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# Telegraph style book: Cc
![Telegraph Style Book][1]
Image 1 of 2
Telegraph Style Book
![Telegraph Style Book][1]
Image 1 of 2
Telegraph Style Book
10:32AM BST 12 Apr 2008
**[A][2]** | **[B][3]** | **[C][4]** | **[D][5]** | **[E][6]** | **[F][7]** |
**[G][8]** | **[H][9]** | **[I][10]** | **[J][11]** | **[K][12]** |
**[L][13]** | **[M][14]** | **[N][15]** | **[O][16]** | **[P][17]** |
**[Q][18]** | **[R][19]** | **[S][20]** | **[T][21]** | **[U][22]** |
**[V][23]** | **[W][24]** | **[X][25]** | **[Y][26]** | **[Z][27]**
* [Telegraph style book: introduction][28]
Cabinet is capped when referring to the British one, not to foreign.
caesarean section, not caesarian, lc (like wellington boot). Also:
Shakespearean, not Shakespearian.
Canute: remember that King Canute did not believe that he could turn back the
tide. His courtiers had flattered him that he could and his demonstration was
to prove them wrong. Therefore, beware of using his name to illustrate folly
or bombast.
Cage, Nicolas
## Related Articles
* [Introduction][28]
10 Jan 2008
Cambodia, not Kampuchea.
Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE)
Campbell, Alastair
canvass: to seek views. Canvas for painters.
Capping up: the general presumption is against using caps. Their use should be
to denote something that is unique. The Pill immediately spells the
contraceptive pill and the Forces indicates that we are talking about
Britain's military and not the forces of light.
Royalty: at second mention use upper case for royalty (the Prince), and also
ex-royalty (the Duchess).
Ministers: always cap up posts when giving their full title, e.g. Chancellor
of the Exchequer, Secretary of State for Defence. Subsequently "the
Chancellor", "the Defence Secretary". With lower ranking ministers give their
full title with caps (the Minister for Roads, the Minister for Higher
Education) but afterwards "the minister". Same rules apply to foreign
governments: caps for Cabinet post, lc for the rest.
Opposition posts are all lower case: George Osborne, the shadow chancellor.
Also: the shadow cabinet; the national executive committee; the Labour Party
conference. The word Opposition, when used to describe the second largest
party in the House of Commons, takes the cap. However, since the Treasury
always takes a cap, write shadow chief secretary to the Treasury.
For other office holders, cap up at first mention when giving full title (The
Archbishop of York) but then lc (the archbishop).The National Lottery, lottery
thereafter. Note Commissions, Trusts etc are lower case after the initial full
name: i.e. The Millennium Commission, the European Commission, the National
Trust, thereafter become the commission, the trust.
Use lower case for the names of councils, eg Sometown district council.
The Civil Service (but civil servants), the Services (meaning Armed Forces),
but the fire service, the police service, social services (except in titles).
East and West, Left and Right in politics, North, South-East as names of
regions, but north of Watford, west of Bristol.
Lower case for government when used adjectivally (a government spokesman,
government policy); also for state, press.
In England, the North, the South &c, but "he moved north".
The South-East (hyphenated), but "storms hit south-east England".
Eastern Europe, but east London: use cap when making a political rather than
geographic division, thus Eastern v Western politics.
Use acronyms for well-known organisations. Some, such as Nato, can stand alone
but others need explanation. When there is no acronym, avoid repetition of
clusters of initials by using a variant of the title of the organisation as
in: (RMT) the union, the transport workers.
See also sections _ [Names and Titles][29] _and _ [Places and Peoples][30] _.
captions: do not tell the reader what he or she can see perfectly well in the
picture ("A man stands on his head while balancing a bucket of water on the
soles of his feet"). When writing the "bullet" start to captions avoid
creaking puns and keep an eye on taste. A caption to a picture of a funeral
might do well to drop the bullet if no better effort than "RIP: xxxxx" or "At
rest: xxxxxx" (both have been published elsewhere) can be found. See also
[tenses][31].
Picture captions do not have full stops at the end.
In stories where we are running the pictures of several dead, avoid using the
same bullet "Dead: xxxxxxxx" half a dozen times. The repetition can seem crass
and unfeeling.
carcase: carcass is American.
carnage is a loaded word and should be used precisely. It means extensive or
indiscriminate slaughter. It does not mean a motorway pile-up.
car park
Catholics: Roman Catholic at first mention. Many Christians in other
denominations regard themselves as Catholics.
caviar, no e on the end.
