facelift

factchecker, factchecking

factoid
not a trivial fact, but a mistaken assumption repeated so often that it is believed to be true (a word coined by Norman Mailer, who defined it as "something that everyone knows is true, except it ain't!")

FA Cup
the Cup (the cap C is hallowed by convention); all other cups lc at second mention

fahrenheit
Use in brackets, without degree symbol, after celsius figure, eg 37C (98.6F); to convert, multiply the celsius temperature by 1.8, then add 32; alternatively, double the celsius figure, subtract one tenth of that figure, and add 32; or you could save yourself the bother by using a conversion website

Fáilte Ireland
Ireland's tourism authority

Fairtrade
The Fairtrade mark is a certification system run by the Fairtrade Foundation; products are entitled to be called Fairtrade (cap F) if they meet the following criteria: a price that covers producers' costs, a premium for producers to invest in their communities, and long-term and more direct trading relations

fair trade
refers to the movement as a whole, eg only fair trade will enable farmers in developing countries to become self-sufficient

fairytale
noun and adjective

falafel

fallopian tubes

fallout

family-size, fun-size
not family-sized, fun-sized

famous, famously
overused and often unnecessary

fanbelt, fanclub, fanmail

far, farther, farthest
of distances; otherwise further, furthest

far away
adverb; faraway adjective: she moved to a faraway place, and now lives far away

far east
but east Asia or south-east Asia is preferable

farm worker
not farm labourer

Faroe Isles
or just Faroes

farrago
a hotchpotch or jumbled mixture; not synonymous with fiasco (a humiliating failure)

Farsi
language spoken by the majority of Iranians (not Persian)

fascism, fascist
not facism, facist, a careless but common error

fashion weeks
lc, eg London fashion week

fatality
use death

fat cats
use sparingly, unless writing about overweight moggies

father of two, mother of two
etc (no hyphens); only describe people in this way if relevant

Father's Day

fatwa
an edict, not necessarily a death sentence

fayre
say fair

fazed
overwhelmed; phased staged

FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation; no need to spell out

FDA
what the former First Division Association now calls itself; you will need to say it is the senior civil servants' union or no one will know who you are talking about; note that FDA also stands for the US food and drug administration

fedayeen
Arab fighters (the word means those who risk their lives for a cause); can be capped up when referring to a specific force, eg the Saddam Fedayeen militia, which fought coalition forces in the 2003 Iraq war

Federal Reserve
at first reference, the Fed thereafter

fed up with
not fed up of

feelgood factor

fellow
lc, eg a fellow of All Souls, fellow artist, fellow members, etc (and do not hyphenate)

female
not "woman" or "women" in such phrases as female home secretary, female voters

female genital mutilation
not "female circumcision"

ferris wheel
do not cap up

festivals
lc, whether artistic or sporting: Cannes film festival, Cheltenham festival, Edinburgh Fringe festival, Reading festival, etc

fete
no accent

fewer or less?
fewer means smaller in number, eg fewer coins; less means smaller in quantity, eg less money

Ffestiniog

fiance
male, fiancee female; but note divorcee is both male and female

Fianna Fáil
Irish political party

fiasco
like debacle and farce, overused in news stories: who says it's a fiasco?

field marshal

figures
spell out from one to nine; numerals from 10 to 999,999; thereafter 1m, 3.2bn (except for people and animals, eg 2 million viewers, 8 billion cattle)

filesharing

fillip
not filip

film-maker
but film star

Filofax
TM; use personal organiser unless you are sure

finalise, finalised
avoid; use complete, completed or finish, finished

Financial Services Authority
FSA on second mention

financial years
2004-05, etc

Fine Gael
irish political party

fine-tooth comb

Finnegans Wake

firebomb

fire brigade, fire service
lc, eg Cheshire fire brigade

firefight
do not use to describe a military skirmish

firefighter
not fireman

firing line
the people who do the firing; if they are aiming at you, you are in the line of fire not in the firing line

firm
strictly a partnership without limited liability, such as solicitors or accountants, but may be used in place of company in headlines

first, second, third
rather than firstly, secondly, thirdly, etc; spell out up to ninth, then 10th, 21st, millionth

first aid

first-hand

first lady

first minister
(Scottish parliament, Welsh assembly, Northern Ireland assembly)

first name, forename, given name
not Christian name

first world war

fit for purpose
a recent cliche that quickly proved itself unfit for the purpose of good writing

fit the bill
not fill the bill

flagship
a flagship is a ship, a "flagship store" would be a store where one bought flagships, and a "flagship local authority" is a cliche

flak
not flack

flammable
rather than inflammable (although, curiously, they mean the same thing); the negative is non-flammable

flash memory
computer memory that can be erased and reprogrammed, used for example in mobile phones, digital cameras and MP3 players

flatmate

 


flaunt or flout?
to flaunt is to make a display of something, as in flaunting wealth; to flout is to show disregard for something, as in flouting the seatbelt law

fledgling
not fledgeling

flexitime

flotation
whether in a tank, or on the stockmarket

flounder or founder?
to flounder is to perform a task badly, like someone stuck in mud; to founder is to fail: a business might be foundering because its bosses are floundering

