‘When I see my name spelt with one word, I want to slap and choke people. If you do that, you got to be a moron … It’s on every poster, every album and every ticket as two words. If you spell it as one, you’re an idiot.’ Meat Loaf • Follow the style guide on Twitter: @guardianstyle

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

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Maasai

people and language; the Maasai Mara is a game reserve in Kenya

Mac or Mc?

Andie MacDowell (actor), Sue MacGregor (broadcaster), Kelvin MacKenzie (ex-editor), Shirley MacLaine (actor), Murdo MacLeod (photographer).

Sir Cameron Mackintosh (impresario), Elle Macpherson (model).

Sir Paul McCartney (composed song about frogs), Steve McClaren (football manager), Sir Trevor McDonald (ex-newsreader), Ian McEwan (novelist), Ewan McGregor, Sir Ian McKellen (actors), Malcolm McLaren (late impresario)

Macau

MacDonald, James Ramsay (1866-1937)

first Labour prime minister, known as Ramsay MacDonald

mace, the

parliament; Mace riot control spray



MacGuffin

an object or event in a book or a film that serves as the impetus for the plot



machiavellian

after Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527)

machine gun

noun; machine-gun verb; submachine gun

Machu Picchu

Peruvian “lost city of the Incas”

mackem

refers both to a person from Sunderland and their accent

Macmillan, Harold

(1894-1986) Tory prime minister

MacMillan, Kenneth

(1929-92) choreographer



MacNeice, Louis

(1907-63) Belfast-born poet

Macquarie University

in New South Wales

Madagascar

geographical; Malagasy Republic political; Malagasy inhabitant or inhabitants of Madagascar and the name of their language; the adjective for the country is Madagascan

Madama Butterfly

is the correct title of Puccini’s 1904 opera; Madame Butterfly and Madam Butterfly are the French and English versions

Madame Tussauds

no apostrophe, even though there was a Mme (Marie) Tussaud

madeira

wine and cake

Madejski stadium

home of Reading FC

Madison Square Garden

(not Gardens) in New York City

Madras

now known as Chennai

madrasa

normally used to mean Islamic school, although in both Arabic and Urdu the word is used to refer to any kind of school

mafia

Mafikeng

now spelt thus, though it was Mafeking when it was relieved

Maga

for Make America Great Again

Magdalen College, Oxford

Magdalene College, Cambridge

magic bullet

easy solution; silver bullet as used to kill a werewolf, and by the Lone Ranger.

We should normally stick to magic bullet for metaphorical use, at least when talking about a simple or ready solution.

By all means say silver bullet, however, when actually referring to werewolves or, metaphorically, if you are talking about getting rid of something. So:

Labour will need magic bullet to win the next election;

Labour will need silver bullet to remove Cameron from No 10

magistrates court

no apostrophe

maglev

high-speed trains (it is short for magnetic levitation)

Magna Carta

not “the Magna Carta”; note that it was sealed, not signed

Magnum

a .44 Magnum is a cartridge, not a gun (although Dirty Harry used a .44 Magnum revolver)

maharajah

Mahathir Mohamad

prime minister of Malaysia from 1981 to 2003; Mahathir on second mention (except in leading articles, where he is Mr, not Dr, Mahathir)

maiden name

sounds outdated in an age of marriage equality; preferable alternatives include birth name, original name, previous name, or a construction such as “Jane Smith (born Jane Jones)“

mailbag, mailvan

mail train

mainland

should not be used to refer to Great Britain in reports about Northern Ireland

mainmast, mainsail

mai tai

cocktail; muay thai contact sport

major

a major case of overuse; avoid except in a military context: big, main and leading are among the alternatives

majority

Unless you are specifically talking about the larger part of a measurable number, “most of” normally sounds more natural: “a clear majority had voted Conservative, so he resolved to spend most of the next five years in the pub”

makeover, makeup

(nouns) one word; (verbs) two words: making up is hard to do

makrut lime

not “kaffir lime”; note that it is makrut and not, as Wikipedia has it, makrud. Used in south-east Asian cooking and to flavour drinks

