Usage and Grammar

Q. Should the indefinite article “a” be used when introducing a professor emeritus? For example, “He is [a] professor emeritus of chemistry at the university.” On the one hand, “a” usually indicates that the person is not the only person with that title at the university. On the other hand, Google Ngram shows a higher preference for no article.

Q. I have scoured the internet looking for an answer: How are plurale tantum [plural only] words like “pants,” “scissors,” “sunglasses,” and “manners” constructed using the suffix “-less”? Would it be “pantless” or “pantsless,” “scissorless” or “scissorsless,” and so on? I can find arguments for either construction for each term. I’m hoping there’s a grammar rule (somewhere) that will guide me toward a definitive answer. If the “s” is retained before the suffix, most words become awkward to say the least (“trousersless,” “slacksless,” “shearsless,” etc.). Is it simply arbitrary? Based on popular usage? Something else?

Q. Several years ago, radio station WBUR in Boston began crediting its listeners with the words “brought to you by the listeners OF WBUR.” I have found it most disturbing and would appreciate it if CMOS were to dive into this controversy. Longman Dictionary of Phrasal Verbs does not address this since the example is of a noun form of a verb. Thank you.

Q. CMOS 5.201 says that “compare with” should be used for literal comparisons and “compare to” for poetic or metaphorical comparisons. Does the same rule apply to “comparable”? My organization enforces “comparable with” because we follow CMOS and publish material that’s not remotely poetic. “With” sounds odd to me, though; Google Books Ngram shows that “comparable to” is used more than six times as often, and it’s been the more popular variant for almost 100 years [that’s true when British English is considered together with American English; in British English, “comparable with” was the more popular form until the mid-1970s.—CMOS editor]. Can I make a case for sticking with “comparable to”?

Q. We are naming a maths series for classes 1 to 8 as ‘Revel in Maths’. The sales team is a little hesitant to accept this name as they find the word ‘revel’ associated with drinking and dancing. The general dictionary meaning of the phrasal verb ‘revel in something’ is ‘to take a great pleasure in something’. Kindly suggest an alternative.

Q. Is it alright to end a relative clause with a preposition, such as in the following: “The credit card you charge your rental fee to . . .”

Q. I was taught to exclusively use third person in academic writing, especially in research papers. Now that I’m in university, I have seen increasing use of first person in essays and papers. I couldn’t find anything on this in CMOS or on the website. Is there any sort of guideline on when to use different perspectives? Or does choosing first, second, and third person in writing have little impact as long as a sense of professionalism is maintained?

Q. How do you form a possessive of a “one of the” phrase? For example, a shout belonging to “one of the guards.” Placing the apostrophe at the end of “guards” seems to make multiple guards possess the shout. “Guard’s” seems to make it one of the shouts of a single guard. But if there are multiple guards, and one is shouting . . . where does the apostrophe go?

Q. I’m pretty certain CMOS said to omit the “of” in month-year references (“he graduated in May 1999,” not “he graduated in May of 1999”), but I can’t for the life of me find this in the 17th edition. Is there a reason it is no longer covered? And do you have guidance?

Q. Many of my clients (graduate students and researchers) want to use the term “post COVID” to mean “after the COVID-19 pandemic,” as in “Returning from Remote Work post COVID.” I believe this would make “post” a preposition, and that’s not one of the parts of speech for “post” listed in Merriam-Webster. The dictionary gives examples of “post” as a prefix for verbs, nouns, and adjectives. So “post-COVID symptoms” is fine, of course. It appears that using “post COVID” to mean “after the pandemic” has become installed in our everyday language due to the familiarity of “post-COVID” as a compound adjective. That doesn’t mean it can be used as a preposition, does it? You couldn’t say, for example, “I’m going jogging post breakfast.” So I think “I’m going back to the gym post COVID” is equally incorrect. What is your take on this? Thank you very much!