saccharin
noun; saccharine adjective

sacrilegious
not sacreligious

Sad
seasonal affective disorder

Sadler's Wells

Safeway

Sahara
no need to add "desert"

said
normally preferable to added, commented, declared, pointed out, ejaculated, etc; you can avoid too many "saids", whether quoting someone or in reported speech, quite easily see reported speech

Sainsbury's
for the stores; the company's name is J Sainsbury plc

Saint
in running text should be spelt in full: Saint John, Saint Paul. For names of towns, churches, etc, abbreviate St (no point) eg St Mirren, St Stephen's church. In French placenames a hyphen is needed, eg St-Nazaire, Ste-Suzanne, Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer

St Andrews University
no apostrophe

St Catharine's College, Cambridge

St Catherine's College, Oxford

St James Park
home of Exeter City

St James' Park
home of Newcastle United

St James's Park
royal park in London

St John Ambulance
not St John's and no longer "Brigade"

St Katharine Docks
London

St Martin-in-the-Fields
London

St Paul's Cathedral

Saint-Saëns, Camille
(1835-1921) French composer

St Thomas' hospital
in London; not St Thomas's

sake
Japanese rice wine

saleable

Salonika
not Thessaloniki

Salvation Army
never the Sally Army

salvo
plural salvoes

Samaritans
the organisation has dropped "the" from its name

sambuca

Sana'a
capital of Yemen

sanatorium
(not sanitarium or sanitorium) plural sanatoriums

Sane
mental illness charity

San Sebastián

San Serriffe
island nation profiled in the Guardian on April 1 1977

sans serif
typeface

San Siro stadium
Milan

Sao Paulo
Brazilian city, not Sao Paolo

Sars
severe acute respiratory syndrome

Satan
but satanist, satanism

satnav

Sats
standard assessment tasks

SATs
scholastic aptitude tests (in the US, where they are pronounced as individual letters)

Saumarez Smith, Charles
secretary and chief executive of the Royal Academy of Arts

Savile, Sir Jimmy

Savile Club, Savile Row
in London

Saville theatre
in London, once owned by the Beatles' manager Brian Epstein and used for concerts in the 60s (Jimi Hendrix played there), is now the Odeon Covent Garden cinema

Scalextric

Scandinavia
Denmark, Norway and Sweden; with the addition of Finland and Iceland, they constitute the Nordic countries

schadenfreude

scherzo
plural scherzos

schizophrenia, schizophrenic
use only in a medical context, never to mean "in two minds", contradictory, or erratic, which is wrong, as well as offensive to people diagnosed with this illness; schizophrenic should never be used as a noun

Schoenberg, Arnold
(1874-1951) Austrian-born composer

schoolboy, schoolchildren, schoolgirl, schoolroom, schoolteacher
one word

schools
Alfred Salter primary school, Rotherhithe; King's school, Macclesfield, Eton college, etc

school years
year 2, year 10, key stage 1, etc

Schröder, Gerhard
former German chancellor

Schwarzenegger, Arnold
Arnie is acceptable in headlines

scientific measurements
take care: "m" in scientific terms stands for "milli" (1mW is 1,000th of a watt), while "M" denotes "mega" (1MW is a million watts); in such circumstances it is wise not to bung in another "m" when you mean million, so write out, for example, 10 million C

amps A, volts V, watts W, kilowatts kW, megawatts MW, milliwatts mW, joules J, kilojoules kJ

scientific names
in italics, with the first name (denoting the genus) capped, the second (denoting the species) lc: Escherichia coli, Quercus robur. The name can be shortened by using the first initial: E coli, Q robur (but we do not use a full point after the initial)

scientific terms
some silly cliches to avoid: you might find it difficult to hesitate for a nanosecond (the shortest measurable human hesitation is probably about 250 million nanoseconds, a quarter of a second); "astronomical sums" when talking about large sums of money is rather dated (the national debt surpassed the standard astronomical unit of 93 million [miles] 100 years ago)