CD-Rom
celebrity: only to be used satirically.
Center Parcs
Central Saint Martins: no apostrophe.
centre on, not centre around.
century: lc c for 20th century etc.
chairman even when she is a woman. Chair, except in direct quotes, means a
piece of furniture.
champagne: should only be used to denote the real thing and is not capped; for
other similar products use sparkling wine.
Channel 4: use figures to denote Radio 3, Radio 4 etc, but the television
channels are BBC One, BBC Two
Channel tunnel, lower case t
Chappaquiddick
charolais/charollais: one l for cattle, 2 l's for sheep.
Chateau d'Yquem
Cheltenham Ladies' College: note apostrophe.
cheese: most British and French cheeses are specific to a place. Therefore,
when writing their names, cap them up: red Leicester, Cornish yarg,
Wensleydale, Pont l'Eveque, Camembert. As cheddar has become a generic term
used worldwide, it is lower case.
child care is a two-word term: see also health care.
ChildLine
child minder
cholesterol
choice: the phrase "two choices" is illogical: where there are options, there
is a single choice. Two choices would mean there are two sets of options
between which two separate choices can be made.
Christ Church Oxford (not Christ Church College).
Christian names: refer to first names or forenames if there is doubt about the
person's membership of the Christian Church or tradition. Adults should not be
referred to by their first names. Minors may be.
Christie's/Christies: with apostrophe for auction houses, but Christies for
the company and offshoots (eg Christies International plc).
Christmas lunch is what most of our readers would eat, not Christmas dinner.
Use the latter only if referring specifically to an evening meal.
church: capitalise for the institution, even when only one denomination is
meant; lower case for buildings and plural references to denominations.
(Members of many churches heard the sermon about sin. The bishop said the
Church's teaching was that it was wrong.)
Citizens Advice Bureau: No possessive. (Plural bureaus)
City Hall (for London).
CJD: only vCJD is the so-called human form of mad cow disease
claim should be used only when the suggestion that someone is lying or wrong:
treat with care
Claridge's
Clarks shoes
Clause Four
cliches: too many to list, but avoid these to start with: at the end of the
day, everyone wants a piece of him, a slice of the action, to die for, kick-
start, sea-change, Tinseltown, Big Apple, personal demons, day job, wake-up
call, early hours, red faces, banana skins, set alarm bells ringing, assume
the mantle of, caught between a rock and a hard place, anyone behaving badly,
emotional rollercoaster, baptism of fire, hauntingly or achingly beautiful,
hits the ground running, meteoric rise, rich vein or rich seam, safe pair of
hands, veritable feast, laid bare, history was made last night, hotly deny,
lashed out, merry widow, red or green light, furious or bitter rows, shock
report, sweet smell of success, thin on the ground, wannabe, told the Daily
Telegraph.
Clinton: Hillary with two l's.
Clostridium difficile: first mention, C. difficile, second mention C.diff.
Co: as an abbreviation for company, use only in the registered names of
businesses. Company names should shed Ltd or PLC except in the rare cases
where it is needed to avoid confusion with personal names.
Cobbleigh, Uncle Tom.
Coca-Cola
Coco Pops
Cold War
collisions occur between moving things or people. Cars hit trees, they do not
collide with them.
colleges: many schools use college as part of their names. The word is often
superfluous at first mention, and they are always "the school" after first
mention.
_Oxbridge colleges and halls_:
OXFORD: All Souls, Balliol, Brasenose, Christ Church, Corpus Christi, Exeter,
Green, Hertford, Jesus, Keble, Lady Margaret Hall, Linacre, Lincoln, Magdalen,
Merton, New College, Nuffield, Oriel, Pembroke, Queen's, St Anne's, St
Antony's, St Catherine's, St Cross, St Edmund Hall, St John's, St Peter's,
Trinity, University, Wadham, Wolfson, Worcester, Campion Hall, St Benet's
Hall, Mansfield, Regent's Park, Greyfriars, St Hilda's, St Hugh's. Somerville.
CAMBRIDGE: Christ's, Churchill, Clare, Clare Hall, Corpus Christi, Darwin
Downing, Emmanuel, Fitzwilliam, Girton, Gonville and Caius (Caius at second
mention), Jesus, King's, Magdalene, New Hall and Caius, Newnham, Pembroke,
Peterhouse, Queens', Robinson, St Catharine's, St Edmund's House, St John's,
Selwyn, Sidney Sussex, Trinity, Trinity Hall, Wolfson. Cambridge University
also includes approved societies: Homerton, Hughes Hall, Lucy Cavendish
Collegiate Society.
