SJC-style-and-production-guide-2012

Sims, The a strategic life-simulation computer game developed by Maxis and published byElectronic Arts.singular All organisations are single entities and should be treated as singular. So, ‘Thegovernment is . . .’, ‘the group is’, ‘BHP has . . .’, ‘Castlemaine Perkins Ltd brews . . .’,‘White and Associates designs . . .’, ‘Brisbane City Council has decided . . .’The singular number is extended to such constructions as: The architect, Smith, Jones andBrown Partners, ... Bridge and Culvert Constructions, engineer for the project, ... Arnott’s,maker of biscuits, has decided . . .sliver is a very thin slice of something – meat, timber, or yarn ready for roving or slubbing;slither is sometimes confused, but means the action of a snake moving, or person sliding overa surface.sneak (present tense) sneaked (past tense) not ‘snuck’.some should not be used. Better to specify how many.somebody is preferred to ‘someone’. Similarly anybody, nobody.sometimes, some time, some times, sometime These all have separate, distinct meanings andare not interchangeable: ‘I go fishing sometimes.’ ‘I’ll go fishing at some time.’ ‘Some timesare better for fishing than others.’ ‘I’m a sometime (former) fisherman.’spelling Use the Macquarie Australian Dictionary whenever unsure of spelling. Where it givesyou a choice of spellings, use the first option, unless this style guide says otherwise. Notethat spellcheckers in computer software are often based on American dictionaries, are unableto detect errant homonyms (eg, there, they’re, their) and are of limited usefulness. Avoid thetemptation to guess spelling: guessing inevitably makes a writer look stupid. Always check.Intuitive spelling ability can be developed only by reading, referring and remembering,although some rules are helpful.Some words that cause frequent difficulties are:abattoir, accommodate, adviser, aficionado, Antarctic, (A)arctic, asphalt, athlete.barbecue, berserk, bureaucratic, burglar.calendar, callus/callous, Caribbean, cemetery, combated, commitment, connoisseur, consensus.dependent/dependant, descendant, develop, diphtheria, ecstasy, eighth, eisteddfod, environment,exaggerate, exhilarate, exhort, exorbitant.February.gauge.haemorrhage, hierarchy.immediately, indispensable.jewellery.loath/loathe.mackerel, manoeuvre, mathematics.necessary, nickel, nuclear.parallel(ed), papaw, phosphorus, possess, prejudice, privilege, propeller.quite/quiet.PAGE 57 – 2012UQ SJC STYLEBOOK