Terminology

How we talk

Abbreviations

Avoid using abbreviations unless the name is repeated several times throughout the piece, in which case, introduce this in full first and then use the abbreviation consistently throughout. Latin abbreviations (e.g. etc. i.e.) are best avoided, particularly online.

Acronyms

Don’t use acronyms unless they are necessary. Give the full title (except where
the full title is never used – BP, IBM, BBC) at the first mention, then bracket the
acronym immediately afterwards, and use the acronym consistently throughout.

Write out in full if you are only going to use the acronym once or twice.

Example
The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) introduced the ruling in… FCA aims to…

Do not use apostrophes with acronyms to denote plural, only to indicate possession.

Example
SMEs form the backbone of the economy.

The UK’s GNP increased last year.

Ampersand

Use ‘and’ rather than ‘&’, except where space restrictions dictate (for example in t&cs or tables).

Don’t use ‘&’ in a run of text or alt tags for navigation graphics. Do use for a proper
noun/company name (Marks & Spencer, Procter & Gamble). Use ‘&’ in capitalised
abbreviations such as ‘M&S’.

Apostrophes

There are two main uses for an apostrophe.

One is to show that a letter has been left out:

Isn’t – in this case the ‘o’ has been left out of ‘not’.

The other is to show possession:

The man’s learning needs – the learning needs of, or belonging to, the man.

In the case of possessives, the apostrophe comes after the noun.

This is the case with plural nouns too.

Example
The child’s computer (one child, one computer).

The children’s computer (more than one child, one computer).
The women’s computers (more than one woman, more than one computer).

The girl’s laptop (one girl, one laptop).

The boys’ laptop (more than one boy, one laptop).

Do not use an apostrophe to make a plural even with abbreviations or acronyms: PCs, not PC’s. It’s and its.

Bullet points

Introduce bullets with a colon, do not use any other punctuation after each bullet point.

Example
Key features and benefits:
Competitive interest rates
Instant access

Where bullets are introduced with an opening sentence and colon,ensure that each bullet point would read correctly if it alone followed the introductory sentence. In this usage, it is usual to begin each bullet point with a lower-case letter, as if it were the second half of a single sentence.

The Board decided that:
the proposal was unacceptable
another review would be implemented

Capital letters

Use title case for multifi team names, titles and other names.

Use upper and lower case for all generic references in narrative text.

Example
England (and English), Chief Operating Officer, but regional, economic, financial,
bankers, etc.

Colons

Colons are used after a complete statement to introduce one or more directly related ideas or a list of items. The word after the colon should not have a capital letter.
When including direct quotations, a colon can be used to introduce the quotation.

Example
The document comprises five sections: news, bank information,
performance statistics, press material and internal announcements.

Commas

Use commas in complex sentences to emphasise meaning and break up
clauses, as normal speech would do. Try not to write sentences with too many subclauses, even with commas correctly placed, as these become confusing.

Break them up into separate sentences where possible.

Do not use commas to join together two parts of a sentence that could eachexist as separate sentences (i.e. they both have active verbs). Use a full stop or semicolon instead.

Compass points

Regional phrases commonly used as proper nouns take capital letters (You can usually tell because there’s a ‘the’ in front of them.)

Example
The North East, the South West, the West Midlands, the East End of London.

But when they are used as adjectives, they are lower case: in northern Scotland, south east England (but the South East), west London (but the West End).

Contractions and abbreviations

Do not use full points after abbreviations: Dr, Mr, St, Ltd (not ltd), plc (not Plc or PLC) except for Latin contractions (etc. i.e. e.g.) although these should be avoided whenever possible. Replace with ‘for example’, ‘and so on’ if needed.

Currencies

Use abbreviations and symbols (GBP, USD, EUR) with no spaces between the currency type and value (USD4.5bn, EUR5.6m).

Dash/long dash/endash

A longer version of a hyphen can be used to indicate a pause, an emphasised point or a sentence sub clause. This can be useful in less formal, text-heavy documents to emphasise a point, but over-use can be irritating. Try to break the sentence in two, use commas or parentheses (brackets) as well.

