- •Introduction
- •1 SPELLING
- •CONVENTIONS
- •INTERFERENCE EFFECTS
- •CAPITAL LETTERS
- •GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES
- •HYPHENS AND COMPOUND WORDS
- •2 PUNCTUATION
- •FULL STOP
- •COLON
- •SEMICOLON
- •COMMA
- •DASHES
- •BRACKETS
- •QUESTION MARK
- •EXCLAMATION MARK
- •QUOTATION MARKS
- •APOSTROPHE
- •3 NUMBERS
- •WRITING OUT NUMBERS
- •FRACTIONS
- •RANGES
- •DATES AND TIMES
- •4 ABBREVIATIONS AND SYMBOLS
- •ABBREVIATIONS
- •MATHEMATICAL SYMBOLS
- •SCIENTIFIC SYMBOLS AND UNITS OF MEASUREMENT
- •5 FOREIGN IMPORTS
- •FOREIGN WORDS AND PHRASES IN ENGLISH TEXT
- •ROMANISATION SYSTEMS
- •6 VERBS
- •SINGULAR OR PLURAL AGREEMENT
- •PRESENT PERFECT/SIMPLE PAST
- •TENSES IN MINUTES
- •VERBS IN LEGISLATION
- •SPLIT INFINITIVE
- •THE GERUND AND THE POSSESSIVE
- •7 LISTS AND TABLES
- •LISTS
- •TABLES
- •8 SCIENCE GUIDE
- •SCIENTIFIC NAMES
- •9 FOOTNOTES, CITATIONS AND REFERENCES
- •10 CORRESPONDENCE
- •11 NAMES AND TITLES
- •PERSONAL NAMES AND TITLES
- •NAMES OF BODIES
- •12 GENDER-NEUTRAL LANGUAGE
- •13 THE EUROPEAN UNION
- •14 PRIMARY LEGISLATION
- •THE TREATIES — AN OVERVIEW
- •THE TREATIES IN DETAIL
- •TREATY CITATIONS
- •15 SECONDARY LEGISLATION
- •LEGISLATIVE PROCEDURES
- •TITLES AND NUMBERING
- •STRUCTURE OF ACTS
- •REFERRING TO SUBDIVISIONS OF ACTS
- •16 THE EU INSTITUTIONS
- •COMMISSION
- •COUNCIL
- •EUROPEAN COUNCIL
- •EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT
- •COURT OF JUSTICE OF THE EUROPEAN UNION
- •COURT OF AUDITORS
- •EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE
- •COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS
- •EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK
- •OTHER FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS
- •AGENCIES
- •17 REFERENCES TO OFFICIAL PUBLICATIONS
- •THE OFFICIAL JOURNAL
- •BULLETIN AND GENERAL REPORT
- •18 EU FINANCES
- •BUDGET
- •FUNDS FINANCED FROM THE BUDGET
- •OTHER FUNDS
- •19 MEMBER STATES
- •PERMANENT REPRESENTATIONS/REPRESENTATIVES
- •NATIONAL PARLIAMENTS
- •NATIONAL JUDICIAL BODIES
- •NATIONAL LEGISLATION
- •20 OFFICIAL LANGUAGES AND CURRENCIES
- •OFFICIAL LANGUAGES
- •CURRENCIES
- •21 EXTERNAL RELATIONS
- •Annexes
English Style Guide
4.28Electric power. Kilowatt (kW) and megawatt (MW) are used for generating capacity, kWh and MWh for output over a given period.
4.29Chemical elements. The names of the chemical elements start with a lowercase letter, including elements whose designations are derived from proper names: californium, einsteinium, nobelium, etc. Their symbols (which are interlingual) consist either of a single capital or a capital and small letter (N, Sn, U, Pb, Mg, Z) without a point.
4.30In shipping, grt stands for gross register tonnage (not registered) and gt for gross tonnage.
5 FOREIGN IMPORTS
FOREIGN WORDS AND PHRASES IN ENGLISH TEXT
5.1Foreign words and phrases used in an English text should be italicised (no inverted commas) and should have the appropriate accents, e.g. inter alia, raison d’être.
Exceptions: words and phrases now in common use and/or considered part of the English language, e.g. role, ad hoc, per capita, per se, etc.
5.2Personal names should retain their original accents, e.g. Grybauskaitė, Potočnik, Wallström.
5.3Quotations. Place verbatim quotations in foreign languages in quotation marks without italicising the text.
5.4Latin. Avoid obscure Latin phrases if writing for a broad readership. When faced with such phrases as a translator, check whether they have the same currency and meaning when used in English.
5.5The expression ‘per diem’ (‘daily allowance’) and many others have English equivalents, which should be preferred e.g. ‘a year’ or ‘/year’ rather than ‘per annum’.
ROMANISATION SYSTEMS
5.6Greek. Use the ELOT phonetic standard for transliteration, except where a classical rendering is more familiar or appropriate in English. Both the ELOT standard and the classical transliteration conventions, along with further recommendations and notes, are reproduced in Annex 1 — Transliteration Table for Greek.
5.7Cyrillic. When transliterating for EU documents, use the scheme set out in Annex 2 — Transliteration Table for Cyrillic. (Note that the ‘soft sign’ and ‘hard sign’ should be omitted.) Remember that the EU languages have different
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