Believe it or not! Our ten most-read style Qs
This week we’re celebrating our new book, But Can I Start a Start a Sentence with “But”?, a selection of our favorite questions and answers from The Chicago Manual of Style Online’s monthly Q&A.
Two new books from the editors at The Chicago Manual of Style
This week at Shop Talk we’re thrilled to announce two new books from the University of Chicago Press guaranteed to inform and entertain writers, editors, and anyone else who works with words.
Chicago Style Workout 3:
Abbreviations Overview
This workout centers on paragraphs 10.1–10.12 in CMOS 18 . . . In this quiz, as in the Manual, the word abbreviation may also refer to initialisms, acronyms, and contractions.
Section 6.38 in the Spotlight
CMOS receives regular queries from readers asking whether greetings like “Hi, Elsa” really need that comma. Especially in e-mail messages, we hear, it looks fussy. And it takes so long to type!
Section 13.7 in the Spotlight
A good rule of thumb is that changes to quotations are not permitted, period. So much is at stake when we present the words of someone else, whether spoken or written, and responsibility lies with the quoter to render what was said accurately and in a fair context. The actual wording of the quotation must be reproduced exactly. Yet CMOS 13.7 lists half a dozen things that are OK to change when quoting.
Sections 6.124–26 in the Spotlight
Many writers to The Chicago Manual of Style Online Q&A ask how to format lists, and two questions are especially popular:
Searching CMOS Online
Here’s a secret we’ve been trying hard not to keep: you can use the online edition to find things in the print edition even if you don’t subscribe online. Here are three ways to do that.
Section 2.52 in the Spotlight
As a writer or editor, how many times have you heard “The main thing is to be consistent”? When it comes to hyphenating, capitalizing, italicizing, and other style choices, the best way to carry through on consistency is to keep a style sheet.
Section 7.75 in the Spotlight
There is a part of CMOS 7.75 that continues to trouble readers, probably because it is an exception to the general rule (stated at 6.9) that “periods and commas precede closing quotation marks, whether double or single.”
Section 8.62 in the Spotlight
“The full names of administrative bodies are capitalized. Adjectives derived from them are usually lowercased, as are many of the generic names for such bodies when used alone . . .