flu

fluky
not flukey

flyer
not flier

flying squad

flypast
noun

fo'c'sle
abbreviation of forecastle

focus, focused, focusing

foetid
not fetid

foetus
not fetus

fogey
not fogy

folklore, folksong

following
prefer after, eg Leeds United went to pieces after yet another relegation

font
(typeface) not fount

foolproof

foot-and-mouth disease

footie
abbreviation for football, but note that in Australia (particularly Victoria), footy is what they call Australian rules football

for all its worth
but for what it's worth

forbear
abstain; forebear ancestor

foreign accents
Use accents on French, German, Spanish, and Irish Gaelic words - and, if at all possible, on people's names in any language, eg Sven-Göran Eriksson (Swedish), José Manuel Barroso (Portuguese). This may be tricky in the case of some languages but we have had complaints from readers that it is disrespectful to foreign readers to, in effect, misspell their names

Foreign Office
abbreviate to FCO not FO as its official name is Foreign and Commonwealth Office

foreign placenames
Style for foreign placenames evolves with common usage. Leghorn has become Livorno, and maybe one day München will supplant Munich, but not yet. Remember that many names have become part of the English language: Geneva is the English name for the city that Switzerland's French speakers refer to as Genève and its German speakers call Genf.

Accordingly, we opt for locally used names, with these main exceptions (the following list is not exhaustive, apply common sense): Archangel, Basle, Berne, Brittany, Cologne, Dunkirk, Florence, Fribourg, Genoa, Gothenburg, Hanover, Kiev, Lombardy, Milan, Munich, Naples, Normandy, Nuremberg, Padua, Piedmont, Rome, Sardinia, Seville, Sicily, Syracuse, Turin, Tuscany, Venice, Zurich, etc.

And the next time someone says we should call Burma "Myanmar" because that's what it calls itself, point out that Colonel Gadafy renamed Libya "The Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriyya"

foreign secretary

foreign words and phrases
Italicise, with roman translation in brackets, if it really is a foreign word or phrase and not an anglicised one, in which case it is roman with no accents (exceptions: exposé, pâté, résumé, roué).

Remember Orwell: do not use a foreign word where a suitable English equivalent exists

forensic
belonging to the courts; does not mean scientific

foresee, foreseeable

Forestry Commission

forever
continually: he is forever changing his mind

for ever
for always: I will love you for ever

forgo
go without; forego go before

forklift truck

former Soviet republics
These are:
Armenia, adjective Armenian
Azerbaijan, adj Azerbaijani (though there are ethnic Azeris in, for eg, Armenia)
Belarus, adj Belarussian
Estonia, adj Estonian (Estonia did not join the Commonwealth of Independent States)
Georgia, adj Georgian
Kazakhstan, adj Kazakh
Kyrgyzstan, adj Kyrgyz
Latvia, adj Latvian (not in the commonwealth)
Lithuania, adj Lithuanian (not in the commonwealth)
Moldova, adj Moldovan
Russia, adj Russian
Tajikistan, adj Tajik
Turkmenistan, adj Turkmen
Ukraine, adj Ukrainian (not "the Ukraine")
Uzbekistan, adj Uzbek

Formica
TM

formula
plural formulas, but formulae in scientific context

formula one
motor racing

fortuitous
by chance, not (as most people seem to think) by good fortune; if we manage to use the word correctly, it is entirely fortuitous

fosbury flop

Fourth of July

foxhunting

FPA
Family Planning Association at first mention, thereafter the FPA, although the organisation has decided to style itself "fpa" (lc, no definite article) in its literature and on its website

FRA
fellow of the Royal Academy; FRS fellow of the Royal Society

fractions
two-thirds, three-quarters, etc but two and a half

Frankenstein
the monster's creator, not the monster

Frankenstein food
has become a cliche to describe GM food; do not use

fraud squad

free
or for nothing are preferable to "for free"

freefall

french fries, french horn, french kiss, french letter, french polish, french window

French Guiana
an overseas département of France on the Caribbean coast of South America; do not confuse with Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, or Guinea-Bissau, which are all in Africa, or Guyana, which is also in South America

fresco
plural frescoes

Freud, Lucian
British artist, not Lucien

freudian slip

friendlily
curious adverb defined by the OED as "in a friendly manner, like a friend"

friendly fire
no quotation marks necessary

Friends of the Earth
abbreviate to FoE after first mention

Friends Provident
no apostrophe

Frisbee
TM; if in doubt, call it a flying disc

frontbench, frontline, frontman, frontrunner

frostbite, frostbitten

FTSE 100

fuck
Do not describe this as "a good, honest old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon word" because, first, there is no such thing as an Anglo-Saxon word (they spoke Old English) and, more important, its first recorded use dates from 1278
see swearwords

fuel
overused as a verb

Fulbright scholarship
not Fullbright

fulfil, fulfilling, fulfilment

full-time

fulsome
another example of a word that is almost never used correctly, it means "cloying, excessive, disgusting by excess" (and is not, as some appear to believe, a clever word for full); so "fulsome praise" should not be used in a complimentary sense

fundraiser, fundraising

fungus
plural fungi