Changes to the Chicago Manual: Bad News for All You Xerxes Bloggers and Euripides Reporters

The Chicago Manual of Style's new 16th edition is out, complete with updated style rules for book publishers and anyone else who follows this style. Some major style changes are here.

Per Chicago,

* web now takes a lowercase W, even though Internet and World Wide Web are still treated as proper names;
* you now capitalize the S in street when writing "at the intersection of Maple and Main Streets";
* iPod now gets a lowercase I when it begins a sentence; and, my favorite:
* "Names ending with an 'eez' sound - Names like Xerxes or Euripides now form the possessive in the usual way—with an apostrophe s. (When these forms are spoken, however, the additional s is generally not pronounced.)"

Again, that's for people who follow the Chicago Manual. All you AP Stylebook devotees can go back to puzzling over why Chicago continues to put so much focus on Xerxes and Euripides.

Weird and Random Monday Ramblings

* Further evidence AP and Chicago are conspiring to make my head blow up:

AP Style for capitalizing titles of works: "How to Turn Your Trash Into Cash"

Chicago Style for capitalizing titles of works: "How to Turn Your Trash into Cash"

AP says to lowercase conjunctions, articles, and prepositions of three or fewer letters. Chicago isn't down with quotas -- so no three-letter maximum for them.

* Lately I've been very distracted by cleaning the house and rigging our kitty cams. (A neighbor said recently that there have been a few break-ins in the area. So we rejiggered our cameras and fixed a connection issue with our remote survelliance to assure that no Thai-restaurant-menu deliverer will go undetected.)

Actually, a funny story about that. A few months ago our camera saw/recorded a man who was delivering fliers and who, once he put the flier on our front door, plunked down in the chair on our porch. He sat there for about three minutes then got up and left. It's a very weird feeling to see a stranger lounging on your front doorstep. Weirder yet, if I remember right I was home watching it take place live.

Ah, technology.

* In the past, I have mentioned that I hate the word "horrific." Well, this just in: I still hate the word "horrific." It still sounds to me like a self-consciously weak word destined to forever reach for greater and greater shock value. I predict it will one day evolve into "horrificorrible" and "horrificawfulageous."

Writing 'Wrongs'

Here's an excerpt from a post today at AbsoluteWrite.com:

"I've recently been told it's wrong to start a sentence with numerals; i.e. "5235 Western Road was a big blue house..."

Who are these schmucks running around playing fast and loose with the W word — "wrong" —and thereby messing with the heads of writers seeking simple, useful guidelines? Why is it that, in a culture that is so profoundly immune to facts (Bill O'Reilly could say the stock market hit 13,000 today but the liberal media is lying about it and many would believe him; the Washington Post could run a cover story saying Obama is funneling money to a funnel manufacturer and some would simply dismiss it as a lie), people take language/grammar hearsay as gospel?

These things are not a matter of right and wrong. They're a matter of style. AP says to write out numbers at the beginnings of sentences, except when they're years.

"Twenty-three children will graduate JoJo's dance class in 2021"
"2021 should be an interesting year."

Chicago doesn't share AP's view that there should be an exception for years. At the beginning of a sentence, you still spell out the year, per Chicago.

"Twenty-three children will graduate JoJo's dance class in 2021," BUT
"Twenty twenty-one should be an interesting year."

For anyone looking for a simple guideline: Yes. It's probably best to avoid numerals at the beginnings of sentences. But that's just because two major style guides prefer it. Not because of issues of "right" and "wrong."

Stumped by a Sophomore

A reader named Eric wrote recently with a question from his 15-year-old daughter:

When you italicize a whole sentence, do you italicize the period at the end, too?

I come from the newspaper side of the publishing business. Newspapers have a long tradition of ignoring the italics option entirely, rooted in the days when printing presses didn't have italic fonts. So I'm none too swift on the italics issue. (And don't get me started on en dashes.) I checked the AP Stylebook — a newspaper-centric resource — and came up empty-handed.

Then I checked the Chicago Manual of Style, which is far more italics-friendly. Still. Bubkes. Chicago did have a passage on how to deal with possessives of italics. Do not, Chicago says, italicize the S.

