New Questions and Answers

Q. I’m pretty certain CMOS said to omit the “of” in month-year references (“he graduated in May 1999,” not “he graduated in May of 1999”), but I can’t for the life of me find this in the 17th edition. Is there a reason it is no longer covered? And do you have guidance?

A. We haven’t been able to find such a rule in earlier editions of CMOS, but according to Bryan Garner (author of CMOS chapter 5), it’s best to leave out “of”: “February 2010 is better than February of 2010”; see Garner’s Modern English Usage, 5th ed. (Oxford, 2022), under “Dates. B. Month and Year.”

That advice is presumably directed at writers and editors. In speech, adding an “of” between month and year is relatively common—and there’s nothing inherently wrong with doing so. Similarly, Chicago style is to write “July 5,” whereas people typically say “July 5th.” Rules intended for writing, which tend to favor precision, don’t always translate to speech.

[Editor’s update: It turns out that Garner’s advice is in the Manual after all. See the entry for of in the usage glossary at CMOS 5.250: “Avoid using this word needlessly after all, off, inside, and outside. Also, prefer June 2015 over June of 2015. To improve your style, try removing every of-phrase that you reasonably can.” Our focus on CMOS’s coverage of dates led us astray. Thank you to a reader for kindly bringing this to our attention.]

Q. I am editing an article that has sports terminology in it, and I wanted to verify whether a player’s jersey number would fall under the general rule of numbers or would be a special case in which the jersey number would be written as a numeral. And if it is to be written as a numeral, would an octothorpe/hashtag be used (for example, #24)?

A. Jersey numbers (like page numbers and a few other categories) are best expressed as numerals to reflect the way they normally appear in real life: Upon his much-anticipated return to the court, he wore number 45.* Usually, the word “number” can be spelled out; if you need to abbreviate it, we’d recommend using “No.”† instead of the number sign‡ (i.e., No. 45).

* Hint: The year was 1995, when CMOS was in its fourteenth edition.

† For the capital N, see this Q&A on a related matter (the No. 2 pencil).

‡ “Number sign” is Unicode’s name for # (U+0023); the code chart for that symbol also lists pound sign, hashtag, hash, crosshatch, and octothorpe as what it calls informative aliases (which are preceded by equals signs in the charts; see “Key to the Unicode Code Charts” at Unicode’s Help and Links page).

Q. Many of my clients (graduate students and researchers) want to use the term “post COVID” to mean “after the COVID-19 pandemic,” as in “Returning from Remote Work post COVID.” I believe this would make “post” a preposition, and that’s not one of the parts of speech for “post” listed in Merriam-Webster. The dictionary gives examples of “post” as a prefix for verbs, nouns, and adjectives. So “post-COVID symptoms” is fine, of course. It appears that using “post COVID” to mean “after the pandemic” has become installed in our everyday language due to the familiarity of “post-COVID” as a compound adjective. That doesn’t mean it can be used as a preposition, does it? You couldn’t say, for example, “I’m going jogging post breakfast.” So I think “I’m going back to the gym post COVID” is equally incorrect. What is your take on this? Thank you very much!

A. We agree that the prefix post- functions as a preposition when you remove the hyphen. But we also agree that it’s a little early to declare a post-post-as-prefix world, at least in edited prose intended for publication—though the OED does include the prepositional sense for post, dating it to 1965.

Instead, we’d advise keeping the hyphen and treating the compound as an adverb: “Returning from Remote Work Post-COVID.” Without the hyphen, Post is subject to a momentary misreading (possibly as a noun), and because it isn’t a typical preposition, lowercase “post” might look odd.

For what it’s worth, the OED’s examples of prepositional post seem relatively casual and potentially ambiguous (e.g., “Now, post the increase . . .”; “Post the Geneva meeting of Opec . . .”).* The term will be more familiar as a prefix, and you can keep the capital P.†

* In British style, it’s normal to spell acronyms with an initial cap (as in Opec for OPEC—or Covid for COVID).

† The OED records several post- adjectives that, like “Post-COVID” in the example headline above, can also be used as adverbs. Most of our readers would probably be familiar with the adverb post-publication. If not, get back to us post-lunch (another OED entry). (Chicago style would normally call for postpublication and postlunch, though some editors would retain a hyphen in one or both of those terms for the sake of clarity. For more on this subject, see “Prefixes: A Nonissue, or a Non-Issue?” at CMOS Shop Talk.)

Q. Should “cotton gin maker” have a hyphen? Does “cotton gin” here serve as an adjective, necessitating the hyphen? I’ve consulted CMOS and am still not quite sure. Thanks!

A. Good question! According to the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.89 (see section 2, under “noun + noun, single function”), when a phrase like “cotton gin,” in which one noun (“cotton”) modifies another noun (“gin”), is used to modify a third noun (“cotton gin” modifies “maker”), the phrase would normally be hyphenated: cotton-gin maker.

