Q. I was horrified to see that you endorsed using an apostrophe before the s to form plurals! “To aid comprehension, lowercase letters form the plural with an apostrophe and an s (compare ‘two as in llama’ with ‘two a’s in llama’)” (CMOS 7.15). I protest. An apostrophe conveys possession, or a contraction. It should never be used in this context. Please advise where this misbegotten rule came from.
A. The nice thing about using an apostrophe to help form a plural is that it does it so well; you’d never know that it was born under questionable circumstances, or that it doesn’t have a right to play that role. You’ll find it in Shakespeare: “By my life this is my Ladies hand: these bee her very C’s, her V’s, and her T’s, and thus makes shee her great P’s. It is in contempt of question her hand” (Twelfth Night, act 2, scene 5 [1st folio, 1623]; and note the absence of an apostrophe, and the plural ending, in the possessive “Ladies”). In its first eleven editions, CMOS advised writing “the three R’s,” after which it became “the three Rs.” But the intent of the rule has remained the same: use an apostrophe wherever it is needed to prevent a misreading. And as anyone who got A’s in chemistry (or knows their Agatha Christie) might tell you, sometimes an apostrophe can spell the difference between a letter grade and a poison.
Q. When a question introduces a list, should you use a question mark or a colon? Or both?
A. First, don’t use a question mark immediately followed by a colon, or vice versa (neither :? nor ?:); instead, use the stronger mark. Assuming a direct question, the question mark is usually stronger.
Which fruit would you be most likely to recognize by texture alone?
banana
apple
blueberry
cherry
pineapple
A signal like “the following” can be helpful in such cases: “Which of the following fruits . . .”
If you incorporate the list into a sentence, the question mark can follow the last item.
Which fruit would you be most likely to recognize by texture alone: bananas, apples, blueberries, cherries, or pineapples?
Especially for shorter sentences, a comma can be used instead of a colon to introduce the list.
Which fruit do you like best, bananas or pineapples?
but
Do you prefer apples or bananas or blueberries? [See CMOS 6.67.]
Q. I edited a travel book for children, and I would love to know your response to this comment from an Amazon reviewer: “U.S. is spelled US throughout the book; D.C. is also spelled without the accurate punctuation. That sort of inattention to accuracy is inexcusable.” The author has asked me to write a response to this for Amazon. This reviewer seems to think Chicago style is teaching kids bad punctuation habits. Thanks for your help.
A. “DC” (no periods) is the official postal abbreviation, in use since October 1963, when the US Post Office Department (now the US Postal Service) introduced its list of two-letter abbreviations for states and territories (and the District of Columbia). The Chicago Manual of Style now recommends these familiar two-letter forms over the traditional abbreviations. So we recommend not only “DC” rather than “D.C.” but also, for example, “IL” rather than “Ill.” Chicago’s preference for “US,” on the other hand, accords with established usage for other countries (the UK, the former USSR, the PRC) and for most other initialisms and acronyms that take full capitals (NASA, UN, DNA). It is true that many publications still favor the more traditional forms with periods, and those are not wrong. But it would be wrong to suggest that kids can’t learn to appreciate the details that make reading (and editing) so interesting.
Q. What’s the official CMOS stance on double question marks?? I see this a lot in blogs, online magazines, DIY news sites, etc.
A. We don’t have an official stance on double question marks. But to invoke the spirit of CMOS if not the letter, you might keep in mind that any kind of emphasis tends to lose its effectiveness if overdone. This is essentially our stance on exclamation points (see CMOS 6.71), advice that’s equally applicable to doubled question marks.
Q. Dear CMOS team—a book I am working on as an editor is called (disguised) Sandwich: Imagine the Recipe. Write It Down. Watch It Happen. Are the periods in the subtitle appropriate, or are commas preferred? The periods are driving me crazy, so it would be nice if there were a Chicago rule to say yea or nay.
A. The periods are certainly awkward when it comes to putting that title into a sentence. But for better or for worse, they’re part of the title’s personality, so it’s probably best to leave them as they are. If the title appears midsentence, omit the final period or change it to a comma, depending on the syntax. Try to think of the whole thing as a unit and just avert your eyes.
