Stylebook (mildly offensive, barely useful)

Al Dente – Thinking about dents puts people off their food, use at half-mast, semi-on or flaccid instead.

American – Be an American, not an American’t, or Americunt.

Burger King(capitalisation) – Burger king, but Burger Parliament denoting the Burger king’s subordinate position in a constitutional monarchy.

Candyman – Candyman on first four mentions, Candy’ on the fifth to avoid summoning him through your mirror.

Chameleon – Sometimes preceded by five commas, sometimes not, they come and go.

Clark Kent – Do not infer that Kent is Superman, Superman does not wear glasses.

Colon – Punctuation mark consisting of two equally sized dots centered on the same vertical line, sometimes kills you from colitis or cancer of the colon.

Cracker, Whitebread – Only to be used as racial slurs, or as part of a hi-carb constipation clearing diet.

Effluence – Wealth.

Extra virgin olive oil - This is out of sync with the modern attitudes our readership has to sexuality, use ‘technical virgin olive oil’ instead.

Financial crisis – The press has a responsibility to consider how their reportage may effect the morale of the nation, remember to reassure readers that mo’ money, mo’ problems.

Frankenstein – Frankenstein is the doctor,  Frank Skinner is the monster.

-Gate(suffix) – Castigate for an acting scandal, aggregate for a farming scandal and propagate for actual gates.

Hell(capitalisation) – hell and underworld, but Hades and Harlow.

Helping your friend Jack, off his horse – Note the comma.

Homeopathic – A needlessly long word. If space is short, substitute fake, or magic.

Inflammable – Not flammable.

Interviews – Use any spare interview time crafting questions to determine if the interviewee is a replicant.

Irish Republic – Republic, Irish, but Irish publican.

Irony – An incongruity between words or actions and often oppositional truths that expose the folly of something. Not to be confused with ironey, meaning similar to iron, or ironsy, meaning similar to Jeremy Irons.

Lampoon – For whaling in the dark.

Measurements – Hyphenate shit-ton, but not assload.

Imperial Measurements – To be used by all journalists who aren’t with the rebel scum.

Metrosexual – A man who has strong concerns for his appearance or a lifestyle stereotypically associated with homosexual men, although he is not homosexual, he has sex with trains.

Mild Mannered Reporter - Cliché, use ‘guy who dicks off whenever anything exciting is happening without a reasonable explanation for his absence, why are we still employing this guy?’.

Ninja(racial slur) – Stealthy Asian hearers often react differently to this term when it is used by white speakers and by stealthy Asian speakers. In the former case, it is regularly understood as a racial slur; in the latter, it may carry notes of in-group disparagement, or even be understood as neutral or affectionate, a possible instance of appropriation. Among the stealthy Asian community, the slur ninja is sometimes rendered as ninjer, a self-referential pronoun in stealthy Asian English vernacular popularised by some urban music. In these situations, it is used as in-group lexicon and speech, wherein it is not necessarily derogatory. But it’s use should be avoided unless you can throw a shuriken.

Old People’s Home – Ageist and potentially offensive, use ‘retirement home’ or ‘grannery’ instead.

Online Content – Finish off any online content with ‘first!’, it’s a widely respected achievement to do so and makes you a better person.

Osama Bin Laden – Until he has been tried and convicted refer to him as ‘alleged terrorist’. The comments and emails you get because of this are always worth it.

Patriotism – Lapel-pin flags are the only way for a politician to show patriotism, conversely their absence bespeaks a shame of one’s own country – report accordingly.

Petrichor – Petrichor is a great word, use it wherever you want, no one will no what it really means.

Piers Slimy-Bastard Morgan – The ‘slimy-bastard’ is silent, but not frequently enough.

Ploughman’s-sandwich – Requires a hyphen and a pickle.

Rape/Sexual Assault – Rape is a leafy oil-producing vegetable with yellow flowers, Sexual Assault is not.

Resurrection - Requires a capital R and the human sacrifice of a virgin.

Satire – If offence is taken to anything you have written claim it was satiric, this makes it the readers fault for being an uncomprehending vulgate.

Scoop – Scoop is only to be said if your press card is tucked into the hat-band of your trilby at a jaunty angle.

Sea-side towns – Not to be referred to as death’s waiting list.

Semi-Colon – Not a proper colon, as with all semi-punctuation they can be used wherever you want. Sprinkle otherwise uninformative work with them; it makes it look academicy.

Sophie’s Choice, it’s like – An appropriate metaphor for any choice, use liberally.

So yeah… – Use to finish what you’re saying when you tire of a subject, readers enjoy the opportunity to draw their own conclusions.

Spoke – Spoke is tabloid, use bloviated, ejaculated or expounded instead.

Subprime – A discontinued underwater transformers toy.

Their/There/They’re – Explaining the difference would only serve to demean us both.

Thirteen Thousand – Thirteen is unlucky even in larger numbers, use over twelve thousand or less than fourteen thousand instead.

Urban Music – Articles on urban music are always to be ended with ‘Romeo Done’.