That said, some editors would omit the hyphen. Not only is “cotton gin” entered as an unhyphenated noun in Merriam-Webster (with no adjective form, hyphenated or not, listed with it), but unless the surrounding context isn’t obviously relevant to cotton gins as opposed to some kind of process for making gin with cotton (whatever that would be), there isn’t much chance of confusion without the hyphen.

In sum, add the hyphen to be on the safe side, knowing that you can instead leave it out if that’s your strong preference (provided you’re consistent). In other words, this is a gray area (like the spelling of gray).

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. I believe there is an errant dash in the example citation at CMOS 14.119, following “1992”: Armstrong, Tenisha, ed. To Save the Soul of America, January 1961–August 1962. Vol. 7 of The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr., edited by Clayborne Carson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992–. Huge fan of CMOS!!

A. Though it does look kind of odd, that 1992 followed by an en dash and a period is Chicago style for citing the date of an unfinished project; see CMOS 6.79. And according to the project’s publisher (as of March 5, 2024), volume 7 is only the latest in what is projected to be a fourteen-volume collection of King’s papers; see “King Papers Publications” at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute (via Stanford University).

Note that Chicago style doesn’t require a comma before “Jr.,” but we retain one in the project title and the name of the institute to reflect the publisher’s usage. Note also that the citation in the question can be reordered to put the collection before the individual volume, in which case only the year for the volume would be cited (as in the first example at CMOS 14.119).

Q. I’m trying to help my high school students cite primary sources found online for history research papers using notes-bibliography formatting. How would you cite this document, a 1970 memo from Kissinger to Nixon, found on a State Department website: https://​history​.state​.gov​/historical​documents​/frus1969​-76v21​/d190.

I put the website into a citation generator and here is what it produced:

State.gov. “Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XXI, Chile, 1969–1973—Office of the Historian,” 2024. https://​history​.state​.gov/historical​documents​/frus1969​-76v21​/d190.

I don’t think this is correct because (a) “State.gov” is not an author’s name, (b) “Foreign Relations of the United States” is not the title of the document but the title of the collection, and (c) there should be a period, not a comma, after the title. How should this document be cited?

A. According to CMOS 14.111, letters and other correspondence found in published collections are usually cited by the names of the correspondents (sender first), the date of the correspondence (plus a place if relevant), and the information for the collection. Adapting this advice to your example—after clicking around the site to find out more about the source—we’d cite the memo in a note like this:

1. Henry Kissinger to Richard Nixon, memorandum, Washington, December 18, 1970, in Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, ed. Adam Howard, vol. 21, Chile, 1969–1973, ed. James McElveen and James Siekmeier (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2014), doc. 190, https://​history​.state​.gov​/historical​documents​/frus1969​-76v21​/d190.

See also CMOS 14.120. (And note that the US Government Printing Office became the Government Publishing Office in 2014, but the former name is the one on the vol. 21 title page; see the PDF version based on the original printed edition and offered along with the source.) The same item could be cited again in shortened form like this:

2. Kissinger to Nixon, Washington, December 18, 1970.

The collection and volume (but not usually the individual document) would be added to the bibliography as follows:

Howard, Adam, ed. Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976. Vol. 21, Chile, 1969–1973, edited by James McElveen and James Siekmeier. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 2014. https://​history​.state​.gov/historical​documents​/frus1969​-76v21/.

Alternatively, you could cite the memo like an article on a website, using the title supplied by the publisher that appears in both the collection and on the web page for the document:

1. “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon,” doc. 190, December 18, 1970, Department of State, Foreign Service Institute, Office of the Historian, https://​history​.state​.gov​/historical​documents/frus1969​-76v21/d190.

Any bibliography entry corresponding to that note would be listed under the name of the organization, and it would make more sense in this case to cite the memo rather than the collection:

US Department of State, Foreign Service Institute. “Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kissinger) to President Nixon.” Office of the Historian, doc. 190, December 18, 1970. https://​history​.state​.gov/historical​documents​/frus1969​-76v21/d190.

Citing the memo like an article is a little easier to do, but citing it in terms of the collection adds helpful context. You have some flexibility when it comes to primary sources like these. Note, for example, how editors McElveen and Siekmeier cite the memo (in their source note at the head of the document): as an artifact in a numbered box at the National Archives—or the primary source as it exists in real life.

February Q&A

Q. Seeking your expert advice on the following problem, now that I’ve run into it for about the dozenth time: When the names of brand collaborations use an “x” between the two entities, what’s the best way to style the “x”? For example, a collaboration between Louis Vuitton and Yayoi Kusama. Should it be a capital X? Lowercase x? A multiplication sign?