Q. For catalog copy, how would I write inches symbols with a period at the end of a sentence? (The client wants symbols rather than to spell out inches. That is nondebatable.)
5'' × 4''.
or
5'' × 4.''
The client says it’s the latter. I say NO WAY. I think the hash marks are not to be confused with an end-quote mark. Please!!! Please!!! Can someone help me out here?
A. Hang on! We’re coming! You are right: quotation marks are irrelevant. The inches symbol must be closed up to the number, which puts the period at the very end, after the entire expression: 4″ × 5″. Also, please note that the symbol for inches is the double prime (″), not double quotation marks (”) or straight quotation marks (") or (gasp!) two single quotation marks in a row ('').
Q. I am unclear on whether you always use brackets for ellipses that the author quoting the material has inserted. For example, in this quote, the quoting author has inserted ellipses. Would every instance of ellipses therefore be bracketed? “Make manifest the nature of the Moral-Mental-Physical Conflict; . . . discern a Pattern for Successful Operations; . . . help generalize Tactics and Strategy; . . . find a basis for Grand Strategy.”
A. It depends. In a work where all the ellipses mean that the writer has omitted a part of the original when quoting, readers will understand what’s going on and there’s no need for brackets. It gets tricky if the same document quotes from an original that has an ellipsis in it. That means there are two kinds of ellipses, and they need to be distinguished somehow. And that’s when brackets are used for the author’s own ellipses. (Sometimes it’s a good idea to explain this method to your readers.) An alternative is to skip the brackets and write “(ellipsis in original)” when needed.
Q. I’m a copyeditor, and I’m currently working on a company newsletter that highlights a new section of our internal style guide. I’m quoting two sentences of some existing material for an example, but I don’t want to include the entire second sentence. Right now, I have this: “For example: ‘Our new software makes managing information effortless. The software allows users to . . .’ ” Should there be a period at the end of that quote? Inside the quotation marks or outside? I’ve been staring at it for far too long and have come to no conclusion.
A. No period; just use the ellipsis. This is covered at CMOS 13.55 (“Ellipses at the Ends of Deliberately Incomplete Sentences”).
Q. I’m proofreading a math textbook that ends a sentence with “25 in.” followed by a superscript 2, denoting square inches. (Our math textbooks do not use “sq. in.”) There is a period after “in” and then another period after the superscript: 25 in.2. My gut says to eliminate the second period. What say you?
A. CMOS is silent on the issue of punctuation after a superscript following a period, and it doesn’t seem to be addressed in the science-related reference books at hand here, so assuming your house style is in. and in.2 (with the period), you could look at the situation in two different ways in order to choose your own style:
(1) You could see it as similar to when an abbreviation appears at the end of a parenthesis that ends a sentence, in which case a period appears both at the end of the abbreviation and at the end of the sentence:
Parenthesis style: The answer is doubled (25 in.2).
Applied to a superscript: The answer is 25 in.2.
(2) Or you could see it as similar to when an abbreviation ends a quotation, in which case only one period appears at the end:
Quotation mark style: The answer is “25 in.2”
Applied to a superscript: The answer is 25 in.2
A math professor we consulted on campus who is also the author of a geometry textbook had not run into this issue before, but she thought both suggestions were reasonable.
Q. I’m editing a transcript, and our department’s lead editor is giving me some trouble. We’re suffering over the word so. Under what circumstances can one put a comma after so? For example, in this transcript, a woman says: “So great answer.” Is so functioning conjunctively here, or can it be treated as an interjection? And what, if anything, does that mean for comma placement?
A. Is there a recording, or did someone actually hear the woman speak? To deduce the part of speech, you have to know the intonation and pacing. Was the speaker referring to a “so great answer” with no break between so and great? Or did she say “so, [pause] great answer!”? The first use is adverbial (so modifies great) and would not take a comma, whereas the second is a kind of conjunction (an introductory particle) after which a comma would be helpful in indicating a pause. An ellipsis or dash might be even better. But if you don’t have a recording, there’s no way to decide the punctuation, unless you can guess from the context.