New Questions and Answers
from Chicago
at http://www.subversivecopye
ditor.com/blog/.
Q. I am editing an important policy statement (with legal implications) and wonder whether this sentence needs a singular verb (“is” instead of “are”): A complainant who wishes to withdraw the complaint and/or a respondent who does not wish to participate in the hearing process are advised to contact the manager.
A. It’s good to rethink any sentence that uses “and/or,” since the term often leads to trouble. Your sentence would be fine with “or” alone (taking the singular “is”). Better yet, rephrase: Complainants who wish to withdraw the complaint and respondents who do not wish to participate in the hearing process are advised to contact the manager.
Q. As an editor, I am usually a big fan of the dictionary, as well as a generally obedient disciple. However, I was shocked to see that my dictionary allows “timely” to be used as an adverb. Is it true? I feel betrayed. I have spent a lot of time changing “Policies were implemented timely” to “Policies were implemented in a timely manner.” Do I need to find a new dictionary?
A. Keep your dictionary, but change your approach. That use of “timely” is obscure, if not obsolete, so change it—but not to a cliché like “in a timely manner.” Pick a more precise adverb: immediately, over the next three days, by the deadline.
Q. My younger colleagues see absolutely no problem with this construction: “Based on the report, the authors drew up a summary.” I see this everywhere now and wonder if my reaction, which is to change this into “On the basis of the report, the authors . . .” or “The authors drew up a summary based on the report,” is because I’m a dinosaur.
A. Most likely; but if it’s any comfort, we are dinosaurs, too.
Q. How do you number the pages in the appendix when you have multiple appendixes? Do you continue the same numbering that you have in the text, or do you use A-1, for example?
A. You can do it either way, but it’s not a good idea to put a hyphen in a page number, because when you refer to ranges, it gets ugly: A-1–A-5? A-1–5? Periods work better: A.1–A.5. If there’s any chance that the appendix will appear independently of the main text, avoid numbering that continues from it.
Q. My significant other and I have a disagreement: he maintains that in referring to a roomful of nurses, we may say “a roomful of R.N.” on the grounds that we do not need to pluralize R.N. as R.N.s, although he does concede that one would not say “a roomful of nurse.” (“Room full” perhaps irrationally connotes to me a more ominous density of nurses than “roomful.”) We have been arguing about this for going-on ten years and would like to settle the question in order to move on to some new dispute.
A. To my ear, a roomful of R.N. sounds far more ominous than a roomful of RNs. But as you can see, Chicago style regularly pluralizes abbreviations and skips the pesky periods: “a roomful [or room full] of RNs.” Maybe you can argue about the periods from now on.
Q. The sentence in question is “Probability was 1.0% at first, and 2.0% at subsequent, examinations.” I did not have a comma before “examinations,” and another editor added it. Technically, she is correct, since it closes a parenthetical remark, but it reads strangely to me. This is a word-limited document and we can’t rewrite in a way that adds words. Should I leave in the second comma?
A. The problem is that “at first” is an expression that needs no continuation; the reader thinks you’re finished with that thought. (At first, probability was 1.0%.) Given that interpretation, the comma is jarring; the reader stumbles. You would be better off with “Probability was 1.0% at first examination and 2.0% subsequently.”
Q. When the appositive rule (commas setting off a nonrestrictive appositive) bumps up against the rule that says a question mark shouldn’t be directly followed by a comma, which rule prevails? Here’s the sentence: The album’s first single “Do You Realize??” features a lush arrangement. Is it better to set off “Do You Realize??” with commas? Leave out the commas? Recast the sentence (which is what I wound up doing)? Thanks for your thoughts.
A. The sixteenth edition of CMOS recommends using a comma even after a question mark if it would normally be required (6.119). End of dilemma: The album’s first single, “Do You Realize??,” features a lush arrangement. Of course, if you find that punctuation clump ugly, you’re free to recast the sentence.
