La Coruña
Spanish port

Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk
Shostakovich opera, usually misspelt in the Guardian as Mtensk, with occasional variations such as Mtsenk

Lady Thatcher
(and other ladies) not Baroness

lag
pipes are lagged; other things lag behind

Lailat al-Miraj
Islamic holy day

Lailat al-Qadr
Islamic holy day, time for study and prayer

laissez-faire
not italicised

Lake District
or the Lakes

lambast

lamb's lettuce, lamb's wool

lamp-post

lance corporal

Land
state of Federal German Republic: use state, eg Hesse, the German state

landmine
one word

Land Registry
government department that registers title to land in England and Wales; the Scottish equivalent is Register of Scotland

Land Rover

Land's End
but the clothing firm is Lands' End

lang, kd
Canadian singer, lc

laptop

largesse

larva
(plural larvae), insects; lava, volcanic magma; we often say the former when we mean the latter

La's, the
defunct Liverpool rock band; keep apostrophe (abbreviation for Lads)

laser
word dating from 1960 formed from the phrase "light amplificatoin by stimulated emission of radiation", and an example of why not all acronyms need to be capped up

lasso
noun (plural lassoes) and verb: you lasso a horse with a lasso

last post

later
often redundant since context will inform the reader: "They will meet this month" rather than "They will meet later this month"

Latin
Some people object to, say, the use of "decimate" to mean destroy on the grounds that in ancient Rome it meant to kill every 10th man; some of them are also likely to complain about so-called split infinitives, a prejudice that goes back to 19th-century Latin teachers who argued that as you can't split infinitives in Latin (they are one word) you shouldn't separate "to" from the verb in English. They might even get upset about our alleged misuse of grammatical "case" (including cases such as dative and genitive that no longer exist in English).

As the Guardian is written in English, rather than Latin, do not worry about any of this even slightly

latitude
like this: 21 deg 14 min S

launderette
but Stephen Frears' 1985 film was My Beautiful Laundrette

law lords
may be female: we don't say "law ladies"

lawsuit

layby
plural laybys

lay off
does not mean to sack or make redundant, but to send workers home on part pay because of a temporary lack of demand for their product

lay waste
a hurricane can lay waste an island, or lay an island waste, but it does not lay it to waste or lay waste to it (the word comes from the same root as devastate)

lbw
(cricket)

Lea or Lee?
the river Lea flows to the Thames; the Lee Navigation canal incorporates part of it; the Lee Valley park is the site for much of the 2012 Olympic development

leap year

Learjet

learned
not learnt, unless you are writing old-fashioned poetry (he learned his tables, a message well learned, etc)

led
past tense of the verb "lead"; it is surprising how often such sentences as "he lead them to the scene of the crime" find their way into the paper

left, the, left wing, leftwinger
nouns; leftwing adjective; hard left, old left

Legal Services Commission
responsible for legal aid in England and Wales; in Scotland it is the Scottish Legal Aid Board

legal terms
in England and Wales, in camera is now known as in secret and in chambers in private; a writ is a claim form and a plaintiff a claimant; leave to appeal is permission to appeal
Since the Children Act 1989, access has been known as contact and custody is known as residence; do not use the older terms

legionnaires' disease
named after an outbreak at a conference of American Legionnaires

Leibovitz, Annie
US photographer

lent
past tense of lend; we sometimes say "leant" as in "a gritty drama, leant added authenticity by Jean Tournier's monochrome photography ... "

Leonardo da Vinci
simply Leonardo on second mention

Le Pen, Jean-Marie
Le Pen on second mention

lepers
do not use: these days the term is regarded as inappropriate and stigmatising; prefer people with leprosy or, if they are being treated, leprosy patients

lese-majesty

less/fewer
less means smaller in quantity, eg less money
fewer means smaller in number, eg fewer coins

letdown, letup
nouns

let down, let up
verbs

leukaemia

level crossing

Levi's
jeans; the company is Levi Strauss

Lévi-Strauss, Claude
structural anthropologist

liaison

Lib Dems
acceptable for Liberal Democrats after first mention and in headlines

libretto
plural librettos

licence
noun; license verb; you might enjoy your drinks in a licensed premises or take them home from an off-licence