Málaga

Malaysian names

generally the given name comes first, and Muslim Malays tend not to use surnames, so Mahathir Mohamad (Mahathir the son of Mohamad) becomes Mahathir on second reference. Chinese Malaysian names, like Singaporean names, are in three parts: eg Ling Liong Sik (Ling after first mention)

Mall, the

in London

Malloch-Brown, Lord

a former deputy secretary general of the UN, Mark Malloch Brown acquired a peerage and a hyphen when he became a Labour minister

Mallorca

not Majorca

Malmö

Mamma Mia!

musical show and film featuring Abba songs

mammon

Man Booker prize

no longer the name of the prize, it is now just the Booker prize

mañana

manchild

plural manchildren

mangetout

one word

manifesto

plural manifestos

mankind

humankind or humanity are preferable

manmade

artificial or synthetic are non-gender-specific alternatives

manner or manor?

“To the manner born” is a phrase from Hamlet. To the Manor Born was a sitcom

manoeuvre, manoeuvring

mantis

plural mantids

Māori

the people and their language

Mao Zedong

Mao on second mention

margarita

cocktail

margherita

pizza

Mariinsky theatre

St Petersburg home of the Mariinsky Ballet, formerly known as the Kirov Ballet

Royal Marines, US Marines, US Marine Corps



Marks & Spencer

at first mention, then M&S

marquis

not marquess, except where it is the correct formal title, eg Marquess of Blandford

Marrakech

Mars bar

Marseille

not Marseilles

marshal

(military rank) not marshall, a very frequent error; a reader sent in this mnemonic: “Air Chief Marshal Marshall presided at the court martial of the martial arts instructor”

Marshall plan

US aid to help rebuild Europe after the second world war

marshmallow

not marshmellow, munchmallow, munchmellow

Martí, José

(1853-95) writer and leader of Cuba’s war of independence against Spain

martial

arts, law

martini

cocktail made with gin or vodka and vermouth; note that Martini & Rossi makes Martini, a brand of vermouth – so you might make a martini with Martini

Marxism, Marxist

Mary Celeste

not Marie Celeste

Mas, Artur

(not Arturo) former president of Catalonia

mass

lc; mass is celebrated or said, not read or given

massacre

the savage killing of large numbers of people, not Macclesfield Town beating Stockport County 6-0 in the big Cheshire derby

massive

massively overused

Mastercard

masterful or masterly?

The former means wilful or domineering; the latter means highly competent: “He gave a masterly demonstration of good grammar”



master’s

as in “I did my master’s at UCL”

mat

floor covering; matt non-shiny, as in matt finish; matte used to combine images in films

match-fixing

matchplay

(golf) but World Match Play Championship

Mathews, Meg

former model and ex-wife of Noel Gallagher; they have a daughter, Anais

matinee

no accent



matins

“max fac”

When referring to the Brexiters’ preferred partnership use maximum facilitation at first mention, then “max fac” (quotes on first use). Adjectival use requires a hyphen, eg the max-fac option.

maxidress

may or might?

The subtle distinctions between these (and between other so-called modal verbs) are gradually disappearing, but they still matter to many of our readers and can be useful.

may implies that the possibility remains open: “The Mies van der Rohe tower may have changed the face of British architecture for ever” (it has been built); might suggests that the possibility remains open no longer: “The Mies tower might have changed the face of architecture for ever” (if only they had built it). Similarly, “they may have played tennis, or they may have gone boating” suggests I don’t know what they did; “they might have played tennis if the weather had been dry” means they didn’t, because it wasn’t.

Our headline “Capello has stayed aloof but personal touch may have kept Bridge onside” says the opposite of what is meant – it suggests that Capello’s personal touch means there is still a possibility of Bridge staying onside; it should have read “Capello has stayed aloof but personal touch might have kept Bridge onside” (but it didn’t).

may also has the meaning of “having permission”, so be careful: does “Megawatt Corp may bid for TransElectric Inc” mean that it is considering a bid, or that the competition authorities have allowed it to bid?

mayday

distress signal (from the French “m’aidez!”)

