earlier
often redundant: "they met this week" is preferable to "they met earlier this week" and will save space; "earlier this month" occurs almost every time we publish a paper on the first of the month, when it should, of course, be "last month"

Earls Court
no apostrophe

earned
not earnt

earring
no hyphen

earshot

Earth
in an astronomical or science fiction context; but moon, sun

East Anglia

east Asia
or south-east Asia rather than far east

east coast mainline

East End
inner east London north of the river (the equivalent district south of the Thames is south-east London)

EastEnders
TV soap

Easter Day
not Easter Sunday

eastern Europe, western Europe

East Jerusalem

East Riding of Yorkshire council

easyJet

eBay

Ebola
virus

ebook
electronic book

ebookers
online travel company

eccles cake

ecohome, ecosystem, ecotown, ecowarrior

E coli
as with other taxonomic names, italicise in copy but roman in headlines and standfirsts; no full point

e-commerce

ecstasy
(drug), lc

ecu
European currency unit, superseded by the euro

Edinburgh festival, Edinburgh Fringe festival

editor
lc: editor of the Guardian, editor of the Redditch Indicator series, etc

educationist
not educationalist

eerie
weird; Erie North American lake; eyrie of eagles

effect/affect
exhortations in the style guide had no effect (noun) on the number of mistakes; the level of mistakes was not affected (verb) by exhortations in the style guide; we hope to effect (verb) a change in this

effectively
is not a synonym for in effect: "the Brown campaign was effectively launched in 2007" means the launch was official and its intended effect was achieved; "the Brown campaign was in effect launched in 1997" means this was not the official launch, but events at the time described did have the effect of launching it, whether intended or not. Effectively is almost invariably misused, and can often be omitted

effete
does not mean effeminate or foppish, but "weak, ineffectual or decadent as a result of over-refinement ... exhausted, worn out, spent" (Collins)

efit
(electronic facial identification technique) program used to create police drawings

eg
no full point

Eid al-Adha
(Festival of Sacrifice) Muslim festival laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of the hajj. Note that eid means festival, so it is tautologous to describe it as the "Eid festival"

Eid al-Fitr
Muslim festival of thanksgiving laid down in Islamic law, celebrates the end of Ramadan (al-fitr means the breaking of the fast)

eid mubarak
not a festival but a greeting (mubarak means "may it be blessed")

Eire
Do not use; say Republic of Ireland or Irish Republic

elan
no accent

ElBaradei, Mohamed
director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, ElBaradei after first mention

elderly
Do not use to describe anyone under 70, and say elderly people (or even better, older people), never "the elderly"

El Dorado
fabled city of gold

Eldorado
legendary flop of a soap

electra complex
the female equivalent of oedipal complex

electrocution
death by electric shock, so don't say survivors of torture were "electrocuted" during their ordeal - rather that they were given electric shocks

elegiac

elephant in the room
Our cliche of the year in 2006, when it appeared in the Guardian 38 times (twice as frequently as in 2005); elephants in the room - joined occasionally by elephants in the living room - have included trade figures, policy, lack of policy, climate change, Iraq, the US, Europe, anti-Americanism, men, women, single women, a new French football league, race, religion, Islam, Catholicism, Tessa Jowell, Andrew Neil, Jimmy Greaves, fatness, thinness, Stalinism, Hitler and Tony Blair's departure from office.

Mercifully, this tedious expression already seems to be on its way to the elephant's graveyard

elite

ellipsis
Use spaces before and after ellipses, and three dots (with no spaces between them), eg "She didn't want to go there ... "; there is no need for a full point

email

emanate
is intransitive; use exude if you need a transitive verb

Embankment, the
in London; the tube station is just Embankment

embargo
plural embargos

embarrass, embarrassment

embassy
lc, eg British embassy

emigrate
leave a country; immigrate arrive in one

Emin, Tracey
not Tracy

empathic
not empathetic

empires
lc British empire, Roman empire, etc

employment tribunal
not industrial tribunal

EMS
European monetary system

Emu
economic and monetary union

enamoured of
not by or with

enclose
not inclose

encyclopedia
not encyclopaedia

enervate
to deprive of strength or vitality

enforce, enforceable

England, English
Take care not to offend readers from other parts of the UK by saying England or English when you mean Britain or British, and vice versa (we published a map of England's best beaches, with the headline "Britain's best beaches")
see Scotland

