A little more than three years ago, we introduced The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt, the proofreading software that works with Microsoft Word. That initial release was based on the 17th edition of the Manual, and it wasn’t too long before the teams at Chicago and PerfectIt began working on an update that would coincide with the publication of the 18th.
That update has now arrived—as part of the newly released PerfectIt 6 (the latest version of PerfectIt)—and it’s available to anyone who subscribes to both PerfectIt and CMOS Online (as detailed here).
Read on to find out more about this latest update.
From Consistency to Chicago Style
As described in previous posts at Shop Talk, PerfectIt works by checking your Word documents for potential errors related to spelling, hyphenation, capitalization, italics, abbreviations, numbers, headings, and so on.
By default, PerfectIt checks for consistency in each of those categories. For example, if your document happens to have “old-fashioned” (with a hyphen) in some places and “old fashioned” (without a hyphen) in others, PerfectIt will flag each one and give you a chance to review both versions of the term in context and fix any as needed:
These consistency checks, arguably PerfectIt’s best feature, will help save you valuable time as you review and double-check your work.
The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt takes the software to another level. Anything PerfectIt finds in CMOS mode—including inconsistencies (those checks don’t go away)—gets pinned to a specific recommendation in the Manual.
And for “old-fashioned,” there’s now a specific rule that preempts consistency.
New Rules
The 18th edition recommends spelling the compound modifier old-fashioned with a hyphen no matter where it occurs in a sentence, as described in paragraph 7.92. That makes old-fashioned a new-to-CMOS exception to the usual rule for such compounds, most of which would be hyphenated before a noun but not after—as in well-read students are well read.
So instead of defaulting to consistency and stopping only if it finds both versions of the term (as described in the previous section), CMOS 18 for PerfectIt will ignore any instance of “old-fashioned” (with a hyphen) and stop only if it finds “old fashioned” (no hyphen):
A summary of the applicable rule explains why PerfectIt has flagged the term: The term “old-fashioned” is usually hyphenated in any position in a sentence. If you need more than that, you can click “See more” to bring up an excerpt adapted directly from the Manual:
But be careful: As the screenshots above show, one of the phrases flagged by PerfectIt is in quotation marks: “An Old Fashioned Love Song.” If that’s what we think it is—the 1971 song by Paul Williams that was turned into a hit by the band Three Dog Night—you’ll want to ignore PerfectIt’s suggestion to add a hyphen.
While we’re at it, some of you may also prefer to ignore PerfectIt if “old fashioned” refers to the cocktail. Though the latest entries in both Merriam-Webster (Chicago’s preferred dictionary for spelling) and the OED (the most comprehensive dictionary of the English language) both record “old-fashioned” (with a hyphen) in that sense (as a noun), the official cocktail list from the International Bartenders Association has “old fashioned” (no hyphen). Don’t say we didn’t warn you!
That’s why the summary of the rule says “usually hyphenated” (our emphasis). In editing as in life, there are always exceptions (well, usually).
Revising the List
The update for “old-fashioned” was relatively easy: It’s just one entry in a list of thousands of terms that PerfectIt is programmed to look for (there are about 15,000 such entries for CMOS 18). Most entries specify a word or phrase to flag as a potential error and another form of the same word or phrase to suggest as a correction; each entry also includes a summary of the applicable rule as well as a key to a more detailed explanation adapted from CMOS.
Other updates took a little more effort. For example, The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt now checks for nearly a thousand compound modifiers that consist of an ‑ly adverb plus an adjective, each of which would usually be open in Chicago style. For example, if your document includes the phrase “widely-held beliefs” (with a hyphen), PerfectIt will suggest “widely held beliefs” (no hyphen).
But we won’t bore you with the details here. For a closer look at what the latest update entailed—and what it includes—check out “Behind the Style: Delivering The Chicago Manual of Style’s 18th Edition in PerfectIt,” by Chris Ryder, PerfectIt’s resident analytical linguist (and wildcard enthusiast).
Get Up to Speed with the 18th Edition
If you’re new to The Chicago Manual of Style, CMOS in PerfectIt is a great way to get acquainted with the latest rules and recommendations. Simply launch PerfectIt from any Word document, select “Chicago Manual of Style,” and click Start to see what it finds.
If you’re already a CMOS for PerfectIt user, try the new style sheet for the 18th edition. Many of the rules have stayed the same, but the new style sheet includes hundreds of updates and several new categories of checks, so you should begin to learn what’s new as soon as you start running it on your documents.
And if for any reason you need to keep working with the 17th edition of CMOS in PerfectIt, you can. To find out how, see “Can I still use CMOS 17 if I upgrade to PerfectIt 6?” at PerfectIt’s FAQ page for The Chicago Manual of Style.
Learn More
The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt won’t magically apply Chicago style for you, and you’ll always need to double-check what it finds. But it will save you the time it normally takes to find a rule in CMOS, and it can help you learn what’s new in the 18th edition. Plus, you’ll still get all the benefits of PerfectIt’s consistency checks and custom style sheets, giving you an edge when it comes to tracking down errors that editors and Word both tend to miss.
Learn more about The Chicago Manual of Style for PerfectIt and how to run it on your next document.
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