ScotchTape
TM; say sticky tape

scotch broth, scotch egg, scotch mist, scotch whisky
but Scotch argus butterfly

Scotland
The following was written by a Scot who works for the Guardian and lives in London. Letters expressing similar sentiments come from across Britain (and, indeed, from around the world):

We don't carry much coverage of events in Scotland and to be honest, even as an expat, that suits me fine. But I do care very much that we acknowledge that Scotland is a separate nation and in many ways a separate country. It has different laws, education system (primary, higher and further), local government, national government, sport, school terms, weather, property market and selling system, bank holidays, right to roam, banks and money, churches, etc.
If we really want to be a national newspaper then we need to consider whether our stories apply only to England (and Wales) or Britain, or Scotland only. When we write about teachers' pay deals, we should point out that we mean teachers in England and Wales; Scottish teachers have separate pay and management structures and union. When we write about it being half term, we should remember that there's no such thing in Scotland. When we write about bank holiday sunshine/rain, we should remember that in Scotland the weather was probably different and it possibly wasn't even a bank holiday. When we write a back-page special on why the English cricket team is crap, we should be careful not to refer to it as "we" and "us". When the Scottish Cup final is played, we should perhaps consider devoting more than a few paragraphs at the foot of a page to Rangers winning their 100th major trophy (if it had been Manchester United we'd have had pages and pages with Bobby Charlton's all-time fantasy first XI and a dissertation on why English clubs are the best in Europe).
These daily oversights come across to a Scot as arrogance. They also undermine confidence in what the paper is telling the reader

Scotland Office
not Scottish Office

Scott, Charles Prestwich
(1846-1932) editor of the Manchester Guardian for 57 years and its owner from 1907 until his death (his uncle, John Edward Taylor, had founded the paper in 1821). Scott, who was editor when the first "Style-book of the Manchester Guardian" - forerunner of this guide - appeared in 1928, is most famous for his statement "comment is free, but facts are sacred"

Scott, Sir George Gilbert
(1811-78) architect who designed the Albert Memorial and Midland Grand hotel at St Pancras station

Scott, Sir Giles Gilbert
(1880-1960) grandson of the above, responsible for red telephone boxes, Bankside power station (now Tate Modern), Waterloo bridge, and the Anglican cathedral in Liverpool
britannica.com

Scottish Enterprise

Scottish executive

Scottish parliament
members are MSPs

scottish terrier
not scotch; once known as Aberdeen terrier

scouse, scouser

Scouts
not "Boy Scouts" (in the UK, at least); the organisation is the Scout Association

Scoville scale
system that measures the heat level of chillies

Scrabble
TM

scratchcard, smartcard, swipecard

SCSI
capped up even though generally pronounced "scuzzy"; it stands for small computer system interface

seaplane, seaport, seashore, seaside, seaweed
one word

sea change, sea level, sea serpent, sea sickness
two words

seal pups
not "baby seals" for the same reason we don't call lambs "baby sheep"

Séamus, Seán
note accents in Irish Gaelic; sean without a fada means old

Sea of Japan
as generally known; but South Korea calls it the East Sea and North Korea the East Sea of Korea

seas, oceans
uc, eg Black Sea, Caspian Sea, Pacific Ocean

seasons
spring, summer, autumn, winter all lc

second hand
on a watch; but he bought it secondhand

secretary general

section 28
1988 law, widely regarded as homophobic, that said local authorities "shall not intentionally promote homosexuality or publish material with the intention of promoting homosexuality" or "promote the teaching in any maintained school of the acceptability of homosexuality as a pretended family relationship"; it was repealed in Scotland in 2000 and the rest of the UK in 2003

seize
not sieze

self-control, self-defence, self-esteem, self-respect
hyphenated

Selfridges
no apostrophe

Sellotape
TM; say sticky tape

semicolon
used correctly (which occasionally we do), the semicolon is a very elegant compromise between a full stop (too much) and a comma (not enough). This sentence, from a column by David McKie, illustrates beautifully how it's done: "Some reporters were brilliant; others were less so" see colon

semtex
no longer necessary to cap this

Senate
(US)

senior
abbreviate to Sr not Sen or Snr, eg George Bush Sr

September 11
(9/11 is acceptable)

