Fuck Cunt Guardian
Just popped over to the Guardian’s web site for a quick browse of the latest headlines, when I noticed a tiny link right at the bottom of the page — Style guide. Curious, I clicked and found it was a writing-style guide for the paper’s writers and editors, full of rather interesting stuff. For example:
cabin attendant, flight attendant, cabin crew, cabin staff — not air hostess, air stewardesses.
Caesars Palace — no apostrophe.
World Series (baseball) got its name from the New York World, the newspaper that originally sponsored it; so to use it as an example of American arrogance is as inaccurate as it is tedious.
Saint — in running text should be spelt in full: Saint John, Saint Paul. For names of towns, churches, etc, abbreviate St (no point) eg St Mirren, St Stephen’s church. In French placenames a hyphen is needed, eg St-Nazaire, Ste-Suzanne, Stes-Maries-de-la-Mer.
And of course:
swearwords — We are more liberal than any other newspaper, using words such as cunt and fuck that most of our competitors would not use, even in direct quotes.
The editor’s guidelines are straightforward: First, remember the reader, and respect demands that we should not casually use words that are likely to offend. Second, use such words only when absolutely necessary to the facts of a piece, or to portray a character in an article; there is almost never a case in which we need to use a swearword outside direct quotes. Third, the stronger the swearword, the harder we ought to think about using it. Finally, never use asterisks, which are just a copout.
- Kashmir
- ‘Ere we go
