Q. Hi! Hope you all are well. Please help me. I can’t find an answer anywhere. Does CMOS recommend “Gen Zers” or “Gen Zs”?
A. Merriam-Webster includes an entry for “Gen Z” as a noun. Under “Other Words from Gen Z,” the entry lists “Gen Zer or Gen-Zer” and “Gen Zers or Gen-Zers” (“or” means the hyphenated variants are equally common, but in such cases Chicago normally advises choosing the first-listed form). You won’t, however, find “Gen Zs”—which you can therefore assume occurs only as the plural form of “Gen Z,” as in more than one Generation Z (see CMOS 7.15 for styling the plurals of letters). For members of Generation Z, then, write “Gen Zers.” Ditto for their predecessors: “Gen Yers” and “Gen Xers.”