E

Choose ‘earned’ rather than ‘earnt’. See past participles for the lowdown.

As we transform our volunteer experience at Scouts, this group of ten counties from across the UK will pilot our new way of volunteering and the new digital tools, helping us to deliver change successfully.

The planet is capitalised. The muddy stuff isn’t capitalised; neither are idioms such as ‘down to earth’ or ‘what on earth?’

See compass points. 

A Christian festival celebrating the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Easter falls on a different date each year between 21 March and 25 April, depending on when there’s a full moon. Key dates include Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Easter Sunday, and Easter Monday.

Not Easter Sunday.

But EBay if you really can’t avoid starting a sentence with the word.

Head to refugees to find out more.

See affect or effect.

Use ‘for example’ instead. If you want to know more, see abbreviations.

The festival of sacrifice. It celebrates the end of Hajj, the pilgrimage made by Muslims to the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, which takes place during Dhu al-Hijjah, the final month of the Islamic calendar. ‘Eid’ means ‘feast’ or ‘festival’, so there’s no need to say ‘Eid festival’.

The ‘festival of the breaking of the fast’. It celebrates the end of Ramadan, (the month when many Muslims fast between dawn and sunset). ‘Eid’ means ‘feast’ or ‘festival’, so there’s no need to say ‘Eid festival’.

An Eid greeting (‘Mubarak’ means ‘may it be blessed’).

Say ‘Republic of Ireland’ or ‘Irish Republic’ instead.

‘Elderly people’ or ‘older people’ are both OK, but don’t use ‘the elderly’. Don’t use ‘elderly’ to describe anyone under 75 – although some definitions use a lower age, it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Don’t add a space before, but use one after. Use three dots. If a sentence (or quotation) ends with an ellipsis, there’s no need for a full stop. For example, ‘She didn’t want to go there…’

One word, no hyphen, no capital letter. 

You can call the Scout emblem an arrowhead or a fleur-de-lis – we’re not too fussy (but avoid ‘the Scout emblem’ if you can, as it sounds a bit stuffy).

It’s up to you whether you want to distinguish between the two or just use ‘inquire’. American English only uses ‘inquiry’ and the distinction is starting to disappear, but we don’t mind if you want to uphold it.

You can use ‘enquire’ to mean an informal request for information (for example, enquiring about facilities at a campsite) and only use ‘inquire’ to talk about formal investigations. Often, it’s clearer and plainer to use another word such as ‘ask’ instead though.

Both of these are two words, no hyphen.

If you ‘ensure’ you make sure or certain, but ‘ensure’ isn’t the plainest English, so it’s better (and friendlier) to say ‘make sure’ ‘should’ ‘must’ or ‘remember to’ instead.

You ‘insure’ against risk with insurance, probably using Unity to keep it in the Scouts family.

Epilepsy is a condition that affects the brain. When someone has epilepsy, it means they have a tendency to have epileptic seizures (not fits), when a sudden burst of intense electrical activity in the brain disrupts its usual functioning.

There are lots of different types of seizure and epilepsy affects everyone in different ways. People have epilepsy, they don’t ‘suffer from’ it and aren’t ‘epileptic’ (‘epileptic’ is a word to describe seizures, not people).

The best way to talk about an ‘epinephrine autoinjector’, the device that injects adrenaline, most often to treat anaphylaxis (a serious allergic reaction).

Capitalise it when referring to the Scouts policy (it’s in Rule 2.2, if you want to check it out). Keep it lower case if you’re talking about another policy outside of Scouts.

No capital letters, please.

Eskimo is a mass noun for the two main languages spoken in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and Siberia. The people are Inuit (singular Inuk), never ‘Eskimos’ (the term’s sometimes used in anthropological and archaeological contexts, but we can avoid it so we should).

Capitalise all three letters if you mean your estimated time of arrival.

If you need to talk about the former Basque separatist organisation, Eta, only capitalise the ‘e’ (and let us know because we’re a curious bunch and anything that talks about both Scouts and Eta sounds like an interesting read).

Use ‘and so on’ instead. If you want to know more, see abbreviations.

See race and ethnicities.

See race and ethnicities.

The European Union. You don’t need to spell it out, even the first time you say it.

Looking for an EU related word?

The European Commission is the EU’s executive branch, it’s responsible for proposing laws, putting decisions into practice, keeping EU agreements, and managing the day-to-day business of the EU. There are 28 members of the European Commission, they’re known as commissioners. There’s one commissioner for each member state – but they’ve all promised to represent the EU as a whole rather than their member state.

Commissioners are approved by the European Parliament. The European Parliament adopts European laws (usually ones the European Commission put forward). It has over seven hundred MEPs (Members of European Parliament) who are elected by EU citizens.

Don’t talk about the EU president or the president of the union without making it clear what you mean – is it the president of the European Commission, of the European Parliament, or the European Council? There’s also a presidency of the Council of the European Union, just to confuse you.

The economic region made by EU member states that have adopted the euro. The UK isn’t part of the eurozone.

Keep this European currency lowercase, please. The plural is euros and cent, so you’d say ‘a sandwich in France costs about four euros and 50 cent’. If you’re talking about the price of something in euros, use the currency symbol (it’ll depend on your keyboard, but try holding ‘control’ ‘alt’ and ‘4’, or ‘alt’ and ‘2’ if you’re on a Mac).

Europe is a continent. It includes the UK, so avoid saying someone’s ‘going to Europe’ if they’re starting from the UK. Watch out for suggesting things are ‘common in Europe’, too, unless it’s common in the UK. To make the distinction, call it ‘mainland Europe’ or say ‘elsewhere in Europe’.

The European Scout Committee governs the European Scout Region and puts the Regional Scout Plan into place.  

See titles.

It’s two words when it’s an adverb (a word that describes a verb) meaning the verb happens or is done every day, for example. ‘I eat snacks every day’.

It’s one word when it’s an adjective (a word that describes a noun) meaning the noun is commonplace, for example, ‘everyday snacks such as apples’.

The bane of every editor, though even we try to sneak them in sometimes (admittedly, some of us more than others). Generally, though, avoid them! There’s nothing worse than reading ordinary sentences with exclamation marks at the end! As if that weren’t enough, sometimes people add two!!

The reader decides the importance of the sentence. If you feel you need lots of exclamation marks to make something stand out, you probably need to rewrite it.

As part of the new volunteer experience, this team has been renamed. Please see Trustee Board.

Capitalise any Scouts Executive Committee – it’s just what Scouts call their Boards of Trustees, the people responsible for the support functions of a group, District, or County. Don’t capitalise any executive committees outside of Scouts.

One piece of Latin we can excuse. Ex-officio just means a task given to someone as a result of another role they hold. So at Scouts, certain volunteers are automatically members of a Trustee Board because of the role they have.

Call individual members Scouts whenever you can (including adults as well as young people). For example, you might say ‘Ashley’s a 15 year old Scout. Once a week, they go to their nearest Explorers’.

It’s OK to refer to Explorers, but use Explorer Scout first so it’s clear who you’re talking about. 

A volcano in Iceland – the one that caused all that trouble to air travel in spring 2010.