Q. Hi! I was wondering if you recommend uppercase or lowercase for names of emoji. Capitalizing provides clarity, but it also does an end run around the issue of whether to hyphenate something like “winking-face emoji.” If it’s capitalized, no hyphens needed: “Winking Face emoji.” Plus the hyphens look bad aesthetically in my opinion. 🤮😉 Thanks so much for your input—I appreciate it! This is an issue fiction editors are running across with more and more frequency.
A. You’re right that initial caps can provide clarity while circumventing ye olde hyphenation conundrum. But whether it’s the Winking Face emoji or Face with Open Mouth Vomiting (to use the Unicode names for those two icons), initial caps, though helpful, are likely to seem like overkill in fiction and many other contexts outside of emoji documentation. And we agree that hyphens could likewise become tiresome: face-with-open-mouth-vomiting emoji? 🤮
Unicode, the international consortium that assigns names and code points to every character on your screen, including emoji, uses all capital letters in its code charts and related documentation for what it calls formal character names to differentiate these from alternative names and descriptions. For example, the chart that includes the Vulcan salute emoji lists the following: “1F596 🖖 RAISED HAND WITH PART BETWEEN MIDDLE AND RING FINGERS = Vulcan salute.” Or, in another chart, there’s the “face palm” emoji: “1F926 🤦 FACE PALM = frustration, disbelief.”
Some observations: (1) Emoji names that aren’t already hyphenated can usually be left unhyphenated even when the name precedes and modifies the word “emoji” (e.g., the Vulcan salute emoji or even the face with open mouth vomiting emoji). (2) When you need to single out an emoji name for any reason, try quotation marks instead of all caps or initial caps (e.g., the “face palm” emoji). (3) When the name as such isn’t the focus, you won’t need quotation marks or caps, but be sure to adjust capitalization and spelling as needed to match the style of the surrounding text.
Relative to the last point, “Vulcan” is a proper noun, so it keeps its capital V. But in Chicago style one would refer to the facepalm emoji, not the face palm emoji—because in Merriam-Webster the noun form of “facepalm” (here used attributively) is one word.
In sum, though it’s fine to refer to, for example, the Winking Face emoji when it’s important to single out the name—and though CMOS doesn’t yet rule on this—we would suggest quotation marks as a useful alternative for most contexts. And when the name isn’t the focus, there’s no need to use either quotation marks or caps—or, in most cases, hyphens.
Q. Can I use the ellipsis character in my manuscript? Or do I need to use Chicago’s spaced periods?
A. Either way is OK as long as you’re consistent. If you use the ellipsis character, put a space before and after it … like that. At the end of a sentence, it follows a period and a space, like this. … If a comma or other punctuation follows, close it up to the ellipsis …, like that. A publisher (or copyeditor) following Chicago style can search for this special character (Unicode 2026) and replace it with Chicago’s spaced periods . . . like that or, at the end of a sentence, like this. . . . Where a comma, semicolon, colon, question mark, or exclamation point follows the ellipsis, it is preceded by a space, like this . . . ; an exception is made for marks that come in pairs, including a quotation mark, “like this . . .”—and a dash . . .—like that (and a parenthesis [or bracket], like this . . .). To keep each ellipsis (and any mark of punctuation that follows) on the same line, nonbreaking spaces will need to be applied for publication (as we’ve done here). An ellipsis can begin a new line, so there is no need to precede an ellipsis by a nonbreaking space.
Q. Where does an emoji go in a sentence? Before or after the period? ✏️ Having a tough time deciding 🤔.
A. An emoji that applies to a sentence as a whole might logically follow the period or other terminal punctuation. Let’s coin a term and call this a sentence emoji. 😉 Then, by a similar logic, emoji applying to a word or a phrase could immediately follow that word or phrase, before any mark of punctuation 🔍, like that. Emoji standing in for words, like this picture of a 🐈—well, you get the idea. But like if you’re texting? Most of this logic goes out the window (along with the punctuation). Love your emoji btw!
Q. Hi, Should the “th” in “49th parallel” be superscript? Thanks.
A. Chicago style is “49th parallel” (or “forty-ninth parallel,” as advocated in CMOS 8.47, if you are spelling out numbers one through one hundred). If you use Microsoft Word, you will get “49th parallel” by default. To change this behavior, go to Options > Proofing > AutoCorrect to turn off the superscript setting for ordinals in AutoFormat and AutoFormat As You Type. Or you can type Ctrl+Z (Command-Z on a Mac) to undo the “correction” each time you type an ordinal.
Q. I’m wondering your take on my company’s bigwigs’ insistence on using a dollar sign in the following sentences:
(1) “How about 25 little cigars for less than $35 little dollars?”
(2) “We’re sending summer out with a bang . . . for less than $35 bucks!”
I’ve made my case against it and basically have been told that I’m being a nitpicker.
A. You’re not nitpicking—the use of $ with dollars or bucks signals ignorance or incompetence to many readers. But your bigwigs would surely count the Chicago Manual of Style as a meganitpicker, so our advice isn’t likely to help. Some day you’ll have the power! Till then, feel good that you did your job.
Q. I notice confusion in publication in regard to whether a space should precede and/or follow relation signs. My suspicion
is that it is <10 km but p < .001.
A. That’s right: there is no space after a relation sign when it acts as a modifier (e.g., for all quantities
<10 km), but there is space on both sides when it acts as a verb (e.g., for all quantities such that p < .001).
Q. I am editing a first-edition ecology textbook, which uses both footnotes in tables and variables in equations. In the first
chapter, the author italicized the variables, and I added italic to the footnote superscripts. However, a subsequent chapter
(written by a different author) does not use italics in equation variables set in text or their subscripts. In situations
such as this, is it my responsibility to set a style, or should I follow the author’s style? I find
that these contradictory situations occur with regard to hyphenations and such as well. Please help me put an end to this
type of confusion!
A. This is exactly what style manuals were invented for: so that editors can impose consistency as they read without stopping
to ponder each issue as it arises. Style manuals also tend to be based on long-term observation of style trends, so that consulting
a manual can save an editor from an embarrassing departure from convention. Rather than let whichever author comes first in
the book dictate the style (do I hear a collective gasp?), check a manual like CMOS and find that footnote superscripts are normally set in roman type and mathematical variables are set in italics.
Q. Is there a standard for replacing an expletive with special $%!# characters?
A. Although there isn’t a steady demand for masked expletives in scholarly prose, this is weirdly one of our frequently asked questions. (I have to wonder who is reading the Q&A—and what they are writing.) The symbols are fine for cartoons and email messages, where you may arrange them in whatever order pleases you. In formal prose, however, we find that a 2-em dash makes a d——d fine replacement device.
Q. My question has to do with the direction of an apostrophe at the beginning of shortened versions of longer words. For example,
“’zine” for “magazine”
or “’cause” for “because.”
In transcribed interviews, I sometimes run into this. Should the apostrophe close toward the word or away from it? Thanks.
A. Apostrophes come in only one shape, which happens to be the same as that of the single end quotation mark. In word-processed
documents, however, when apostrophes are preceded by a space (as opposed to those in the middle of a word, like “it’s”),
the software thinks the writer wants an opening quotation mark and supplies one. When documents aren’t
proofread carefully, these marks appear in place of apostrophes. (This is only one reason why I’m not
worried about being replaced by a computer anytime soon.)
Q. When and how often is it appropriate to use the slash (/) character that delineates terms of similar meaning?
A. Use it until just before it becomes annoying. (You get to decide when that is.) See CMOS 6.105–13 for more on the slash.