English Heritage, English Partnerships

English Nature
is now Natural England

en masse

enormity
something monstrous or wicked; not synonymous with large

enquiry
use inquiry

enrol, enrolling, enrolment

en route
not on route

 
ensure
make certain; insure against risk,; assure life

enthral, enthralling

entr'acte

E.ON UK
parent of Powergen; Eon is our style for the German energy firm

epicentre
the point on the earth's surface directly above the focus of an earthquake or underground explosion; frequently misused to mean the centre or focus itself

epilepsy
We do not define people by their medical condition: seizures are epileptic, people are not; so say (if relevant) "Joe Bloggs, who has epilepsy ..." not "Joe Bloggs, an epileptic ..."

EPO
erythropoietin, a performance-enhancing drug

equator, the

Equatorial Guinea
formerly Spanish Guinea, a country in central Africa that became independent in 1974; do not confuse with Guinea or Guinea-Bissau, other African former colonies

ere long
not e'er long

Eriksson, Sven-Göran

ERM
exchange rate mechanism

Ernie
electronic random number indicator equipment: the machine that picks winning premium bond numbers

escapers
not escapees, despite the apparently unstoppable advance of the -ee suffix (can it be long before Guardian readers become "readees"?)

Eskimo
is a language spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska and Siberia. Note that it has no more words for snow than English does for rain. The people are Inuit (singular Inuk), not "Eskimos"

espresso
not expresso

establishment, the

estuary English

Eta
Basque separatists; ETA estimated time of arrival

ethnic
Never say ethnic when you mean ethnic minority, which leads to such nonsense as "the constituency has a small ethnic population"

ethnic cleansing
Do not use as a euphemism for genocide unless in quotation marks

EU
European Union (no need to spell out at first mention); formerly EC (European Community); before that EEC (European Economic Community)

EU presidents
There are three, so don't say "EU president" or "president of the union" without making clear which you mean: president of the European commission (currently José Manuel Barroso), president of the European parliament (currently Hans-Gert Pöttering), or holder of the rotating presidency (technically "president in office of the European Union"), which rotates among the member states every six months - currently Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president

euro
currency; plural euros and cents

Euro
Do not use as a prefix to everything European, but Euro-MP is an acceptable alternative to MEP

Euro Disney
runs what is now called Disneyland Paris

euroland, eurozone

Europe
includes Britain, so don't say, for example, something is common "in Europe" unless it is common in Britain as well; to distinguish between Britain and the rest of Europe the phrase "on the continent" may be useful;
eastern Europe, central Europe, western Europe

European commission
the commission after first mention; do not abbreviate to EC

European convention on human rights

European court of human rights
nothing to do with the EU; it is a Council of Europe body

Eurosceptic
one word, capped: they are sceptics about the European Union, not just the euro

Eurovision song contest

evangelical
fundamentalist wing of Christianity

evangelist
someone who spreads the gospel

eventually
as in "the FTSE 100 drifted back, eventually closing 33.9 points lower at 5244.2"; the stockmarket always closes eventually so you don't need it here or in most other places it crops up

every day
noun and adverb: it happens every day

everyday
adjective: an everyday mistake

every parent's nightmare
Avoid this cliche; from a reader: "This seems to crop up for anything to do with children, from abduction, to death, to today's piece on musical taste. As a parent I can't cope with that many nightmares"

exchequer, the

exclamation marks
Do not use!

exclusive
term used by tabloid newspapers to denote a story that is in all of them

execution
the carrying out of a death sentence by lawful authority, so a terrorist, for example, does not "execute" someone

ex officio
by right of position or office

ex parte
on behalf of one party only

expat, expatriate
not ex-pat or expatriot; this is "ex" meaning "out of" (as in export, extract), not "ex-" meaning "former" (as in ex-husband)

explained
"said" is normally sufficient

Export Credits Guarantee Department
ECGD at second mention

exposé

extracurricular, extramarital, extraterrestrial, extraterritorial

extrovert
not extravert

eye level
no hyphen

eyes
is being used increasingly for "considers", but it doesn't mean that so don't use it in this way. You might get away with "BoS eyes up Abbey" meaning considers it as a takeover target, but not "BoS eyes online insurance" meaning BoS considers setting up an online sales operation

eyewitness
one word, but witness is preferable, except in the Guardian's Eyewitness picture spread