Example Style Guide
This is the Word List page of a Style Guide, provided as an example to illustrate style guide development.
Word List
Word List
Standardized spellings
These words can be slippery. Here’s how we write them. (If it’s not on this list, defer to the AP Style Guide.)
- add-on (noun, adjective), add on (verb)
- back end (noun), back-end (adjective)
- best seller (noun), best-selling (adjective)
- beta
- brick-and-mortar
- checkbox
- coworker
- click-through rate (CTR)
- cost per click
- double-click
- drop-down (noun, adjective), drop down (verb)
- e-commerce (the industry)
- ePub
- email (never hyphenate, never capitalize unless it begins a sentence)
- emoji (singular and plural)
- front end (noun), front-end (adjective)
- geolocation
- hashtag
- homepage
- integrate
- internet (never capitalize unless it begins a sentence)
- login (noun, adjective), log in (verb)
- Like (the social media activity)
- multichannel
- nonprofit
- OK
- omnichannel (use sparingly)
- online (never capitalize unless it begins a sentence)
- opt-in (noun, adjective), opt in (verb)
- pay-per-click (PPC)
- pop-up (noun, adjective), pop up (verb)
- pre-sale
- product-market fit
- signup (noun, adjective), sign up (verb)
- sync
- third party (noun), third-party (adjective)
- tweet, retweet
- username
- URL
- website
- WiFi
Words to avoid
- Funnel, incentivize, leverage, disruption, thought leader, learnings, or other fluffy corporate terms
- Internets, interwebs, or any other variation of the word “internet”
- Ninja, rockstar, wizard, unicorn (unless referring to a literal ninja, rockstar, wizard, or unicorn)
- Young, old, elderly, or any other word describing a person’s age
- Crushing it, killing it
- Crazy, insane, or similar words to describe people
- Best-in-breed
- Silicon Valley cliches like rise and grind, or disruptor/disruption.
- Activation (when referring to our presence at an event)
- Blacklist, whitelist, grandfathered, slave, master, deaf, blind and any other racist or abelist terms
This guide has been adapted from content originally created by Mailchimp. The content is being reused with Mailchimp’s permission under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License.