Emma B and Q have kindly mentioned the various style manuals regarded as authorities in the two centres of English writing in the northern hemisphere. South of the equator, where our use of the language may well be regarded as idiosyncratic by those north of it, we are well versed in taking on some uses and discarding others.

Old farts, like me, may have been taught well enough and have learned our conventions well enough; at the time I was at school, British conventions would have predominated. But evolution does indeed proceed apace. When I got to uni I had to learn other conventions, especially for citations and bibliographic referencing. This is where I learned to use italics for book titles, so "The Chicago Manual of Style" and Cassell's 'Guide to Common Errors in English' would both drop all quotation marks and become The Chicago Manual of Style and Guide to Common Errors in English respectively.

Of course, we do have our own Style Manual, published for a while by the Australian Commonwealth Government Printing Service, but I can't find my copy. Many Australians don't know of its existence and I suspect there are many more quite happy to live up to their reputation for insouciance in the face of authority and thus happy to ignore its recommendations. Sigh!

So, we keep labouring in the vineyard, encouraging clear communication and felicitous expression.

Cheers, Rowan