Q. With the rise of verbs that have specific connotations in social media (like, follow, comment, etc.), how should they be styled? In this case, it’s important to specify the user take an action on a specific social media platform. My instinct is to capitalize: “Give the post a Like. Leave a Comment. Make sure to Follow the account.” Should I be using scare quotes instead, or are these terms ubiquitous enough that lowercase will be clear in an instructional sense? Thanks for your help!
A. In most types of prose, you can like, unlike, follow, friend, unfriend, and so on, no quotation marks, italics, or initial caps required. The same goes for nouns, whether you give a post a like (or a heart) or leave a comment. But if, as your question suggests, you’re writing instructions (as on a Help page), then we agree with your initial capitals, though not for everything.
We’d use capitalization only for direct references to the interface:
To react favorably to a post, click Like or Love.
To share, use the Share button.
To leave a comment, use the “Add a comment . . .” text box.
not
To leave a Comment, use the Add a comment . . . text box.
The capitalized words in the first three examples reflect how those terms appear in either Facebook or Instagram. But we’ve used quotation marks in the third example to enclose text that’s capitalized like a sentence; without the quotation marks, that phrase wouldn’t stand out from the surrounding text. Terms from other platforms will vary. For some related advice, see CMOS 7.79.
Q. Are English translations of Native American terms for place-names treated like proper nouns and capitalized? For example, would you refer to Dook’o’oosłííd (Diné for Gleaming Summit)? Or should it be Dook’o’oosłííd (Diné for gleaming summit).
A. In your example, we would use lowercase and quotation marks for the translated term in parentheses (see also CMOS 11.5): Dook’o’oosłííd (Diné for “gleaming summit”). We’d capitalize it (and drop the quotation marks) only if the place is known in English by the translated name. For example, you might refer to Firenze (Italian for Florence).
Or, drawing on information from the US Forest Service (which translates Dook’o’oosłííd as “the summit which never melts” or “the mountain which peak never thaws”), you could refer to Dook’o’oosłííd (the Diné name for the San Francisco Peaks) or to the San Francisco Peaks (Dook’o’oosłííd in Diné).
Q. In your follow-up answer to the question about capitalization for Rage Against the Machine, do you mean “eponymous” when you say “self-titled”? Arguably all albums are self-titled.
A. “Eponymous” and “self-titled” are related, but the latter has a specific sense that can apply to something like Rage Against the Machine (the album).
According to Merriam-Webster, something is eponymous when it is named for someone (or something), and that person (or thing) can also be said to be eponymous. For example, Rudolf Diesel was the eponymous inventor of the eponymous diesel engine. And yes, you could also say that Rage Against the Machine is Rage Against the Machine’s eponymous debut album.
But it’s also a self-titled album, which means that a musical group or other entity named (or titled) the album after itself (though someone else may have suggested the idea). So the terms self-titled and eponymous are related but not equivalent. The diesel engine may be named for Rudolf Diesel, but it wasn’t necessarily named by him; it’s eponymous, but it isn’t self-titled. (Besides, engines don’t have titles; they have names.)
If you need more evidence, the term self-titled is in the OED: “Of an album, CD, etc.: having a title that is the same as the performer’s or group’s name” (self-titled, sense 2). One of the quoted examples refers to “the Ramones’ self-titled [debut] album”—which is how we intended the term.
[Editor’s update: Though Merriam-Webster’s definition and accompanying usage note suggest that eponymous can refer to both a named entity and the source of that name, the term has traditionally referred only to the source—as in Rudolf Diesel (an eponym) but not the engine that bears his name. See Garner’s Modern English Usage, 5th ed. (Oxford, 2022), under “eponym; eponymous.” Thank you to our loyal readers for raising this point.]
Q. In a recent Q&A, you discussed how to style the title of a musical group, Rage Against the Machine. But couldn’t you just look up what the original source uses?
A. You could do that, but there’s a limit to that approach. For example, you wouldn’t use a typewriter font and all lowercase letters with no italics when referring to the band’s self-titled debut album. Likewise, you wouldn’t write “Rage Against The Machine” (capital T in The), as the band’s name tends to be styled at their website—when it isn’t in all caps (as of February 4, 2024).
Such choices—whether creative or stylistic—are almost always overridden to match the style of the surrounding text. Even a name like boygenius, as that band styles its name, would be adjusted in Chicago style (in this case, to get a capital B).
Q. Should we apply headline-style capitalization to band names and other proper names containing prepositions? Is it Rage against the Machine or Rage Against the Machine, for example? Thank you!
A. Good question! Normally, yes, the capitalization rules for titles of books and other works (as described in CMOS 8.159) would apply equally to other capitalized names, including names of organizations and musical groups.
Accordingly, articles (a, an, the), common coordinating conjunctions (and, but, for, or, nor), and prepositions (of, for, with, etc.) would all be lowercased in the middle of a name. For example, the National Institutes of Health, Sly and the Family Stone—and Rage against the Machine.
