a posteriori
use italics
style
a priori
use italics
abbreviations and acronyms
Do not use full stops in abbreviations, or spaces between initials, including those in proper names:
US, M&S, WE Weber, WH Smith, etc.
Use all capitals if an abbreviation is pronounced as the individual letters: BBC, VAT, etc; if it is an acronym (i.e. pronounced as a word) spell out with all capitals (NASA, NATO, etc.) unless it can be considered to have entered the language as an everyday word, such as awol, laser and, more recently, asbo and sim card.
above-mentioned
use hyphen
accelerators
Spell out the name at first mention, then abbreviate in brackets (but not all names need spelling out for the CERN Courier – see individual entries). Only use capital letters if it is the only machine with that name in the world.
This synchrocyclotron (SC) was built in 1957, whereas the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) was completed in 2009. The SC accelerates ions…
accents
Include all accents in French, German, Portuguese, Spanish and Irish Gaelic words. But for words that have been assimilated into English (café, résumé) follow OED.
Note that capital letters in French also take an accent, so état membre becomes État membre.
actor
for both sexes, never actress
Administrative Circular
Initial capital letters, "No.", then a space followed by a digit, space, open bracket, "Rev.", space, digit, close brackets. See below:
Administrative Circular No. 25 (Rev. 3)
am and pm / a.m. and p.m.
Can be written without full stops in informal and web contexts, but should be written a.m. and p.m. in official documents, such as minutes.
See time and section 5.c) of the full Style Guide
ampersand (&)
Don't use them, even in headlines.
Exceptions:
- specific abbrevations, such as R&D
- the CERN & Society Foundation
- certain company names – Smith & Jones Consulting
- when artistic considerations dictate – on a logo, for example
- academic references – (Grant & Smith, 1998)
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