The use of college in the names of colleges is sometimes superfluous or a
solecism. Never use Christ Church College or Peterhouse College. Note spelling
of Magdalen and Magdalene, Queen's and Queens', St Catherine's and St
Catharine's. Always New College in full.
Chavez, Hugo
colon: precedes an explanation, example or list. The colon's function is to
deliver the goods invoiced in the preceding words. It links two grammatically
complete clauses but makes a step forward from the intro to the main theme.
Colosseum: Rome. The London opera house is the Coliseum.
comedic: pompous Americanism, use comic. The noun is comedian.
common sense: two words as nouns, one as an adjective.
Communist should be capped only in references to people who are members of
Communist parties (He has communist views on some subjects).
compare to/compare with: _with_ compares like with like (this year's figures
compared _with_ last year's), whereas _to_ is descriptive or allegorical -
"Shall I compare thee _to_ a summer's day" (but compare one summer's day
_with_ another). Therefore, most usages in news will require with.
comparative prices: it is fatuous to compare prices across the ages. Remember
that what sounds a niggardly sum today may have been a small - or a large -
fortune at the time. This applies particularly to sale prices and wages.
comprise: the whole comprises the parts. "The collection comprises nuts, bolts
and washers." It never takes of.
Conde Nast
confidant/confidante: note the gender difference.
Congress in the United States is made up of the Senate and the House of
Representatives. We do not use Congressman John Smith; use John Smith, a
member of Congress, or, more specifically, John Smith a member of the House of
Representatives. Senator John Smith.
consensus: consensus of opinion is tautological.
Conservative for members of the party and its policies, but lower case for
conservative attitudes.
consonants are doubled in certain circumstances before the suffixes -able,
-age, -ed, -en, -er, -ery, -ing, -ish, -y. e.g regret/regrettable,
flat/flattish, rob/ robbery, clan/clannish, dim/dimmer, top/topping. Do not
double h, w, x, y: washable, stowage, taxed, braying. Normally double the
final consonant if it is preceded by a vowel sound denoted by a single letter
in monosyllables, or if a single vowel is stressed in the final syllable of
longer words: setting, rigging, repelling, formatting. In words not stressed
on the final syllable, double only the letter "lI" before suffixes beginning
with a vowel: devilling, but appearing. Otherwise the final consonant of such
stem words is not doubled.
Most verbs ending in -fer double the "r" before -ed and -ing but not before
-able: referred, conferring, but offered, offering. Silent final consonants
are not doubled. There are many exceptions to these rules. Note: Benefited,
handicapped, humbugged, kidnapped, paralleled, paralleling, picketed, woolly,
woollen. Many compound words follow the rule for monosyllables (horsewhipped,
leapfrogged).
Continent should be capped when used as a synonym for Europe: they spent a
week motoring on the Continent.
continuous describes something uninterrupted; continual allows a break. There
was a continuous line of people; there were continual interruptions
contractions: the likes of I'd, it's, can't etc should be confined to quotes.
While they may confer informality on the style of a column, they may equally
grate and become irritating if overused.
co-operate: takes the hyphen.
co-operative but capped in references to the Co-operative movement. Co-op in
heads.
Copyright: at the end of copyrighted text, correct is: (C)John Smith 2008.
coronation is lower case unless referring to a specific event: each new
monarch has a coronation; the Coronation of King George VI was in 1937.
Cote d'Azur
Councillor is abbreviated to Cllr.
country: it. ship: she.
Country Landowners' Association
Coward, Sir Noel
crackdown: tabloid.
Cradock, Fanny
crash: the word should only be used in the most extreme circumstances when
describing a fall in share prices. Markets are today so volatile that its use
to describe a one-day precipitate fall may be an exaggeration. To use the word
legitimately there has to have been not merely a steep fall - at least 10 per
cent - but also a sustained fall over two or three days. Equally, avoid other
emotive terms like "plunge" or "dive", or, in the other direction, "soar" or
"rocket". Also avoid the conceit that billions of pounds or dollars may be
"wiped off" the price of shares. Give the facts as soberly as possible and let
the readers make up their own minds.
crisis: make sure it is before you use the word: genuine crises are
exceptionally rare.
Cruella de Vil
Crufts: no apostrophe (ignore Writers and Editors).
cruise missile: lc "c".
currencies: see Numbers file.
Currys
curtsy
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