Q. I am an American translator working in Germany and I am having difficulty determining whether the following formulation is correct according to Chicago style:
developing short-, medium-, and long-term steps for . . .
This looks so Germanized to my eyes, but perhaps I have simply been here too long. Thank you!
A. You have it right. The idea is that you are “developing short-term, medium-term, and long-term steps for” something, but that you want to avoid repeating “term,” so you simply delete the first two instances of “term”; et voilà: now you are “developing short-, medium-, and long-term steps.”