May Day

1 May

May, Theresa

with an H; Mother Teresa with no H

mayor of London

or anywhere else: lowercase

MB

megabytes (storage capacity)

Mbps

megabits per second (communication speed); take care to get such terms right: we referred to a “2mbps internet connection” which, at two millibits a second, is about the speed of smoke signals

McAlpine

note the “Sir” in the building and civil engineering company Sir Robert McAlpine (named after the baronet who founded it); not to be confused with Alfred McAlpine construction and support services

MCC, the

founded in 1787 as Marylebone Cricket Club

McDonald’s

hamburgers; the possessive is the same word, eg “McDonald’s new vegan-friendly image”

McJob

defined by the OED as “an unstimulating, low-paid job with few prospects, esp one created by the expansion of the service sector”

McLuhan, Marshall

(1911-80) Canadian author who coined the phrase “the medium is the message”

mean or median?

To calculate the mean, commonly known as the average, you add up everyone’s wages (for example) and divide them by the number of wage earners. The median is the wage earned by the middle person when everyone’s wages are lined up from smallest to largest. The median is often a more useful guide than the mean, which can be distorted by figures at one extreme or the other

meanwhile

usually means “here’s a slight change of subject”

Meat Loaf

sings

meatloaf

doesn’t sing.

To quote “the Loaf” himself:

“When I see my name spelt with one word, I want to slap and choke people. If you do that, you got to be a moron. It’s on every poster, every album and every ticket as two words. If you spell it as one, you’re an idiot. Bottom line”

Mecca

holy city in Saudi Arabia; mecca as in “Ashton-under-Lyne is a mecca for tripe-eaters”

medals

British Empire Medal, George Cross, Medal of Honor, Victoria Cross, etc; but Fields medal (official name: International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics)

Médecins Sans Frontières

international (not French) medical aid charity; no need to translate it

Medellín

Colombia’s second-largest city

media

The media, including social media, are plural, so television might be your favourite medium of all the media. A convention of spiritualists, however, would be attended by mediums

Medicaid, Medicare

are both US federal health insurance programmes, but Medicare primarily covers people over 65 and has no financial requirements for eligibility; Medicaid is targeted at those on low incomes

medieval

not mediaeval. While the term can be used to refer broadly to old-fashioned or primitive behaviour that might have been found in the middle ages, if using the term to refer specifically to that time period please ensure it falls roughly between 500-1455 AD.

Medvedev, Dmitry

(not Dmitri) became president of Russia in 2008, then swapped jobs with Vladimir Putin in 2012 and is now prime minister

meet, met

You might meet with triumph and disaster, or meet with a bad end, but “meet” should normally suffice if you are just going to meet someone

mega

fine for megabits, megabytes and megawatts, not as an adjective meaning big

memento

plural mementoes

memorandum

plural memorandums, not memoranda

menage

no accent

Menorca

not Minorca

menswear

mental handicap, mentally handicapped, mentally retarded

do not use: say a person with learning disabilities

mental health

Take care using language about mental health issues. In addition to such clearly offensive and unacceptable expressions as loony, maniac, nutter, psycho and schizo, terms to avoid - because they stereotype and stigmatise - include victim of, suffering from, and afflicted by; “a person with” is clear, accurate and preferable to “a person suffering from”.

Terms such as schizophrenic and psychotic should be used only in a medical context: for example never use schizophrenic to mean “in two minds”. Also, they should only be used as adjectives, not nouns.

Avoid writing “the mentally ill” - say mentally ill people, mental health patients or people with mental health problems

If relevant, include helpline information at the end of articles or other content:

• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or visiting mind.org.uk

merchant navy

meretricious or meritorious?

Derived from the Latin for prostitute, meretricious means flashy but without substance; meritorious means worthy of merit

Meridian

ITV region; Meridien hotels

Mesolithic

Messiaen, Olivier

(1908-92) French composer

metalwork

metaphor

traditionally defined as the application to one thing of a name belonging to another, eg bowling blitz, economic meltdown, “every language is a temple in which the soul of those who speak it is enshrined” (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

meteor

a piece of space rock, usually from a comet or asteroid, that enters the Earth’s atmosphere; if it hits the ground before it burns up, it is a meteorite

method acting

techniques associated with the Russian Constantin Stanislavski (1865-1938) and the American Lee Strasberg (1901-82)

Met Office

#MeToo



metres

should be written out in full, to avoid confusion with million (an obvious exception would be athletics, eg she won the 400m)

metric system

We use the metric system for weights and measures; exceptions are the mile and the pint. As understanding of the two systems is a matter of generations, conversions (in brackets) to imperial units should be provided wherever this seems useful, though usually one conversion – the first – will suffice. Imperial units in quoted matter should be retained, and converted to metric [in square brackets] if it doesn’t ruin the flow of the quote.