A. We’d vote for the multiplication sign, ×. This character is the norm in horticultural contexts—for example, to indicate the crossing of two plant species, as in Magnolia denudata × M. liliiflora, the hybrid tree commonly known as the saucer magnolia (see CMOS 8.125).

By writing “Louis Vuitton × Yayoi Kusama,” you are suggesting something similar. And though not everyone will pick up on the metaphor (in which art imitates nature), a garden-variety X or x might strike those of us who know a thing or two about typography as a cheap imitation. (For more on ×, see this related Q&A.)

Q. Are reverse italics [i.e., roman text in an otherwise italic context] used when a legal case includes names of newspapers that would normally be italicized on their own? Thank you!

A. The name of a newspaper or other periodical would be italicized in the name of a court case—just like the name of any other entity. The Bluebook, a widely used citation guide that we recommend for citing court cases and the like (see CMOS 14.269), includes a relevant example: Seattle Times v. Univ. of Wash. (see section B10.1.1 in the 21st ed. of The Bluebook [2020]).

That Bluebook example is intended to illustrate two principles: (1) an initial The in the name of a party to a cited case can be omitted (a rule that applies to both names in the Seattle Times case), and (2) abbreviations can be used for certain terms, including state names and words like “University.”

And though that example isn’t supposed to show the use of italics for case names (which in Bluebook usage depends on context), it does suggest that a newspaper name within the name of a court case doesn’t merit any special typographic treatment. That’s probably because the name “Seattle Times” is, in this context, that of a publishing company rather than a publication (publications don’t argue cases, but their publishers do).

Q. If an index subentry starts with a full name, do you alphabetize by last name or first? Here is an example: “. . . Menachem Begin visit to (1948), 67–69; Biltmore Conference in (1942), 27, 220n44; . . .” I was told to move the Begin entry to come before the Biltmore Conference entry. It was originally alphabetized under “M.” But it seems like a weird choice.

A. It may seem odd in any one entry, but when a full name appears in an index entry without being inverted—as in a subentry like yours that’s been run in to the main entry (with the help of semicolons rather than new lines and indents)—it’s still usually alphabetized by last name. Alphabetic order isn’t all that important in subentries (which are typically limited to a small block of text), but some readers will appreciate that the logic for names, inverted and not, is consistent across the index.

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. A vertical list lettered with “a.,” “b.,” “c.,” etc. (using periods after each letter) is provided in a document. Later on in the write-up, I reference this list with the sentence, “[Name] has managed projects that cover items a through f.” Do “a” and “f” require some kind of punctuation or special treatment?

A. To refer to a lettered list item, you can normally use italics regardless of how the letters are punctuated in the list itself. For example, you could refer to item a or, if the letters in the list are capitals, item A. This is an application of the rule about using italics to refer to letters as letters (see CMOS 7.64). To refer to a number, on the other hand, use regular type regardless of whether the numerals are arabic or roman: item 1, item I, item i.

But if the letters or numbers in the list are in parentheses, then you can use parentheses in the text: item (a), item (i). One advantage of this approach is that lowercase letters and roman numerals in particular are easier to read when placed in parentheses. Whichever choice you make, be consistent.

Q. Hi there! CMOS defines a website as a set of publicly available pages. I need to cite a site that is restricted to users but is not private communication. How would one go about this? Do we need to signify to our readers that the URL is blocked to users only? Thanks!

A. Any site that could be accessed by anyone can usually be cited without comment. For example, you might use a footnote to cite an article on the piano at Grove Music Online:

1. Grove Music Online, “Piano [pianoforte; fortepiano],” by Cynthia Adams Hoover and Edwin M. Good, January 31, 2014, https://​doi​.org​/10​.1093​/gmo​/9781561592630​.article​.A2257895.

That URL is based on a DOI, a persistent identifier designed to return information about a source even when full access is denied. In this case, access will be denied to anyone who doesn’t have a subscription to Grove Music Online or who isn’t logging in at a library or other institution with a subscription:

Screenshot from Grove Music Online showing title and author of piano article, DOI, and publication dates for print and online. Also includes a red padlock and a note saying: "You do not currently have access to this article."

If you want readers to know that the page wasn’t freely available at the time you cited it, you can add “(requires subscription)” after the URL. But there’s no need to add anything unless the page is entirely unavailable to the public, via subscription or otherwise (see CMOS 14.207 for an example).

Q. How does one cite a footnote on a page that is numbered with roman numerals? For example, a reference to a footnote 1 on page xxii, adapting the example citation in CMOS 14.147, would look rather clunky this way: Jerome Kagan, “Introduction to the Tenth-Anniversary Edition,” in The Nature of the Child (New York: Basic Books, 1994), xxiin1.

A. We’d advise adding a space between page number and note number: xxii n1. To ensure the expression stays together on one line, make it a nonbreaking space (as we’ve done here; see CMOS 6.121).