Gone With the Wind's message is clear.

That S is not italicized, per Chicago.

Then, when faced with the option of digging further on behalf of someone else's 15-year-old, I was confronted by my own 2-year-old (cat, that is). The hardest question he's ever posed to me is, Will you please throw this soccer ball?



And that's when I put down the books.

Since then, Janet has found the passages in Chicago. She posted them as a comment, but for those whose settings don't automatically show comments, here's Janet's contribution. Thanks, Janet!

CMS 15th ed., section 6.3:

"Punctuation and font: primary system. All punctuation marks should appear in the same font---roman or italic---as the main or surrounding text, except for punctuation that belongs to a title or an exclamation in a different font. This departure from Chicago's former usage serves both simplicity and logic. For parentheses and brackets, see 6.6. for an alternative system, see 6.5."

Section 6.5:

"Punctuation and font: alternative system. According to a more traditional system, periods, commas, colons, and semicolons should appear in a the same font as the word, letter, character, or symbol immediately preceding them if different from that of the main or surrounding text. ... Question marks and exclamation points, however, should appear in the same font as the immediately preceding word only if they belong to a title or an exclamation."

In short, you can go either way, but italicizing the period is the latest recommendation

Don't Take My Word for It (Plus a late-edition addition**)

Yesterday's mention of the no-splitting-infinitives myth prompted a plea from Evie. She asked for further info to release her from a lifetime of "knuckle rapping" she has received for placing adverbs after her infinitival "to."

So I opened my books and typed up some selective excerpts*. Here they are:

Although from about 1850 to 1925 many grammarians stated otherwise, it is
now widely acknowledged that adverbs sometimes justifiably separate the 'to'
from the principal verb. —Chicago Manual of Style

No absolute taboo should be placed on the use of simple adverbs between the
particle 'to' and the verbal part of the infinitive. —Fowler's Modern English
Usage

Some infinitives seem to improve on being split, just as a stick of round
stovewood does. 'I cannot bring myself to really like the fellow.' —The
Elements of Style

I don't have anything against split infinitives--in their proper place. —
Word Court (Barbara Wallraff)

I consider it my calling to dispel the myth that it's against the rules to
split infinitives. It's fine to split infinitives. —Grammar Girl's Quick and
Dirty Tips for Better Writing

There is nothing wrong with splitting an infinitive. —The Careful Writer
(copyright 1965)

Split away! ... No matter how many knuckles have been whacked with rulers
over the "split infinitive," grammar experts will testify that there is no rule
-- and never has been a rule -- against splitting infinitives. —Lapsing Into a
Comma (Bill Walsh, Business Copy Desk Chief, Washington Post)

Avoid the split infinitive wherever possible; but if it is the clearest and
the most natural construction, use it boldly. —Usage and Abusage (first
copyright 1942)

Occasionally, however, a split is not awkward and is necessary to convey
the meaning. —Associated Press Stylebook

Split infinitives. See "Superstitions." —Garner's Modern American Usage

If some windbag ever tells you that the famous Star Trek opening is
grammatically incorrect, you can tell him to boldly blow it out his transporter.
After that, you'll have no more tribble at all. —Grammar Snobs Are Great Big
Meanies (written by yours truly)

* In fairness I should note that I was deliberately gathering ammo for Evie. Many of these publications include caveats and say that such "splits" are less than ideal. Still, none of 'em says they're a no-no.

** For those who don't see the comments unless they click on them, Blackwell shared a link to really fun comic: http://wondermark.com/d/434.html. Thank you, Blackwell!

Possessives -- Possessed by Satan?

Style guides' "helpful" advice. Behold pure evil!

Chicago Manual of Style
James's words

James' sake

James's seat

Associated Press Stylebook
James' words

James' sake

James' seat
BUT
The boss's words

The boss' sake

The boss' seat

Strunk & White's The Elements of Style*
James's words

James's sake

James's seat

BUT

Jesus' words

Jesus' sake

Jesus' seat

* As I've noted here, Strunk and White have less authority than these other two.