The official death toll (revised January 2004) of the victims of the Islamist terrorists who hijacked four aircraft on September 11 2001 is 2,973. The figure includes aircraft passengers and crews, but not the 19 hijackers. Of this total, 2,749 died in the attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Centre (1,541 have been identified from remains at Ground Zero), 184 were killed in the attack on the Pentagon, and 40 died when their plane crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania

The hijackers were: Fayez Ahmed, Mohamed Atta, Ahmed al-Ghamdi, Hamza al-Ghamdi, Saeed al-Ghamdi, Hani Hanjour, Nawaf al-Hazmi, Salem al-Hazmi, Ahmed al-Haznawi, Khalid al-Mihdhar, Majed Moqed, Ahmed al-Nami, Abdulaziz al-Omari, Marwan al-Shehhi, Mohannad al-Shehri, Wael al-Shehri, Waleed al-Shehri, Satam al-Suqami, Ziad Jarrah (though dozens of permutations of their names have appeared in the paper, we follow Reuters style as for most Arabic transliterations)

Serb, Serbian
use Serb as a noun, Serbian as an adjective: the Serbs ousted the Serbian dictator Milosevic

sergeant major
Sergeant Major Trevor Prescott, subsequently Sgt Maj (not RSM or CSM) Prescott in leading articles, otherwise just Prescott

Serious Fraud Office
SFO on second mention

Serious Organised Crime Agency
Soca after first mention

serjeant at arms

services, the
(armed forces)

settler
should be confined to those Israeli Jews living in settlements across the 1967 green line, ie in the occupied territories

set to
It is very tempting to use this, especially in headlines, when we think something is going to happen, but aren't all that sure. Try to resist this temptation. It is even less excusable when we do know that something is going to happen: one of our readers counted no fewer than 16 uses of the phrase in the paper in two days; in almost every case, the words could have been replaced with "will", or by simply leaving out the "set", eg "the packs are to come into force as part of the house-selling process"

The first readers' editor of the Guardian put it like this:"The expression "set to", to mean about to, seems likely to, is often used to refer to something that, though expected, is not absolutely certain to happen. It is a rascally expression which one of the readers who have learned to groan at the sight of it describes as an all-purpose term removing any precision of meaning from the sentence containing it"

Sex and the City
not Sex in the City

sexing up
from the editor:
Guardian readers would rather we did give them the unvarnished truth - or our best stab at it. It seems obvious enough. But inside many journalists - this goes for desk editors as much as reporters - there is a little demon prompting us to make the story as strong and interesting as possible, if not more so. We drop a few excitable adjectives around the place. We overegg. We may even sex it up.
Strong stories are good. So are interesting stories. But straight, accurate stories are even better. Readers who stick with us over any length of time would far rather judge what we write by our own Richter scale of news judgments and values than feel that we're measuring ourselves against the competition. Every time we flam a story up we disappoint somebody - usually a reader who thought the Guardian was different.
We should be different. Of course we compete fiercely in the most competitive newspaper market in the world. Of course we want to sell as many copies as possible. We've all experienced peer pressure to write something as strongly as possible, if not more so. But our Scott Trust ownership relieves us of the necessity to drive remorselessly for circulation to the exclusion of all else. In other words, we don't need to sex things up, and we shouldn't.