It is not necessary to convert moderate distances between metres and yards, which are close enough for rough and ready purposes (though it is preferable to use metres), or small domestic quantities: two litres of wine, a kilogram of sugar, a couple of pounds of apples, a few inches of string.

Small units should be converted when precision is required: 44mm (1.7in) of rain fell in two hours. But be sensible: don’t convert a metric estimate into a precise imperial figure (round the conversion up or down). Tons and tonnes are close enough for most purposes to do without conversion; use tonnes (except in shipping tonnage).

Body weights and heights should always be converted in brackets: metres to feet and inches, kilograms to stones/pounds. Geographical heights and depths, of people, buildings, monuments, etc, should be converted, metres to feet. In square measurement, land is given in sq metres, hectares and sq km, with sq yards, acres or sq miles in brackets where there is space to provide a conversion. The floor areas of buildings are conventionally expressed in sq metres (or sq ft). Take great care in conversions of square and cubic measures: 2 metres is about 6.5 feet, but 2 sq metres is about 21.5 sq feet

Métro

in Paris; Metro is its Tyne and Wear equivalent

Metropolitan police

the Met at second mention; commissioner of the Metropolitan police, Met commissioner is acceptable; but note Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA).

The Metropolitan police are plural, like other forces, but the Met is singular, so: the Metropolitan police are investigating, but the Met is investigating, etc

Mexican wave

meze

not mezze

Miami Beach

US city

miaow

noise made by cats

mic

abbreviation for microphone, but you are miked up

microblogging

is what people do on Twitter

microbrewery, micropub

“A micropub is a small freehouse which listens to its customers, mainly serves cask ales, promotes conversation, shuns all forms of electronic entertainment and dabbles in traditional pub snacks,” according to the Micropub Association

mid-60s, mid-90s, etc

mid-Atlantic

but transatlantic

midday

middle ages

middle America, middle England

Middle-earth

(Tolkien) not Middle Earth

Middle East

never Mid, even in headlines

Middlesbrough, Teesside

not Middlesborough, Teeside

midget

considered by some to be offensive, certainly more so than dwarf; best to ask the people you are writing about how they prefer to describe themselves

Midlands, east Midlands

but West Midlands

midnight

not 12 midnight, 12am or 12pm

Midsummer Day

24 June

midterm, midweek, midwest

no hyphens

migration

A migrant migrates from one country to another.

An “economic migrant” is how rightwing newspapers and politicians describe someone who immigrates to the UK to do what emigrants from the UK do when they migrate to other countries

Migration Watch UK

also sometimes styling itself Migrationwatch (randomly using both spellings in the same document); calls itself “an independent think tank” but is a rightwing anti-immigration pressure group and should be described as such

MiG-21

Soviet Union-built fighter plane, still in use in some countries

Milad al-Nabi

Islamic festival celebrating the birth of the prophet; many Muslims disapprove of celebrating this event

mileage

Militant tendency

military ranks

Use as abbreviated below on first mention, then just surname, eg Col Tommy Smith, thereafter Smith.

Army: Gen, Lt Gen, Maj Gen, Brig, Col, Lt Col, Maj, Capt, Lt, 2Lt, OCdt, WOI, WOII, SSgt, CSgt, Sgt, CoH, L/CoH, Cpl, Bdr, L/Cpl, L/Bdr, Pte

Navy: Adm, V Adm, R Adm, Capt, Cdr, Lt Cdr, Lt, SLt, Mid, OCdt, WOI, WOII, CPO, PO, LH, AB, Mne

RAF: Gp Capt, Wg Cmdr, Sqn Ldr, Flt Lt, Fg Off, Plt Off, MAcr, WO, Ft Sgt, Ch Tech, Sgt, Cpl, Jr Tech, L/Cpl, SAC, LAC, AC

Do not abbreviate: Field Marshal, Admiral of the Fleet, Commodore, Marshal of the RAF, Air Chief Marshal, Air Marshal, Air Vice-Marshal, Air Commodore

militate or mitigate?

