposed or revealed instead
Outer Hebrides use when referring to the islands in a geographical context; if referring to them in a political capacity, use Western Isles (see Western Isles entry).
outgrow, outgun, outmanoeuvre
outpatient
St Thomas’ hospital in south London boasts the following styles, all on signs within a few yards of each other: Out Patients, Out-Patients, Outpatients, and outpatients. Across London, Barts adds Out-patients and OUTPATIENTS to the eclectic mix. In a further development, the NHS has all but eradicated the apostrophe
outre
no accent
outside
not “outside of”
outward bound
outdoor adventure or adventure training are safer terms: we have been sued twice for reporting that people have died on “outward bound” courses that were nothing to do with the Outward Bound Trust
over
is already an adverb, so “overly” is unnecessary. The same applies to “regardlessly” (regardless of how you feel about it), last, not “lastly”, and least, not “leastly”
overestimate, overstate
are frequently confused with underestimate or understate
overreact, override, overrule
and most other words with the prefix “over” do not need a hyphen
oxen
rather than “oxes” is the plural of ox
oxi
not strictly a transliteration of the Greek for no, but this is what we use
Oxford comma
a comma before the final “and” in lists: straightforward ones (he ate ham, eggs and chips) do not need one, but sometimes it can help the reader (he ate cereal, kippers, bacon, eggs, toast and marmalade, and tea).
Sometimes it is essential: compare
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis, and JK Rowling
with
I dedicate this book to my parents, Martin Amis and JK Rowling
oxymoron
does not just vaguely mean self-contradictory; an oxymoron is a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms are used in conjunction, such as bittersweet, compassionate conservatism, “darkness visible” (Paradise Lost), “the living dead” (The Waste Land); one of Margaret Atwood’s characters thought “interesting Canadian” was an oxymoron
Özil, Mesut