sex offenders register
no apostrophe

sexuality
from a reader:
"Can I suggest your style guide should state that homosexual, gay, bisexual and heterosexual are primarily adjectives and that use of them as nouns should be avoided. It seems to me that this is both grammatically and politically preferable (politically because using them as nouns really does seem to define people by their sexuality). I would like to read that someone is 'homosexual', not 'a homosexual', or about 'gay people', not 'gays'. Lesbian is different as it is a noun which later began to be used adjectivally, not the other way round. As an example from Wednesday, the opening line 'Documents which showed that Lord Byron ... was a bisexual' rather than 'was bisexual" sounds both Daily Mail-esque and stylistically poor"

Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
1967 album by a popular beat combo of the day; not Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

Shaanxi
(capital Xi'an) and Shanxi (capital Taiyuan) are adjacent provinces in northern China

shakeout, shakeup

Shakespearean
not Shakesperian

Shankill Road
Belfast; not Shankhill

shantytown

shareholder

sharia law

sheepdog

sheikh

Shepherd Market
Mayfair; Shepherd's Bush west London

Shetland
or the Shetland Isles but never "the Shetlands"

Shia, Sunni
two branches of Islam (note: not Shi'ite); plural Shia Muslims and Sunni Muslims, though Shias and Sunnis are fine if you are pushed for space

shiatsu
massage

shih-tzu
dog

ships
not feminine: it ran aground, not she ran aground

shipbuilder, shipbuilding, shipmate, shipowner, shipyard
one word

shoo-in
not shoe-in

shoot-out

shopkeeper

Shoreham-by-Sea
not Shoreham on Sea

shortlist, longlist

Short money
payment to opposition parties to help them carry out their parliamentary functions, named after Ted Short, the Labour leader of the house who introduced it in 1975

shrank
not shrunk, except in the film title Honey, I Shrunk the Kids (and perhaps the occasional piece of wordplay based on it)

Siamese twins
do not use: they are conjoined twins

sickbed, sicknote, sickroom
but sick pay

sickie

side-effects

sidestreet

siege
not seige

Siena
Tuscan city

sienna
pigment

silicon
computer chips

silicone
breast implants

Silkin, Jon
(1930-97) English poet, not to be confused with his cousin John Silkin (1923-87), a Labour cabinet minister, as was John's brother Sam Silkin (1918-88)

sim card
(it stands for subscriber identity module)

since
see as or since?

Singaporean names
in three parts: eg Lee Kuan Yew

Singin' in the Rain
not Singing

single quotes
in headlines (but sparingly), standfirsts and captions

single letters
cap up, eg there are six As in taramasalata

singles chart

sink
past tense sank, past participle sunk: he sinks, he sank, he has sunk

Sinn Féin

siphon
not syphon

sisyphean
a futile or interminable task (Sisyphus had to spend eternity rolling a boulder up a hill)

six-day war

ski, skis, skier, skied, skiing

skilful
not skillful

skipper
usually only of a trawler

Sky+
not Sky Plus

slavery
not abolished in 1807, as we sometimes say: slavery in Britain became illegal in 1772, the slave trade in the British empire was abolished in 1807, but it remained in the colonies until 1833

slither
slide

sliver
small piece

smallholding

Smith & Wesson

Smithsonian Institution
not Institute

snowplough

so-called
overused: as a reader pointed out when we used the term "so-called friendly fire", the expression is "obviously ironic and really doesn't need such ham-fisted pointing out"

socialism, socialist
lc unless name of a party, eg Socialist Workers party

social security benefits
all lc: income support, working tax credit, etc

sod's law
see Murphy's law

Sofía
queen of Spain

soi-disant
means self-styled, not so-called; both phrases should be used sparingly

soiree

solar system
see planets

solicitor general

Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr
Russian novelist

some
do not use before a figure: if you are not sure, about or approximately are better, and if you are, it sounds daft: "some 12 people have died from wasp stings this year alone" was a particularly silly example that found its way into the paper

son of, daughter of
Think twice before using these terms: often only the person's father is described and such descriptions can smack of snobbery as well as sexism. Simplistic labels may also be misleading: we published a clarification after calling Captain James Cook the son of a Scottish farm labourer. True enough, but Cook's mother was a Yorkshire woman and he is a famous son of Yorkshire