Dates

Friday, 1 February 2014. 1 February 2014. February 2014. 2000s (no apostrophe). 2014-15. Use the year in full. Use the month to separate the date and year. Avoid using numbers for months where possible to avoid confusion over day/month order. Don’t use zero before days 1-9. Don’t use ‘th’, ‘nd’ etc. for days. Only use the year in text if really necessary. If it’s clearly referring to this year, it’s avoidable. Don’t use an apostrophe for plural. Use 24-hour clock where possible in Europe (14:00) with numerals separated by a colon. Exceptions may include formal invitations.

Ellipsis (.)

Dot, dot, dot. Three ‘dots’ to indicate suspense, irony or humour should never be used in a formal document. Use ellipses to indicate a section deliberately omitted from a quoted sentence, and then use only three full stops (periods). The representative said, “It’s a difficult situation. We’re not… in a position to comment”.

Email

Lower case, except at the beginning of a sentence. Not ‘e-mail’ or ‘Email’. Avoid using email as a verb. Send us/him/her/them an email rather than email us/her/him/them.

Exclamation marks

Do not use. These have no place in any document written for or about multifi, nor does the idiomatic language associated with them.

File types and extensions

Use capital letters to indicate or describe file types as they are commonly known
– PDF, RTF, JPEG, CSV, HTML – but proper names for Word, Excel, PowerPoint and so on. When referring to a file extension, for example in instructional text, include the dot and write them in lower case as they appear –.csv, .html, .rtf and so on.

First name, forename, given name

Not ‘Christian name’. Use ‘first name’, ‘forename’ or ‘given name’ instead. Note that in some cultures the family name is written first and the given name last. So ‘first name’ may not be appropriate.

Full stop (period)

Use one space after a full stop. Use full stops in common abbreviations and initials.
For company names etc., check whether the company uses full stops and use accordingly. Where a full stop next to an abbreviation appears at the end of the sentence, do not repeat the full stop. Full stops should not be used at the end of an abbreviated word when the final letter of the abbreviation is the same as the full word. i.e. Mr R. S. Jones. He earns more than £100,000 p.a. Abbreviation of Limited: ‘Ltd’ not ‘Ltd.’

Hyphens

Compound words are written as one word, two words or two hyphenated words according to local usage. Where there is no clear correct version, be consistent throughout a single document. Use a hyphen to split a compound word where an awkward or confusing combination of letters would otherwise result. Use a hyphen with the prefixes ex-, self- and all-. Use a hyphen between a prefix and a capitalised word, and between prefixes and single letters or numbers.

Hyphens are used to join two words where they combine to form an adjective (describer) and they appear before the noun they are describing. Where they appear after the noun, they are not hyphenated. In most typed documents, hyphenation
should be avoided. Where essential, break on a syllable. Break already-hyphenated
words on the existing hyphen.

Examples

• Worldwide and world-wide are both correct.
• It was a world-class presentation.
  multifi’s people are world class.
• Re-sign the petition but resign from the job.
• Ex-husband; pre-Civil War; T-shirt; mid-1990s.
• The well-known author. The author was well known.
• Back up two words, except when used as an adjective, as in a ‘back-up procedure’.
• Co-ordinate/co-ordinator (with hyphen; similarly ‘co-operate’ and so on) except geographical or mathematical coordinates (noun).
• Follow up (two words, except when used as an adjective, as in a ‘follow-up activity’).
• Log on/log off (two words, except when used as an adjective).
• Self-sufficient, self-confident, self-conscious (and other ‘selfs’) are hyphenated.
  But note: unselfconscious.
• Online, offline (one word, not hyphenated).

Internet addresses (URLs and email addresses)

When writing out in full in an offline document, enclose in square brackets [http://www.multifi.co.uk/] This solves any problems you may have with full points at the end of a sentence getting mixed up with the internet address. Do not show internet addresses in full in online documents. They are often long and look ugly in the run of text and can break the design if you try to display them in a narrow column. Use a suitable word or phrase as the linked text and ‘hide’ the URL behind.

When writing out URLs in offline documents (and downloads designed to be used
offline), always include the ‘https://’ at the front of a URL. Finish a URL that is a
directory or subdirectory with ‘/’ (this is optional for domain names, and for display
purposes where it looks ugly). Do not finish a URL that ends in a file name with ‘/’.

Example
[https://www.multifi.co.uk/people/] (URL ending in a directory name).

But
note: [https://www.multifi.co.uk/ filename.html] (URL ending in a file name).

