Q. Dear CMOS, What is your opinion of the contraction “there’s” for “there has”? A sample sentence is “There’s been an explosion of scientific knowledge.” One on-line source says “there’s” has two meanings, “there is” and “there has.” If contractions were appropriate in a document, would you use “there’s” in both ways in the same document? Same paragraph? And by the way, when did the second usage creep in? Thanks.
Q. Do you have the definitive word on the following: “A is 29% greater than B” (as, for example, when A costs $1.29 and B costs $1.00)? I’m bothered by the use of a percentage less than 100, immediately followed by the “greater than” phrase, which I think is self-contradictory. In this specific case, I think A is actually 129% greater than B. If A cost less than B, it would be some percentage less than 100; if it costs more, then it must be some percentage greater than 100. Any comments?
Q. Help us out if you please. We are debating whether the following incomplete sentence (it’s used in a table) takes singular or plural verbs. “A tool applied to data that identifies consumer goods, defines their characteristics, and describes their method choice behaviors.”
Q. I am continually encountering extremely long lists ending with “as well as X” in this construction: “I talked about A, B, C, D, E, and F as well as X.” In 95 percent of these cases, X is not comparative, contrastive, or emphatic but merely a last-minute tack-on to the list. (Otherwise, I would probably use a dash or comma.) Given these circumstances, should a comma always precede “as well as”? I work at a highly political nonprofit where I am not always allowed to rephrase even minor things (big egos). Sometimes correct revisions are vetoed, and incorrect punctuation, improper word usage or citation formatting, grammatical mistakes, and misspellings are published rather than risk offending the original author.
Q. I am the copy editor for a nonprofit organization, and we recently hired a new publications director. One of his style preferences drives some of us crazy, and I was hoping you might help, as we are supposed to be following The Chicago Manual of Style. Anyway, I think this might be more of a personal choice instead of a style decision: the problem is that he insists on leaving in or adding unnecessary “thats,” even if the other editors feel they bog down the sentences. Example: I had a sentence that read, “It is important for mental health workers to understand the vital role companion animals play in their clients’ lives.” Per his choice, it now reads, “It is important for mental health workers to understand the vital role that companion animals play in their clients’ lives.” I know it’s not incorrect to add the “thats,” but I believe they make the text sound sloppy. What do you think?
Q. I cannot find a reference to this in my Manual: because versus since. I have been tutored that because is used for instances of cause/effect and that since is for time. However, one of my authors is a scholar who contends that “since denotes a state of being based on a relationship. . . . Because implies causality between one aspect of that relationship and the other.” Can you explain this to me more clearly or refute it altogether?
Q. I work for an insurance company, and one of our beloved underwriters is disputing an exclusion in our policy that specifies “while piloting or serving as a crewmember in a plane.” She wants it to read, “while piloting or serving as a crewmember on a plane.” I can think of ways to defend both, but I’d love to know which is correct.
Q. We are having a bit of a debate down here—in a manuscript, one of our authors refers to a person who keeps a journal as a “journaler.” The author prefers “journaler” to “diarist” because she feels that they are two separate things. The copyeditor wants to change “journaler” to “journalist” (the second definition of “journalist” is “a person who keeps a journal”), but I think that would be confusing to a reader. “Journalizer” appears in Merriam-Webster but doesn’t seem right either. Any opinions?
Q. When is it correct to use “if” and when is it correct to use “whether?” Thank you.
Q. Recently I was trying to determine (once again) whether subjects should be considered singular or plural when they are of the following form: rock(s). Personally, I think the simplest approach would be to treat it as any other parenthetical note within a sentence: it’s a note to the reader, but it should not affect the grammar of the sentence. Therefore, “rock(s)” would be treated as singular, not plural, and certainly not singular and plural. I looked through CMOS but could not find a solution. I guess my actual question is, is there a flaw in my reasoning, and if not, could Chicago recommend it?