Liechtenstein

lied
German musical setting for a poem, plural lieder

Liège
but adjective Liégeois

lieutenant-colonel, lieutenant-general
abbreviate on second mention in leading articles to Col or Gen: Lieutenant Colonel Christopher Mackay, subsequently Col Mackay, etc

lifelong
one word

lifesize
not sized

lightbulb

lighthearted

light year
a measure of distance, not time

likable
not likeable

like/as if
never use the former to mean the latter: "it looks as if he's finished" not "it looks like he's finished"

like/such as
like excludes; such as includes: "Cities like Manchester are wonderful" suggests the writer has in mind, say, Sheffield or Birmingham; she actually means "cities such as Manchester".
Do not, however, automatically change "like" to "such as" - the following appeared in the paper: "He is not a celebrity, such as Jesse Ventura, the former wrestler ... "

likely
takes the infinitive (he is likely to win) or a qualifier (he will very likely win), not "he will likely win" — if you want to use that form, say "he will probably win"

lilliputian

limpid
means clear or transparent, not limp

linchpin
not lynchpin

lineup, lineout

liquefy
not liquify

limpid
means clear or transparent, not limp

linchpin
not lynchpin

lineup, lineout

liquorice
not licorice

listed buildings
In England and Wales, Grade I-listed (note cap G, roman numeral I) buildings are of exceptional interest; Grade II* are particularly important buildings of more than special interest; Grade II are of special interest, warranting every effort to preserve them.
In Scotland and Northern Ireland these categories are replaced by the more logical Grade A, Grade B and Grade C

literally
term used, particularly by sports commentators, to denote an event that is not literally true, as in "Manchester City literally came back from the dead" see ironic, ironically

Live 8
not Live8

Liverpool John Lennon airport

Lloyd's
of London; names lc

Lloyds TSB
bank

Lloyd-Webber, Lord
but Andrew Lloyd Webber

loan
noun; the verb is lend

loathe
detest; loth unwilling, not loath

lobby
take great care when using this term: unless you are writing about, say, the parliamentary lobby or US lobby system, it will at best sound vague and patronising, and at worst pejorative or offensive ("the Jewish lobby"). If you are talking about specific pressure groups, say who they are

local
an adjective, not a noun: talk about local people rather than "locals"

loch
Scottish; lough Irish

Lockerbie bombing
in September 1988 killed 270 people; the two Libyans eventually put on trial for murder were Abdel Baset al-Megrahi and Al-Amin Khalifah Fhimah. Megrahi was convicted in 2001 and jailed for 27 years; his co-accused was acquitted

lock-in, lockout
noun

lock in, lock out
verb

London assembly
elected body of 25 members whose role is to hold the mayor of London to account. Together, assembly and mayor constitute the Greater London authority (GLA); note there is no such organisation as the "Greater London assembly"

London boroughs and counties
Parts of the traditional counties of Essex, Middlesex, Kent and Surrey that are close to London retain the county link in their postal address (eg Bromley, Kent), even when they are administratively part of a London borough (eg the London borough of Bromley), and represented in the London assembly.
This leads to inconsistencies, as when we refer to "Chingford, Essex" in one story and "Chingford, east London" in another. It is hard to be totally consistent - the preferences even of people who live in such places may vary (according to how long they have lived there, for example).
In general, use London rather than the traditional counties - Ilford, east London; Bexley, south-east London, etc - unless a group or organisation specifically includes a county designation in its title

Londonderry
use Derry and Co Derry

London Eye
official name of the millennium wheel

London Paper, the
not "thelondonpaper"

London's
do not say "London's Covent Garden" (or London's anything else); it is Covent Garden, London

London School of Economics
abbreviated to LSE after first mention

London Stock Exchange
is also abbreviated to LSE, and there is no real way round this (especially for headlines); the context should make clear which we are talking about

London Transport Users Committee

Long Island iced tea

longitude
like this: 149 deg 18 min E

longlist, shortlist

longtime
adjective, as in longtime companion

look to
used too often in place of hope to or expect to

looking-glass

lord chancellor
the post was abolished in 2003, then reprieved; but the Lord Chancellor's Department was replaced by the Department for Constitutional Affairs, which in 2007 was absorbed into the new Ministry of Justice, at which point the lord chancellor also became secretary of state for justice

lord chief justice
currently Nicholas Phillips, Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers

lord lieutenant
no hyphen; plural lords lieutenant

Lords, House of Lords
but the house, not the House; their lordships

Lord's
cricket ground

lottery, national lottery
but Lotto and National Lottery Commission

 


lovable
not loveable

Love's Labour's Lost

lowlife
plural lowlifes, not lowlives; for an explanation, see chapter six of Steven Pinker's brilliant Words and Rules: the Ingredients of Language

loyalists
(Northern Ireland)

Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva
elected president of Brazil in 2002, he is normally known simply as Lula

lumpenproletariat

luvvies
a silly cliche, best avoided

Luxembourgeois
live in Luxembourg

luxury, luxurious

LVMH
the luxury goods firm is, in full, Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton

Lycra
TM; the briefly fashionable term "lycra louts" led to complaints from the Lycra lawyers

lying in state
no hyphens

Lynyrd Skynyrd
late US rock band (named after a man called Leonard Skinner)

Lyon
not Lyons