To militate against something is to influence it (his record militated against his early release); to mitigate means to lessen an offence (in mitigation, her counsel argued that she came from a broken home)

millefeuille

millenary

but millennium, plural millennia

millennials

This term is generally applied to people born between the early 1980s and mid-1990s. They can also be referred to as generation Y.

Generation Z applies to people born between the mid-1990s and early 2010s.

Generation X applies to people born between the mid-1960s and the late 1970s.

millennium development goals

abbreviation MDGs

Millennium Dome

(now historical) at first mention, then just the dome; reopened in 2007 as the O2



millennium wheel

its official name is London Eye

million

in copy use m for sums of money, units or inanimate objects: £10m, 45m tonnes of coal, 30m doses of vaccine; but million for people or animals: 1 million people, 23 million rabbits, etc; use m in headlines

millisieverts

measure of radiation dose; abbreviation mSv

milquetoast

not milktoast. Named after Caspar Milquetoast, a character in the 1920s US cartoon strip The Timid Soul. Modern meaning: wuss

mimic, mimicked, mimicking

min

contraction of minute/minutes

mindset

minibus, minicab, miniskirt, minivan

MiniDisc

TM

ministers

are all lc: prime minister, etc

Minnelli, Liza

“Liza with a Zee, not Lisa with an Ess”, and Minnelli with two Ns; her father was the film director Vincente Minnelli (1903-86)

minority ethnic

(adjective) rather than ethnic minority

minuscule

not miniscule

misanthropist

hates everyone; misogynist hates women



mis-hit, mis-sell

but misspeak, misspell, misspent

mishmash

mistakable, unmistakable

mistress

best reserved for historical contexts; girlfriend or lover is less judgmental and sexist



misuse, misused

MLA

member of the Northern Ireland assembly (it stands for member of the legislative assembly)

MLitt

master of letters, not master of literature

Mobo awards

it stands for Music of Black Origin

Moby-Dick

The title of Herman Melville’s classic is hyphenated, although the name of the whale is Moby Dick

Modern

in the sense of Modern British, to distinguish it from modern art

Moët & Chandon

champagne

molotov cocktail

mom or mum?

It’s “mom” in the US, “mum” in the UK. In a father’s account about his son who went on a shooting rampage in a California high school, we referred to the boy’s “mum”, which as a reader pointed out was “noticeably at odds with the American tone of his remarks”

moment magnitude scale

measures earthquakes; superseded the Richter scale in 1979

Mönchengladbach

money-grubbing

not money-grabbing

money laundering

noun; money-laundering adjective

moneyed

eg moneyed classes; moneys not monies

Mongol

one of the peoples of Mongolia

mongooses

(not mongeese) plural of mongoose

moniker

not monicker

Monk, Thelonious

(1917-82) American jazz pianist and composer, generally but erroneously referred to in the Guardian and elsewhere as “Thelonius”; a pleasing mnemonic is that he made a melodious thunk

Montenegro

inhabited by Montenegrins

Mooc

massive open online course

moon

lc for the Earth’s moon

moon walk

what Neil Armstrong did; moonwalk what Michael Jackson did

Moors murders

committed in the 1960s by Ian Brady and Myra Hindley

moot

a moot point, in British English, is debatable, open to discussion; in American English, it is irrelevant

moped

technically this term refers to a low-powered motor scooter of less than 50cc, but it is sometimes acceptable to use it in headlines as shorthand for motor scooters generally

morbidity

can mean the state of being morbid (taking an unusual interest in death or unpleasant events); but morbidity, also known as the morbidity rate, also means the relative incidence of a disease in a specific locality

more than

generally preferable to over: there were more than 20,000 people at the game, it will cost more than £100 to get it fixed; but she is over 18

More Than

not MORE TH>N, which is how the insurance arm of Royal & Sun Alliance styles itself