Sotheby's

soundbite

sources
from the editor:
Guardian journalists should use anonymous sources sparingly. We should - except in exceptional circumstances - avoid anonymous pejorative quotes. We should avoid misrepresenting the nature and number of sources, and we should do our best to give readers some clue as to the authority with which they speak. We should never, ever, betray a source.
Guidelines
No more ghostly voices
Readers' editor

south
south London, south-west England, the south-east, south Wales, etc

Southbank Centre
is on the South Bank in London; South Bank University

southern hemisphere

south pole

Southport Visiter
newspaper, not to be confused with the Visitor, Morecambe

(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 (citizens are Turkmen, singular Turkman); Ukraine, adj Ukrainian (NOT "the Ukraine"); Uzbekistan, adj Uzbek

spacehopper

spaghetti western

Spanish accents
If in doubt do an internet search (try the word with and without an accent) and look for reputable Spanish language sites, eg big newspapers

Surnames ending -ez take an accent over the penultimate vowel, eg Benítez, Fernández, Giménez, Gómez, González, Gutiérrez, Hernández, Jiménez, López, Márquez, Martínez, Núñez, Ordóñez, Pérez, Quiñónez, Ramírez, Rodríguez, Sáez, Vásquez, Vázquez, Velázquez
Exception: Alvarez; note also that names ending -es do not take the accent, eg Martines, Rodrigues
Other surnames: Aristízabal, Beltrán, Cáceres, Calderón, Cañizares, Chevantón, Couñago, Cúper, Dalí, De la Peña, Díaz, Forlán, García, Gaudí, Miró, Muñoz, Olazábal, Pavón, Sáenz, Sáinz, Valdés, Valerón, Verón
Forenames: Adán, Alán, Andrés, César, Darío, Elías, Fabián, Ginés, Héctor, Hernán, Iñaki, Iñés, Iván, Jesús, Joaquín, José, Lucía, María, Martín, Matías, Máximo, Míchel, Raúl, Ramón, Róger, Rubén, Sebastián, Víctor
The forenames Ana, Angel, Alfredo, Alvaro, Cristina, Diego, Domingo, Emilio, Ernesto, Federico, Fernando, Ignacio, Jorge, Juan, Julio, Luis, Marta, Mario, Miguel, Pablo and Pedro do not usually take accents
Placenames: Asunción, Bogotá, Cádiz, Catalonia, Córdoba, La Coruña, Guantánamo Bay, Guipúzcoa, Jaén, Jérez, León, Medellín, Potosí, San Sebastián, Valparaíso
Sports teams, etc: América, Atlético, El Barça (FC Barcelona), Bernabéu, Bolívar, Cerro Porteño, Deportivo La Coruña, Huracán, Málaga, Peñarol

Note: Spanish is an official language in Spain, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Argentina, Chile and Equatorial Guinea

Spanish names
Be aware that the surname is normally the second-to-last name, not the last, which is the mother's maiden name, eg the writer Federico García Lorca - known as García in Spain rather than Lorca - should be García Lorca on second mention. Note also that the female name Consuelo ends with an "o" not an "a"

Spanish practices, Spanish customs
old Fleet Street expressions to be avoided

span of years
2007-10; but between 2007 and 2010, not "between 2007-10"

spare-part surgery
avoid this term

spark
overused in headlines of the "rates rise sparks fury" variety

spastic
do not use

Speaker, the
(Commons), but deputy speaker (of whom there are several)

special
often redundant

special branch

Special Immigration Appeals Commission
Siac or "the commission" on second mention

spellchecker
if you use one, read through your work afterwards: a graphic on our front page was rendered nonsensical when a spellcheck turned the species Aquila adalberti into "alleyway adalberti", while Prunella modularis became "pronely modularise"; also note that most use American English spellings

spelled/spelt
she spelled it out for him: "the word is spelt like this"