But we’d allow an exception in that last case. Against may be a preposition, but it’s just as long as Machine, putting lowercase at odds with the rest of the name. And the sources that have written about that band would have tended to follow some variation of AP style (the main US style for journalists), which capitalizes prepositions of four letters or more. “Rage Against the Machine” is therefore more likely than “Rage against the Machine” to look right—at least to anyone who hasn’t just edited a forty-five-page bibliography to conform to Chicago style.
Q. I’m having trouble explaining to my organization why “the internet” is now lowercase “i.” We do follow CMOS style, but the Internet Society and some others are insisting otherwise. Can I get an explanation that I can use? Not seeing any in the manual.
A. An explanation is beyond the scope of CMOS, but here’s a summary: In ordinary usage, internet with a lowercase i has been common since at least the introduction of the iPod (in 2001; note that lowercase i). And because ordinary usage tends to determine how tech-related neologisms are styled, many guides now prefer lowercase internet—including not only CMOS but also the latest from Microsoft and Apple (computer tech), AP (journalism), APA (psychology), and AMA (medicine).
Meanwhile, documents published by W3C and related organizations that develop or maintain the standards that determine how it all works still tend to refer to the Internet when they mean the worldwide network of computers (but internet when referring to any interconnected network). And as recently as 2019, Internet was still more common in published books than internet—though the trend toward lowercase is clear.
So the usage preferred by specialists may be less common than it once was, but it’s far from defunct. And according to CMOS 7.2, any discipline-specific preference (which would extend to capitalization) should be respected.
All of which is to say that if you’re editing for the Internet Society, which is in the same league as W3C, then you should accept the capital I. For most other types of organizations, common usage will likely be the better choice.
Q. Would “secretary of homeland security” be lowercase in a sentence without that person’s name?
A. Just as you’d refer in Chicago style to a president of the United States or other country with a lowercase p (as in this sentence), you’d use a lowercase s when referring to a secretary of homeland security.
But note that the generic phrase “homeland security” (like “transportation,” “state,” and other such terms) becomes a proper noun when it refers to the administrative body—as in the Department of Homeland Security, or Homeland Security for short.
So you’d refer to the secretary of the US Department of Homeland Security. But this can get tricky: Does “homeland security” in “secretary of homeland security” refer to the department or only to the role? If in doubt, capitalize (“secretary of Homeland Security”). See also CMOS 8.22 and 8.63.
And before a name, secretary would be capitalized, as in US Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, or Secretary Mayorkas.
Q. Hello! I’m wondering if you can give me some guidance on flight numbers. Chicago doesn’t seem to mention them, but flights appear to be capitalized when they follow the airline’s name from what I can see online—for example, Pan Am Flight 103 (the one in the Lockerbie bombing). So I’m thinking a flight should be, say, “flight 900” when used alone (as in “I took flight 900 to Geneva”), or Big Airline Flight 900 when it appears after an airline’s name. Does that sound about right to you? Many thanks!
A. In strict Chicago style, flight numbers would be lowercased—like room numbers, page numbers, and other such identifiers. Accordingly, we’d write “Pan Am flight 103” and, for subsequent mentions, “flight 103.” That’s the style Britannica follows in its article on the tragedy. According to this usage, “Pan Am” is a proper noun, whereas “flight 103” is not.
But you’re right that many sources capitalize flight numbers. If you’re going to go that route, however, you should still treat the airline name and flight number as separate terms, which would require a capital F even when the flight number is used alone: Pan Am Flight 103; Flight 103 (but the flight).
Q. Would CMOS lowercase the noun preceding the number in each below? Yes or no?
He was called to aisle 8.
The meeting was at building 50.
The accident happened on interstate 90.
Tom got off at exit 12.
Holyfield fell in round 4.
The cashier stole cash from register 7.
The incident happened at terminal 1.
Thank you.
A. Words like “interstate” and “highway” are generally considered part of the name and capitalized: Interstate 90, Highway 66. But all the other terms in your list—from “aisle 8” to “terminal 1”—would be treated as generic and lowercased.
Q. Do you lowercase occupational forms of address like “waiter,” “driver,” “bartender,” and “cook”? It seems that I got different opinions on various websites. Thanks for your input.
A. None of the terms you mention would normally be capitalized in direct address, even when standing in for a name:
Where are you taking me, driver?
Hey, bartender, where’s my drink?
But if the occupation can also be used as a title, capitalization is the norm:
How bad is it, Doctor?
What’s the rush, Captain?
Either convention can be broken, however.
For example, capitalization would make sense for a fictional character known by occupation alone, even if the occupation isn’t also a title—as in the case of the character known as “Driver” in the novels Drive and Driven, by James Sallis (Poisoned Pen Press, 2005 and 2012). And titles that aren’t being used literally are less likely to merit capitalization: What’s up, doc?
For some additional considerations, see CMOS 8.34–37.