war should be capped if part of a recognised name: the Vietnam War, the Six-day War, and the 100 Years War. World War I and World War II are the preferred style for these two catastrophes - use cap 'i' for the Roman numerals. The Arab-Israeli wars, colonial wars, but the Napoleonic Wars and the Wars of the Roses.
Western names are spelled in a variety of ways, often not apparent from the pronunciation. And owners of names tend to be unforgiving if you get them wrong. Always ask anyone you interview to spell his or her name for you. Then write it down carefully. Make a note of where the caps come in names beginning with Mc or Mac (Macdonald and MacDonald are both possible) and if two surnames are given ask about a hyphen. French people often have hyphenated Christian names (like Jean-Marie) and may need accents on surnames like Debre.
Some traps that await you:
|
Austin/Austen Brown/Browne Bevin/Bevan Burk(e) Campbell (the p is silent) Cholmondely (pronounced Chumley) Clarke/Clark Dalziell (pronounced DL) Davis/Davies Dickson/Dixon/Dixson Dunn/Dunne/Donne pronounced the same) Eliot/Elliot/Elliott Fitz- usually needs next letter capitalised -- FitzGerald, FitzMaurice ffoulkes and other names beginning ff do not take a cap |
Frazer/Fraser/Frazier Gray/Graye/Grey Holmes (the l is silent) Kelley/Kelly Lawrence/Laurence Llewellyn (note double l) Mainwaring (pronounced Mannering) Macdonald/MacDonald/Mcdonald/McDonald(of which the last is the burgers) O'Rourke/O'Toole (a lot of Irish names start like this -- the O is not an initial) Rees/Reese/Rhys Regan/Reagan Robertson/Robinson Scofield/Schofield Sheehan (pronounced Sheen) Shelagh/Sheila Siobhan (pronounced Shivaun) Smith/Smyth/Smythe (same sound) Stephens/Stevens Stuart/Stewart Tailor/Taylor Thompson/Thomson (same sound) |
will, shall follow a curious convention which, to add to your problems, is different in Scottish English and English English. Most authorities now agree that "will" may be used on all occasions without error.
whisky, whiskey are different. The first is Scotch; the second is Irish.
whom is one of those words which slide happily into a sentence as long as you don't think too carefully about why. As soon as you do the situation gets very complex. At some risk of offending pedants, you can abstain from it altogether, except in cases where it is directly governed by a preposition -- To whom was this sent? Even in cases like this you can get away with "who" as long as the preposition is not right next to it -- Who was this sent to? Otherwise, use "who" and hope.
would is needed instead of "will" if we are talking about a hypothetical situation instead of a real one -- the Bill, if passed, would outlaw obscene signs outside residential buildings ...
Actually these occasions are quite rare. And I do not agree with the authorities who decry as illiterate the newspaper habit of using "will" when writing a long analysis of a proposal. Once you have made the element of hypothesis clear, using a lot of "would" is irritating. Hong Kong newswriting generally suffers from the opposite complaint: frequent use of "would" when there is no good reason to. Write "will" unless you can think of a good reason for using something else.
youth: "a youth" is a young person, who becomes "the youth" on second mention. For no obvious reason the term is usually reserved for males, and regarded as slightly derogatory. If you want young people in general you must use "youth" without an article -- or better still just say "young people".
Y
back to "HOST"