When an individual elects to change the name by which he has been known, such as Cassius Clay’s transition to Muhammad Ali, provide both names in stories until the new name is known by the public. After that, use only the new name unless there is a specific reason for including the earlier identification.

The Nation of Islam does not release membership figures, but published estimates have ranged from 10,000 to more than 20,000.

Use the title minister on first reference to clergymen: Minister Louis Farrakhan.

If NASA is used in first reference to avoid a cumbersome lead, mention the full name later.

Headquarters is in Baltimore.

Headquarters is in Washington.

The shortened form National Council of Churches is acceptable in all references.

Headquarters is in New York.

Headquarters is in Washington.

Headquarters is in Alexandria, Va.

Its office is in Washington.

Use lowercase for the forces of other nations.

Lowercase guardsman when it stands alone.

It consists of the National Library of Medicine, 12 separate institutes and various divisions that provide centralized support services for the individual institutes.

The 12 institutes are: National Cancer Institute; National Eye Institute; National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute; National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases; National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases; National Institute of Child Health and Human Development; National Institute of Dental Research; National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases; National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences; National Institute of General Medical Sciences; National Institute of Neurological and Communicative Dis-orders and Stroke; National Institute on Aging.

Lowercase derogatory terms such as honky and nigger. Use them only in direct quotes when essential to the story.

It is separate from the U.S. Conference of Mayors, whose membership is limited to mayors of cities with 30,000 or more residents. The organizations often engage in joint projects, however.

The office is in Washington.

Headquarters is in Washington.

Headquarters is in Washington.

A navel is a bellybutton.

A navel orange is a seedless orange, so named because it has a small depression, like a navel, at its apex.

Lowercase when referring to the naval forces of other nations: the British navy.

This approach has been adopted for consistency, because many foreign nations do not use navy as the proper name.

Divisions are NBC News, NBC Radio and NBC-TV.

Headquarters is in Dayton, Ohio.

In stories: the Netherlands or Netherlands as the construction of a sentence dictates.

Identify an individual island, if needed, in the text.

It is not a bomb. It is a weapon or a warhead.

If neutron bomb is used in a direct quote, explain in a subsequent paragraph that the warhead would be fired on a missile or from artillery and not dropped, like a bomb, from a plane.

The weapon officially is known as an enhanced radiation weapon.

In datelines, use Newfoundland after the names of all cities and towns. Specify in the text whether the community is on the island or in Labrador.

Old South applies to the South before the Civil War.

Headquarters is in Reston, Va.

On second reference: the Guild.

Headquarters is in Washington.

Lowercase the before newspaper names if a story mentions several papers, some of which use the as part of the name and some of which do not.

Where location is needed but is not part of the official name, use parentheses: The Huntsville (Ala.) Times.

Consult the International Year Book published by Editor & Publisher to determine whether a two-name combination is hyphenated.

The federal legal holiday is observed on Friday if Jan. 1 falls on a Saturday, on Monday if it falls on a Sunday.

Identify the borough in the body of the story if pertinent.

Capitalize the nickname Big Board when used.

When a nickname is inserted into the identification of an individual, use quotation marks: Sen. Henry M. “Scoop” Jackson. Also: Jackson is known as “Scoop.”

In sports stories and sports columns, commonly used nicknames may be substituted for a first name without the use of quotation marks: Woody Hayes, Bear Bryant, Catfish Hunter, Bubba Smith, etc. But in sports stories where the given name is used, and in all news stories: Paul “Bear” Bryant.

Capitalize without quotation marks such terms as Sunshine State, the Old Dominion, Motown, the Magic City, Old Hickory, Old Glory, Galloping Ghost.

Do not use in street addresses, with this exception: No. 10 Downing St., the residence of Britain’s prime minister.

Do not use in the names of schools: Public School 19.

The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences is not a Nobel Prize in the same sense. The Central Bank of Sweden established it in 1968 as a memorial to Alfred Nobel. References to this prize should include the word Memorial to help make this distinction. Explain the status of the prize in the story when appropriate.

Nobel Prize award ceremonies are held on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Alfred Nobel’s death in 1896. The award ceremony for peace is in Oslo and the other ceremonies are in Stockholm.

Capitalize prize in references that do not mention the category: He is a Nobel Prize winner. She is a Nobel Prize-winning scientist.

Lowercase prize when not linked with the word Nobel: The peace prize was awarded Monday.

The guidelines here relate to Britain’s nobility. Adapt them as appropriate to members of nobility in other nations.

Orders of rank among British nobility begin with the royal family. The term royalty is reserved for the families of living and deceased sovereigns.

Next, in descending order, are dukes, marquesses (also called mar-quises), earls, viscounts and barons. Many hold inherited titles; others have been raised to the nobility by the sovereign for their lifetimes. Occasionally the sovereign raises an individual to the nobility and makes the title inheritable by the person’s heirs, but the practice is increasingly rare.

Sovereigns also confer honorary titles, which do not make an individual a member of the nobility. The principal designations, in descending order, are baronet and knight.

Some guidelines and examples:

ROYALTY: Capitalize king, queen, prince and princess when they are used directly before one or more names; lowercase when they stand alone:

Queen Elizabeth II, Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the queen. Kings George and Edward. Queen Mother Elizabeth, the queen mother.

Also capitalize a longer form of the sovereign’s title when its use is appropriate in a story or it is being quoted: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth.

Use Prince or Princess before the names of a sovereign’s children: Princess Anne, the princess.