Q. I’m writing a book about Death Valley National Park, and not sure what style to use for place-names that include possessives. The National Park Service omits apostrophes from all names—Scottys Castle, Dantes View, Devils Golf Course, etc.—which looks wrong to me. On the other hand, if I use the apostrophes my book won’t match the Park Service maps. What would you suggest?
A. Sometimes it’s difficult to determine a “correct” version of a place-name, but unless you are sure that one of these names is a plural attributive rather than a possessive (e.g., Devils Golf Course), you need an apostrophe. If you feel better including a note in your book that the Park Service uses its own spellings, do so.
Q. I wonder which you think is best: Key Lime pie, Key lime pie, or key lime pie?
A. I’m actually partial to pecan, but if you’re asking about spelling, consult a dictionary: Webster’s 11th Collegiate prefers lowercasing, noting that “Key” is often capped.
Q. When quoting from Scriptures, which are often interpreted as God literally speaking, is it grammatically correct to say “Psalm 1:1 reads” or “Psalm 1:1 says”?
A. You’re confusing grammar and theology here. Both sentences have perfect grammar; the choice of what to imply about the words’ origins is yours.
Q. Could you please give a definitive answer to the “its” versus “it’s” issue? I just came back from a writing conference, and the advice we received was contradictory to everything I was taught previously, as well as contradictory to what I can find online on college websites. Most writer’s websites that I’ve checked out are claiming that the ONLY time “its” is written as “it’s” would be when the meaning is “it is.” What happened to possessive nouns?
A. True, this can be confusing, but the possessive “its” is an exception to the rule that possessives have apostrophes. Possessive pronouns lack apostrophes: her glove, my glove, your glove, its glove. Remembering that “its” is a possessive pronoun should help.
Q. Recently my wife corrected my grammar several times in one day, in front of her family, which led me to seek an opportunity to publicly correct her. I contended that she should have said “high quality” instead of simply “quality.” She insisted that I was wrong, and I fear that I may indeed be wrong, but I would like your insight on the off chance that I might be right.
A. Oh, dear—this needs to stop before it escalates any further. It’s rude to correct someone’s grammar in public; your wife was wrong to correct you; and you are wrong about the use of “quality.” I suggest you buy a dictionary and stop at the florist on the way home. See if you can arrange a détente.
August Q&A
Q. I’m editing a report for an author who wrote, “a comparison between the Soviet and the U.S.-led intervention.” I changed the singular to “interventions.” He questioned whether the plural was correct, as “there was only one Soviet and one U.S.-led intervention.” Will you intervene in our tiff and set us straight?
A. There were actually two interventions (one Soviet-led and one U.S.-led), so you must have a plural. Otherwise you’re suggesting a single intervention led by both countries jointly (like a junior and senior prom versus separate junior and senior proms), and “between” won’t make sense. It might be best to rewrite: “a comparison between the Soviet intervention and that led by the United States.”
Q. One of my supervisors—a former English teacher—insists that the comma and semicolon in the following sentence are correct. I have no intention of arguing the point, but I would love to learn the rule so I don’t make the mistake again. (Yes, I’m too intimidated to ask him directly.) Is this sentence correctly punctuated, in your view? “Your professionalism supports our record for safety and quality, advances our worldwide reputation; and helps us to grow as an industry leader.”
A. Oh, my, no—it’s not correct. Don’t underrate yourself. This is a fairly wacko use of the semicolon. It should be a simple serial comma.
Q. In running text, is it necessary to include a website’s domain extension? “The video on YouTube.com showed a cat,” for example, looks incredibly stilted. The publication I’m working on is scholarly—but not intended specifically for grandmothers. Can I get rid of the “.com” if it’s clear that a website is being referred to?
A. Hey, there are grandmas who could tell you that you should be careful about shortening your references, because not all sites end in .com. If the exact site (like YouTube) can be located reliably in an online search, fine, but if you’re referring to a more commonly used name like Best Foods, there could be any number of websites with the same name that end in .net, .org, .biz, or other extension.
Q. When the original author of a book has died and the original book is being revised by others, what is the best way to handle this on the title page? Should the original author be mentioned at all?