Spice Girls
Victoria Beckham was Posh Spice; Melanie Brown was Scary Spice; Emma Bunton was Baby Spice; Melanie Chisholm was Sporty Spice; Geri Halliwell was Ginger Spice

spicy
not spicey

Spider-Man
but Batman, Superman

spin doctor

spinster
avoid this old-fashioned term, which has acquired a pejorative tone; say, if relevant, that someone is an unmarried woman

spiral, spiralling
prices (and other things) can spiral down as well as up; try a less cliched word that doesn't suggest a circular movement

split infinitives
"The English-speaking world may be divided into (1) those who neither know nor care what a split infinitive is; (2) those who do not know, but care very much; (3) those who know and condemn; (4) those who know and distinguish. Those who neither know nor care are the vast majority, and are happy folk, to be envied"
HW Fowler, Modern English Usage, 1926

It is perfectly acceptable to sensibly split infinitives, and stubbornly to resist doing so can sound awkward and make for ambiguity: "the workers are declared strongly to favour a strike" raises the question of whether the declaration, or the favouring, is strong.

George Bernard Shaw got it about right after an editor tinkered with his infinitives: "I don't care if he is made to go quickly, or to quickly go - but go he must!"

spoiled, spoilt
she spoiled her son: in fact he was a spoilt brat

spokesman, spokeswoman
if possible attribute a quote to the organisation, eg "The AA said ... ", but if necessary say spokesman or spokeswoman rather than spokesperson

sponsorship
try to avoid: we are under no obligation to carry sponsors' names. So London Marathon, not Flora London Marathon, etc. When a competition is named after a sponsor, it is unavoidable: C&G Trophy, etc; however, if the Guardian sponsors an event, we should say so

spoonful
plural spoonfuls not spoonsful

spring

square brackets
use for interpolated words in quotations, eg Maggie May said: "David [Cameron] has my full support"

square metres
not the same as metres squared: eg 300m squared is 90,000 sq m which is very different to 300 sq m; we often get this wrong

Square Mile
rather old-fashioned term for City of London

squaw
regarded as offensive; do not use

stadium
plural stadiums

staff
are plural

stalactites
stalactites cling from the ceiling; stalagmites grow from the ground

stalemate
in chess, a stalemate is the end of the game, and cannot be broken or resolved; deadlock or impasse are more suitable for metaphorical use

stamp
not stomp

Stansted

Starck, Philippe
French designer

Starkey, Zak
(not Zac) son of Ringo Starr; plays drums for the Who

statehouse
office of the state governor in the US, one word except in New Jersey where it is state house

state of the union address

stationary
not moving

stationery
writing materials

STD or STI?
STI (sexually transmitted infection) is a broader term than STD (sexually transmitted disease): you can have the infection without feeling ill or displaying any symptoms

steadfast

steamboat, steamhammer, steamship

steam engine

sten gun

stepchange
avoid, unless you are quoting someone: change is perfectly adequate

stepfamily, stepfather, stepmother
etc, but step-parents

sterling
the pound; sterling qualities

Stetson
hat

sticky-back plastic

stiletto
plural stilettos

still life
plural still lifes

stilton
cheese

stimulus
plural stimuli

stock exchange
but London Stock Exchange

stock in trade

stockmarket

stone age
As recently as 2006, we used the phrase "stone age tribe" in a headline to describe the inhabitants of the Andaman Islands.
The charity Survival says: " 'Stone age' and 'primitive' have been used to describe tribal people since the colonial era, reinforcing the idea that they have not changed over time and that they are backward. This idea is both incorrect and very dangerous: incorrect because all societies adapt and change, and dangerous because it is often used to justify the persecution or forced 'development' of tribal people"

stony broke, stony-hearted
not stoney

storey
plural storeys (buildings)

straightforward

straitjacket

strait-laced

strait of Dover, strait of Gibraltar, strait of Hormuz
not "straits"

