A Style for the Ages

How well do you know the history of The Chicago Manual of Style, otherwise known as CMOS? This month’s quiz is designed to give you a brief overview of the long history of the Manual (see question 2 for how long)—and of Chicago style.

To test your knowledge, take the quiz. And in case you missed it, check out a related post, “Chicago Style Then and Now,” also at Shop Talk.

Subscribers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online may click through to the linked sections of the Manual (cited in some of the answers). (We also offer a 30-day free trial of CMOS Online.)

[Editor’s note: This quiz relies on and links to the 17th edition of CMOS.]

Chicago Style Workout 80: A Little History

1. What was the main title of the first edition of The Chicago Manual of Style?

A Style Manual

Manual of Style

2. When was the first edition of the Manual published?

1896

1906

3. The tradition of using a warm shade of red as a design element goes back to which edition?

first

twelfth

4. Which edition was the first to add the word “Chicago” to the title?

twelfth (1969)

thirteenth (1982)

5. Which edition of the Manual was offered as a CD-ROM in addition to the printed book?

fourteenth (published in print in 1993)

fifteenth (published in print in 2003)

6. In each of the first eleven editions, roughly half the content of the Manual consisted of

tables of weights and measures, flags of the world, and many other facts

examples of typefaces

7. The first edition of the Manual recommended more space between sentences than between words.

True

False

8. The first edition of the Manual recommended always placing a semicolon inside a closing quotation mark (“like this;”) rather than outside (“like this”;).

True

False

9. How long was the longest span between editions of the Manual?

thirteen years

twenty years

10. To save space, early editions of the Manual recommended not using a comma before the conjunction in a series of three or more (“apples, oranges and pears”).

True

False

11. Bonus question: Which edition of CMOS was the first to top a thousand pages in print?

fifteenth (2003)

sixteenth (2010)

seventeenth (2017)

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Top image: Sixteen of the first seventeen editions of The Chicago Manual of Style (only the 6th ed., published in 1919, is missing). Photo © 2017 by Jean Lachat.

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