“TWEETING” is a word we try to avoid in The Economist. But this hasn’t prevented us from sending out our style guide on Twitter, 140 characters at a time. To mark the 1,000th style tweet and the first anniversary of this feed, we have gone through all the messages to identify the most popular (as measured by the number of “re-tweets”—followers of @econstyleguide forwarding a tweet to their fans). Here are the top 25:

1. Journalists often speak of someone’s meteoric rise, forgetting, it seems, that meteors are better known for falling to Earth.

2. “Strategic” is usually meaningless except to tell you that the writer is trying to invest something with a seriousness it does not deserve.

3. But if you do use swear words, spell them out in full, without asterisks or other coynesses: the f-word should be considered ineffable.

4. If something really is interesting, you probably do not need to say so.

5. Short words: Use them. They are easy to spell and…Continue reading

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