A. Horrors! When writers die, others don’t get to grab their stuff and claim it belongs to them. The original writer is the only one whose name is required on the title page; the revisers’ names are optional. If they want to be on a title page, tell them to write their own stuff.
Q. I do not believe it makes sense to use a bulleted list of one item. If it is just one item, should it not simply be a paragraph? At the end of many of our sections in an advocacy guide we have “Advocacy Reminders.” Sometimes there are many; sometimes there is only one reminder. It seems to me if there is one reminder it should be a paragraph.
A. Although logically a list should have more than one item, bullets are more forgiving, especially if throughout a book like yours, reminders are formatted in a special section the same way in every chapter. The visual cue of the identical formatting would override a quibble about the logic of a single bullet point. Your bullets can be considered more like decorations than hierarchy markers.
Q. I work with middle-school students who produce a yearbook. Does it matter what tense they write in? There appear to be two views: past tense, because the events have passed and the kids are no longer in the mentioned year, and present tense, because past tense can simply seem weird. (For instance, writing about the school’s mascot—a live Labrador—in past tense seems morbid.) Still, most students like the notion of writing in the past tense, as it suggests they’ve moved to the next grade.
A. It sounds as though you are willing to encourage the kids to make an editorial decision, and that’s probably more important than which decision they make. Maybe you could find samples of other schools’ yearbooks and other kinds of memoirs written in different tenses and ask your students to argue about it and vote.
Q. I’m not sure if this is covered by CMOS, but I don’t know who else can help me here. I’m creating a PowerPoint presentation on a publishing company, and in their brochure they classify novels, phrase books, and coffee table books under “trade publications.” Is this correct? I understand a trade publication to be material directed at a certain industry. Thank you for your help.
A. Novels, phrase books, and coffee table books are indeed all trade books, which means you will find them in bookstores for the general public. Materials directed at a certain industry are not usually considered trade books, unless they have broader application. The definitions are a little confusing, because you might think that “trade” has to do with “the trades,” meaning industries, but here it doesn’t.
Q. My professor has requested that one of our assignments have the titles of tables in headline-style capitalization. What does this mean?
A. Headline style capitalizes the important words in a title: Six Reasons Susan Buys Shoes. In sentence-style capping, only the first word and proper nouns are capped: Six reasons Susan buys shoes.
Q. What is the proper way to cite information found in a footnote? Take, for example, the following footnote: “2. It is however to be observed that in the given proposition there is a certain ambiguity.” I wish to cite this in the footnote of my own paper. In some works, I’ve seen what I suspect to be the same thing accomplished by appending the page number with “f,” e.g., 67f.
A. That f actually stands for “and the following page.” The letter n is used to stand for a note (whether endnote or footnote): 67n2.
Q. I’m editing a book about employment training programs, and I can’t decide how to treat the term One-Stop Career Centers. I capitalize in that instance, but what about when the author says “one-stops” or “one-stop centers”? I am inclined to capitalize only when the entire title is used, but I’m having trouble sticking to that decision. Can you please tell me what you would do?
A. If the centers the author mentions all belong to a business franchise called One-Stop Career Centers, the short versions are One-Stops and One-Stop centers (or One-Stop Centers if the author insists). If the author refers more generally to these types of centers—that is, if there are other kinds of centers that feature one-stop service, such as one-stop medical centers or one-stop auto repair centers—then lowercase: one-stop centers, one-stops.
Q. I’ve encountered a sentence that is giving me more confusion than it should. The sentence in question is this: “Enjoyment is not as an important function for courting as it is for dating.” I cannot figure out if it should read “as important a function.” I think if I could figure out what grammatical function “as” is serving in this sentence, I could make sense of it, but I have been staring at it long enough to addle my brain.
A. Although your editing will put it right, the “as . . . as” construction (adverb and conjunction, respectively) is not always clear or economical. It would be better to trim and rephrase: “Enjoyment is less important for courting than for dating.” (As for the difference between courting and dating and why it’s okay for courting to be less fun, I assume you’re investigating.)