Morissette, Alanis

Mormons

are members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which should be used once (unabbreviated) and thereafter referred to as the Mormon church

morning-after pill

morris dancing

often seen with a capital M, for no apparent reason

Morrisons

for the stores (not Morrison or Morrison’s), Morrisons Supermarket plc is the name of the company (formerly Wm Morrison); just to make it more confusing, Morrison is a support services company owned by AWG plc (Anglian Water)

morse code

mortgage borrower, lender

the person borrowing the money is the mortgagor, the lender is both the mortgagee and the mortgage holder; to avoid confusion, call the mortgagor the mortgage borrower and the mortgagee the mortgage lender

mortise lock

not mortice

mosquito

plural mosquitoes

Mosquito

“youth dispersal device” that emits a piercing noise inaudible to over-25s

Mossad, the

Israeli secret service, the equivalent of MI6 or the CIA. The Hebrew word mossad simply means institute, so the definite article in “the Mossad” is designed to distinguish it from other more mundane institutes

MOT

test cars must undergo when they are three years old or more; not MoT, although this was the abbreviation for the former Ministry of Transport

mother of parliaments

the great 19th-century Liberal politician and Manchester Guardian reader John Bright described England, the country (not Westminster, the institution), as the mother of parliaments

mother of three

etc, not mother-of-three; but do not use unless relevant to the story

Mother’s Day

or Mothering Sunday

Mötley Crüe, Motörhead

include “metal umlauts”

motorbike, motorcar, motorcycle

motor neurone disease

may be abbreviated to MND after first mention

motorways

junction 4 of the M4, etc

mottoes

moustache

not mustache

movable

mph

MP, MPs

if spelling out, lowercase: member of parliament

MP3, MP3 player

not mp3

Mr, Ms, Mrs, Miss

In leading articles: use the appropriate honorific after first mention (unless you are writing about an artist, author, journalist, musician, sportsman or woman, criminal or dead person, who take surname only); use Ms for women subsequently unless they have expressed a preference for Miss or Mrs.

Everywhere apart from leading articles: generally use first name and surname on first mention, and thereafter just surname. Use an honorific, however, if this strikes the wrong tone, or to identify different members of the same family

See honorifics

MSP

member of the Scottish parliament

Muhammad

Muslims consider Muhammad to be the last of God’s prophets, who delivered God’s final message. They recognise Moses and Jesus as prophets also.

The above transliteration is our style for the prophet’s name and for most Muhammads living in Arab countries, though where someone’s preferred spelling is known we respect it, eg Mohamed Al Fayed, Mohamed ElBaradei.

The spelling Mohammed (or variants) is considered archaic by most British Muslims today

Muhammad Ali

born Cassius Marcellus Clay Jr in 1942

mujahideen

collective noun for people fighting a jihad; the singular is mujahid

mukhabarat

secret police in the Arab world (it means “informers”)

multicultural, multimedia, multimillion, multinational, multiparty

but multi-ethnic

Mum or mum?

capital M if it’s just Mum, eg “Mum was a lovely person”; otherwise lowercase, eg “my mum was a lovely person”, “how is your mum?”, “she’s a hard-working mum”, etc

Mumbai

formerly Bombay, but no need to say so

Murphy’s law

”If there are two or more ways to do something, and one of those ways can result in a catastrophe, then someone will do it”; also known as sod’s law.

Not to be confused with Muphry’s law – “the editorial application of the better-known Murphy’s law” – which states: “If you write anything criticising editing or proofreading, there will be a fault of some kind in what you have written”

museums

initial caps, eg British Museum, Natural History Museum, Victoria and Albert Museum (V&A on second reference), Metropolitan Museum of Art, etc

Muslim

not Moslem

mutual

Ignore pedants who say mutual should only mean reciprocated – mutual respect, mutual admiration society, mutual destruction – rather than shared. By this logic, Dickens would have had to change the title of Our Mutual Friend to Our Common Friend

muzak

no need for a capital M

MW

megawatts

mW

milliwatts

Myanmar

not Burma, but its people and language are Burmese. The capital is Naypyidaw, not Yangon.

myriad

A large, unspecified number, derived from the ancient Greek for ten thousand. The OED lists various ways it is used: as a singular noun (there is a myriad of people outside), a plural noun (there are myriads of people outside), or an adjective (there are myriad people outside)

Myspace

no longer MySpace

myxomatosis

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