Strategic Rail Authority
SRA on second mention

Stratford-on-Avon
district council and parliamentary seat, although most other local organisations, such as the Royal Shakespeare Company, call this Warwickshire town Stratford-upon-Avon

stratum
plural strata

Street-Porter, Janet

streetwise

stretchered off
do not use; say carried off on a stretcher

strippergram

stumbling block

Sturm und Drang
German literary movement

stylebook
but style guide

Subbuteo
table football game where players "flick to kick", named after the bird of prey Falco subbuteo (the hobby)

subcommittee, subcontinent, subeditor, sublet, sublieutenant, subplot, subsection
one word

subjunctive
The author Somerset Maugham noted more than 50 years ago: "The subjunctive mood is in its death throes, and the best thing to do is put it out of its misery as soon as possible." Would that that were so.
Most commonly, it is a third person singular form of the verb expressing hypothesis, typically something demanded, proposed, imagined: he demanded that she resign at once, I proposed that she be sacked, she insisted Jane sit down.
The subjunctive is particularly common in American English and in formal or poetic contexts: If I were a rich man, etc. It can sound hyper-correct or pretentious, so use common sense; Fowler notes that it is "seldom obligatory"

submachine gun

submarines
are boats, not ships

subpoena, subpoenaed

sub-Saharan

suchlike

Sudan
not the Sudan

sudoku

suffer little children
nothing to do with suffering, this frequently misquoted or misunderstood phrase was used by Christ (Luke 18:16) to mean "allow the little children to come to me"; it is also the title of a song about the Moors murders on the first Smiths album

suicide
Say that someone killed him or herself rather than "committed suicide"; suicide has not been a crime in the UK for many years and this old-fashioned term can cause unnecessary further distress to families who have been bereaved in this way

Journalists should exercise particular care in reporting suicide or issues involving suicide, bearing in mind the risk of encouraging others. This applies to presentation, including the use of pictures, and to describing the method of suicide. Any substances should be referred to in general rather than specific terms. When appropriate a helpline number (eg Samaritans) should be given. The feelings of relatives should also be carefully considered

summer

summer solstice
the longest day of the year, but not the same as Midsummer Day (although we often seem to assume it is)

Sunni, Shia
two branches of Islam (note: not Shi'ite); plural Sunni Muslims and Shia Muslims, though Sunnis and Shias are fine if you are pushed for space

Super Bowl
the next one (in Glendale, Arizona in 2008) will be Super Bowl XLII

supercasino

supermarkets
Marks & Spencer or M&S, Morrisons, Safeway, Sainsbury's, Tesco, Woolworths (no wonder people get confused about apostrophes)

supermodel
every new face who makes a name for herself these days is labelled a supermodel; model is normally sufficient

supersede
not supercede

supply, supply days
(parliament)

supreme court

Sure Start

surge
prefer rise or increase, if that is the meaning; but surge is preferable to "upsurge"

surrealism, surrealist

svengali
(lc) although named after the sinister Svengali in George du Maurier's 1894 novel Trilby

swap
not swop

swat
flies; swot books

swath, swaths
broad strip, eg cut a wide swath

swathe, swathes
baby clothes, bandage, wrappings

 


swearwords
We are more liberal than any other newspaper, using words such as cunt and fuck that most of our competitors would not use.
The editor's guidelines are straightforward:
First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend.
Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes.
Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it.
Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a copout, or as Charlotte Brontë elegantly put it:
"The practice of hinting by single letters those expletives with which profane and violent people are wont to garnish their discourse, strikes me as a proceeding which, however well meant, is weak and futile. I cannot tell what good it does - what feeling it spares - what horror it conceals."

swingeing

swinging 60s

synopsis
plural synopses

syntax
beware of ambiguous or incongruous sentence structure - the following appeared in a column in the paper: "This argument, says a middle-aged lady in a business suit called Marion, is just more London stuff ... " (What were her other outfits called?)

synthesis, synthesise, synthesiser