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gaff
a hook or spar; also slang for house; to blow the gaff is to give away a secret

gaffe
blunder

gases
plural of gas; not gasses

gay
use as an adjective rather than a noun: a gay man, gay people, gay men and lesbians not 'gays and lesbians'

Gb
gigabits; GB gigabytes

GCSE
A* not A-star

gender issues
Our use of language should reflect not only changes in society but the university's values. Phrases such as career girl or career woman, for example, are outdated (more women have careers than men) and patronising (there is no male equivalent): never use them

actor, comedian: covers men and women; not actress, comedienne (but waiter and waitress are acceptable – at least for the moment)

firefighter, not fireman; PC, not WPC (most police forces have abandoned the distinction)

businessmen, housewives, 'male nurse', 'woman pilot', 'woman (lady!) doctor': do not use terms such as these, which reinforce outdated stereotypes. If you need to use an adjective, it is female and not 'woman' in such phrases as female president, female MPs

Use humankind or humanity rather than mankind, a word that, as one of our readers points out, 'alienates half the population from their own history'

Never say 'his' to cover men and women: use his or her, or a different construction; in sentences such as 'a lecturer who beats his/her students is not fit to do the job', there is usually a way round the problem - in this case, 'lecturers who beat their students ...'

general election

german measles
but rubella is preferable

girl
female under 18

girlfriend

glamorous
not glamourous

God

goodnight

go-slow
noun

go slow
verb

Goths
(upper case) Germanic tribe that invaded the Roman empire

goths
(lowe case) Cure fans who wore a lot of black clothes

government
lower case in all contexts.

graffiti
are plural; graffito is the singular

grammar
the set of rules followed by speakers of a language, rather than a set of arbitrary dos and don'ts, or as Ambrose Bierce put it 'a system of pitfalls thoughtfully prepared for the feet of the self-made man'

grandad
but granddaughter

grandparents

grand prix
lc: the British grand prix; plural grands prix

grassroots
one word

Great Britain
England, Wales and Scotland.
If you want to include Northern Ireland, use Britain or UK

great-grandfather, great-great-grandmother

green
a green activist, the green movement; but uc when referring to so-named political parties, eg the German Greens

green belt
designated areas around cities subject to strict planning controls, not open countryside in general

greenfield site
one that has not been built on before; one that has been built on before is a brownfield site

greenhouse effect
Energy from the Earth's surface is trapped in the lower atmosphere by gases that prevent it leaking into space, a natural phenomenon that makes life possible, whose enhancement by natural or manmade means may make life impossible. Not the result of the hole in the ozone layer, whose thinning in the upper atmosphere is due to CFCs; the connection is that CFCs are also greenhouse gases

green paper

grisly
gruesome

grizzly
bear

Gulf, the
not the Persian or Arabian Gulf

Gypsies
recognised as an ethnic group under the Race Relations Act