Q. Would you please explain when to use “e.g.” and when to use “i.e.?”
Thank you.
A. Certainly. Both are abbreviations for Latin phrases: id est (“that is”) and exempli gratia (“for the sake of example”). So use “i.e.”
when you want to rephrase something you’ve already said, and use “e.g.”
when you want to offer an example. Put a comma before and after; avoid using both in the same sentence; and try not to use
either in formal prose. And (a bonus tip) if you start a list with “e.g.,” there’s
no need to put “etc.” at the end.
If the applicant is currently one of our tuition-paying clients (i.e., a student), the fee may be waived.
The best ingredients for pizza are green—e.g., spinach, artichokes, and green peppers.
The best ingredients for pizza are green: spinach, olives, etc.
Q. When a person is referred to by first-name initials after the first mention, is it GP (or G.P., or G. P.)? The examples listed
in CMOS only mention all initials (LBJ or JFK). Should there be periods? Should it be spaced or together? This is for a children’s
book.
A. Chicago doesn’t address this situation, and even if we did, it wouldn’t be with
little readers in mind, so you should work with the author and book designer to settle on a style that looks good in print
and won’t confuse children.
Q. Very wealthy event sponsor Thurston Quagmire III insists on presenting his name to the public as Thurston Quagmire, III—no
doubt because his letterhead and business card have long contained the error. Since throwing the book at him doesn’t
help, do you have any advice on talking him out of the comma? (Okay, what I’d really like is a cathartic,
subversive response that I can keep to myself whilst I lower our standards.)
A. If other names on the list are so encumbered, then copyediting for consistency is the editor’s prerogative.
And if house style takes out the comma, it needn’t suggest that Thursty’s business
cards are wrong. It’s just a style. But evidently this moneyman is allowed to micromanage, and if style
books don’t impress him, there’s nothing CMOS can say about it. Wealth has its privileges! Perhaps you can add a comma before each “Jr.”
in the list as well, and take comfort in the parallel.
Q. In a scientific book the source of some information is cited as an abbreviation for the name of the organization. For example,
“Weather data is taken from WMO 1990.” WMO stands for World Meteorological Organization.
In the literature cited, is WMO placed alphabetically according to WMO or according to World? That is, before or after an
entry by Wood?
A. If the reference list entry begins with WMO (World Meteorological Organization), it comes before Wood; if it begins with
World Meteorological Organization (WMO), it comes after Wood. The way it appears in the list should match the way it’s
cited in the text and notes.
Q. I edit medical textbooks in which series of closely related abbreviations are used often. For example, a chapter might discuss
interleukins 1, 2, 3, and 4, abbreviated IL-1, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4. How would I introduce the abbreviation IL (for “interleukin”)
into the following sentence: “Local osteolytic hypercalcemia is caused by locally produced osteoclast-activating
cytokines, including interleukin 1, interleukin 6, and interleukin 8.”
A. You could write, “Local osteolytic hypercalcemia is caused by locally produced osteoclast-activating
cytokines, including interleukin 1 (IL-1), IL-6, and IL-8.”
Q. I have translated a German-language publication and am prepared to publish. But at the last minute I face a challenge from
the author. In her work she used the term “Erneuerungsbewegung” (Renewal Movement)
extensively. She consistently placed the German term within quotation marks in her work. I am now requested to do the same
with “Renewal Movement.” Her explanation is that “Erneuerungsbewegung”
is a self-designated, political term. Is her request valid?
A. If the Renewal Movement is an official organization (with headquarters, officers, letterhead), then quotation marks are overkill
and would almost certainly be removed by a copyeditor. On the other hand, if the movement is an unofficial one and the designation
inaccurate or tongue-in-cheek or in some other way deserving of scare quotes, then quotation marks are appropriate, perhaps
without the caps. Repeated use of optional quotation marks is distracting in a text, so if you can work with the author to
find a way to refer to this movement in a way that doesn’t require quoting it, that would be best.
Q. When we first use an acronym or initialism like FMCSA we put it in parentheses after the spelled-out version. If the spelled-out
version is possessive, does the acronym/initialism need to be possessive too? Example: the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s
(FMCSA’s) new rule or the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration’s (FMCSA) new rule?
A. This question is surely one of the most frequently asked; in the next edition I hope we will issue an explicit ban on this
construction. In the meantime, please reword the sentence to avoid the possessive: the new rule issued by the Federal Motor
Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA).
Q. Which is correct (or are both correct): the Office of Capital Markets (OCM) or the Office of Capital Markets (“OCM”)? The second just doesn’t seem right to me, but my boss keeps correcting my work by changing it to that.
A. The quotation marks are unconventional, and they aren’t Chicago style (see CMOS 10.3), but if your boss really, really wants them, it probably won’t kill you to use them.
Q. I know there are abbreviations such as n.p. and n.d. indicating missing info about the publisher and year of publication. Is there any abbreviation indicating that the name of
a translator of a particular book is missing?
A. How about t.n.i.m. (translator name is missing)? Maybe not. Try “Translator unknown” or “Unknown
translator” or any other wording that makes sense to you.
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.