The male heir to the throne normally is designated Prince of Wales, and the title becomes, in common usage, an alternate name. Capitalize when used: The queen invested her eldest son as Prince of Wales. Prince Charles is now the Prince of Wales. The prince is a bachelor. Charles, Prince of Wales, was married today. His wife is known as the Princess of Wales.

DUKE: The full title — Duke of Wellington, for example — is an alternate name, capitalized in all uses. Lowercase duke when it stands alone.

The designation Arthur, Duke of Wellington, is appropriate in some cases, but never Duke Arthur or Lord Arthur.

The wife of a duke is a duchess: the Duchess of Wellington, the duchess, but never Duchess Diana or Lady Diana.

A duke normally also has a lesser title. It is commonly used for his eldest son if he has one. Use the courtesy titles Lord or Lady before the first names of a duke’s children.

Some examples:

Lady Jane Wellesley, only daughter of the eighth Duke of Wellington, has been linked romantically with Prince Charles, heir to the British throne. The eldest of Lady Jane’s four brothers is Arthur Charles, the Marquess Douro. The Wellingtons, whose family name is Wellesley, are not of royal blood. However, they rank among the nation’s most famous aristocrats thanks to the first duke, the victor at Waterloo.

MARQUESS, MARQUIS, EARL, VISCOUNT, BARON: The full titles serve as alternate names and should be capitalized. Frequently, however, the holder of such a title is identified as a lord: The Marquess of Bath, for example, more commonly is known as Lord Bath.

Use Lady before the name of a woman married to a man who holds one of these titles. The wife of a marquess is a marchioness, the wife of a marquis is a marquise, the wife of an earl is a countess (earl is the British equivalent of count), the wife of a viscount is a viscountess, the wife of a baron is a baroness.

Use Lord or Lady before the first names of the children of a marquess.

Use Lady before the first name of an earl’s daughter.

The Honorable often appears before the names of sons of earls, viscounts and barons who do not have titles. Their names should stand alone in news stories, however.

The Honorable also appears frequently before the names of unmarried daughters of viscounts and barons. In news stories, however, use a full name on first reference, a last name preceded by Miss on second.

Some examples:

Queen Elizabeth gave her sister’s husband, Antony Armstrong-Jones, the title Earl of Snowdon. Their son, David, is the Viscount Linley. They also have a daughter, Lady Sarah Armstrong-Jones. Lord Snowdon, a photographer, was known as Antony Armstrong-Jones before he received his title.

BARONET, KNIGHT: Use Sir before a name if appropriate in the context; otherwise follow routine practice for names: Sir Harold Wilson on first reference, Sir Harold (not Sir Wilson) on second. Or: Prime Minister Harold Wilson on first reference, Wilson on second.

Do not use both an honorary title and a title of authority such as prime minister before a name.

Use Lady before the name of the wife of a baronet or knight.

For a woman who has received an honor in her own right, use Dame before her name if it is the way she is known or it is appropriate in the context: Dame Margot Fonteyn on first reference, Dame Margot on second.

nobody

Noisy means clamorous.

When a defendant in a criminal case enters this plea, it means that he is not admitting guilt but is stating that he will offer no defense. The person is then subject to being judged guilty and punished as if he had pleaded guilty or had been convicted. The principal difference is that the defendant retains the option of denying the same charge in another legal proceeding.

Do not confuse nonaligned with Third World, although some Third World nations may belong to the nonaligned group.

Use a plural verb only if the sense is no two or no amount: None of the consultants agree on the same approach. None of the taxes have been paid.

The five East North Central states are Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin.

The seven West North Central states are Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont are the New England states.

New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania are classified as the Middle Atlantic states.

Headquarters is in St. Paul, Minn.

If necessary, specify in the text whether the community is in one of the three territorial subdivisions: Franklin, Keewatin and Mackenzie.

NRC is acceptable on second reference, but the agency or the commission is preferred.

A diagnostic chest X-ray involves between 20 millirems and 30 millirems of radiation. Each American, on average, receives 100 millirems to 200 millirems of radiation a year from natural “background” sources, such as cosmic rays, and man-made sources, such as diagnostic X-rays. There is considerable debate among scientists over the safety of repeated low doses of radiation.

The figures 1, 2, 10, 101, etc. and the corresponding words — one, two, ten, one hundred one, etc. — are called cardinal numbers. The term ordinal number applies to 1st, 2nd, 10th, 101st, first, second, tenth, one hundred first, etc.

Follow these guidelines in using numerals:

LARGE NUMBERS: When large numbers must be spelled out, use a hyphen to connect a word ending in y to another word; do not use commas between other separate words that are part of one number: twenty; thirty; twenty-one; thirty-one; one hundred forty-three; one thousand one hundred fifty-five; one million two hundred seventy-six thousand five hundred eighty-seven.

SENTENCE START: Spell out a numeral at the beginning of a sentence. If necessary, recast the sentence. There is one exception — a numeral that identifies a calendar year.

Wrong: 993 freshmen entered the college last year.

Right: Last year 993 freshmen entered the college.

Right: 1976 was a very good year.

CASUAL USES: Spell out casual expressions:

A thousand times no! Thanks a million. He walked a quarter of a mile.

PROPER NAMES: Use words or numerals according to an organization’s practice: 3M, Twentieth Century Fund, Big Ten.

FIGURES OR WORDS?

For ordinals:

—Spell out first through ninth when they indicate sequence in time or location: first base, the First Amendment, he was first in line. Starting with 10th use figures.

—Use 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. when the sequence has been assigned in forming names. The principal examples are geographic, military and political designations such as 1st Ward, 7th Fleet and 1st Sgt. See examples in the separate entries listed below.

For cardinal numbers, consult the following separate entries: