Ampersands
Q. I have an author who is hot under the collar because we replaced all ofthe ampersands in company names with “and,” per CMOS 14.12. The author insists that this is incorrect and that the ampersand is part of the legal name of the company. Can you help me?
A. Your interpretation of the fourteenth edition is correct: CMOS 14 regards ampersands as abbreviations that may be changed to “and” in running text. Exceptions include expressions like “R&D” and names of corporations that are generally abbreviated, such as AT&T, where it would be odd to spell out “and” but not the rest of the abbreviation.
That said, there seems to be an increasing tendency to want to reproduce a company name exactly as it is represented by the company itself. And the fifteenth edition of CMOS leans toward allowing ampersands in corporate names—though they are better limited to such apparatus as notes, bibliographies, and tables (see paragraph 15.24), where other abbreviations are customary and where space might be at a premium.
I doubt this is a legal matter. The line has to be drawn somewhere, and as with all lines, there will be some disagreement as to where. Is an author obligated to reproduce a company’s logotype in running text, right down to the latest corporate specifications (e.g., a certain typeface, in a certain color, all lowercase, at certain sizes)? Of course not. And CMOS continues to favor spelling out ampersands in formal text. An ampersand means “and” just as “Co.” means “Company.”
