Special Characters

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 “49^th 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.

[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]