Italics

Use for titles of newspapers, magazines, books, films, plays etc. Use to indicate an unfamiliar or foreign word or phrase. Use to emphasise a word or phrase within a sentence – but use sparingly in this context. Where the italicised words are followed by punctuation that is not part of the emphasised phrase, ensure the punctuation is not italicised.

Example
The survey appeared in The Banker magazine. He appeared
in loco parents.

Job titles and roles

Use initial capitals (title case) for a job title when it is a proper noun or when identifying
an individual. Use lower case for roles and when used generically. When identifying
a person with their job title, use commas.

Examples
Pamela Brown, Marketing Director

Numbers

Always write out numbers as words at the start of a sentence: Sixteen delegates attended the event. Use numerals when followed by a unit of measurement.
No space between the numeral and unit of measurement.

Example
5mm; not 5 mm; but ‘five millimetres’ when written out. Use commas to separate thousands: 3,000; 45,000. When writing decimal numbers less than one, always include a 0 before the decimal point. 0.025; 0.13. Write one to nine in words, 10 and above in numbers, except online
and news communications, use figures for higher numbers.

Exceptions: page references should always be in figures; rough or abstract numbers should always be in words.

Use ‘zero’ rather than ‘nought’ in words, especially for non-UK readers.

Use ( ) for negative numbers in tables or columns. For millions/ billions in tables, use figures and ensure table heading makes clear the units used. In text, spell out ‘million’ the first time with a space after the figure, thereafter use ‘m’ and ‘bn’ without a space.

Use commas to divide each group of three figures in long numbers. Translating for UK/US documents, remember to change from inverted commas as used in continental Europe.

Ratios: in formal text, spell out ‘to’ in words where the figures are less than ten.

Ranges of numbers: use ‘from’ and ‘to’ where numbers are spelt out in words, a hyphen where both numbers are over ten and are expressed in figures. Don’t mix one with the other.

• At least three years ago.
• We have closed 15 major transactions.
• See page 8.
• Millions may have been lost.
• Fifteen major transactions.
• The transaction is worth USD1.2 billion.
• The company is valued at more than USD30bn.
• 3,985,247,000 NOT 3’985’247’0000
  We give it a two to one chance.
• From three to six months.

Parentheses (brackets)

Used to distinguish a sub-clause, supplementary or subordinate content in a sentence.Use sparingly. Ensure brackets are closed. Brackets within brackets should be
closed too, but avoid these to maintain clarity if possible.

Example
Per cent
Use ‘per cent’ (two words) in preference to ‘%’ in narrative. But consider alternatives such as ‘half’, or ‘three quarters’. Always use ‘per cent’ after a number that has been written out, for example at the start of a sentence. In tables or where you have a highly statistical report, use ‘%’. But be aware that this can easily be mistaken for 96 on a web page. Aim for clarity and be consistent.

Personal titles/referring to people

Refer to people by their first name and surname in the first instance, then title and surname. Philip Monks, CEO …and Mr Monks, subsequently.

Question marks

In general, if a question is used in text, a question mark should appear. The difficulty arises with rhetorical questions, used to make a point rather than to request an answer. Avoid these where possible. Questions can sometimes be usefully used
as subheadings, particularly in less formal documents and those intended to educate the reader about a number of subjects. If they are used, a question mark should appear.

Quotation marks

Use “double quotes” and ‘single quotes’, for quotes within quotes. But always use
double quotes for direct speech. Use double inverted commas for reported speech.
Use single inverted commas for an unfamiliar term, a word used ironically or in an unusual context, or to indicate reported speech within speech. Don’t use quotation marks for indirect reported speech. Quotation marks should enclose the whole quote. If an entire sentence is enclosed within quote marks, they close after the final full stop [period]. BUT if part of the whole sentence is outside the quote, the full stop should end the whole sentence i.e. come after the closing quote mark.

The exception to this rule: when a long quotation creates a complex paragraph, particularly breaking the quotation into two. Best practice here is to place the closing quote marks at the very end after the full stop. When a quote is broken in the middle, the second half should begin without a capital letter if the sentence would otherwise have run on without one. Remember to convert continental-style « » quotation marks to English-style when translating.

Examples
“Yes,” she said.

“He told me ‘Definitely not’,” she said.

He said he had had quite enough.

“We’re delighted with our performance this quarter.”

Commenting on his department’s performance, he said,
“We’re delighted”.

“It’s a great pleasure,” said our host, “to welcome you here today. I know I speak for the whole Board when I say that.”