Sunday, November 17th, 2019
Blog #2 of my learning from #TheChicagoManualOfStyle.
Spellings
Lesson #1 – Choose Consistency over Accurancy
English is a language with multiple spellings for the same words — archaeology vs archeology; color vs colour; (and may I add toward vs. towards; a hospital vs an hospital). Whether writing for the UK or US audiences, do not mix the rules within the same book.
Plurals
Lesson #2 – Avoid situations that make rules complicated
General Rules:
- For words ending in ch, j, s, sh, x, or z plural takes the es suffix.
- For words ending in y like baby plural takes ies. Example: Babies for Baby.
- Apply lesson #1 for multiple accurate plural forms like zeros and zeroes.
- Use common sense for plurals of compound words.
- bachelors of science
- child laborers
- Centuries: When using “and” or “through” century becomes plural (ex: “in the fifth through eighth centuries“). But when using “from” and “to” century keeps the singular form (ex: “eighteenth- and nineteenth-century technology”).
- Names ending in unpronounced s like Louis should be left in singular form.
- Peculiar examples:
- x’s and y’s. ifs and buts. dos and don’ts (note the apostrophe in letters).
- When in doubt, avoid the situation by rephrasing.
Possessives
My protagonist’s name ends in s. Jason Barnes, my hero. Jason’s possessive comma works without a doubt, but when I talk about the Barneses’s debt, I follow plural rules written in The Chicago Manual of Style’s (TCMOS) section 7.17 and 7.18 for proper nouns ending in s and italics.
Use ‘s to show possession of singular words and plural as follows: cat’s meow. cats’ meows.
Exception to the rule:
- When singular and plural of a name ending in s are same => “politics’ corruption, the United States’ role in…”
- For … sake… omit additional s as follows: “for goodness’ sake”
- Joint vs separate possession
- my dad and mom‘s love (s is after the second noun when collection is considered single)
- my dad‘s and mom‘s medical records (s is after all nouns when the possession is separate.)
- Possession to mean “of” => In five years’ I will publish my first book.
- Note the difference between “the Lakers’ game plan” and “the Lakers game” and possession of the game plan vs the game as noun itself.
- Note the difference between “Fathers‘ assuming the care of children has changed…” and “Fathers assuming the care of children often need to consult…” In the first the “fathers” is the subject; in the second the “fathers assuming the care…” is the subject.
Lesson #3 – It matters how it sounds instead of how it is written
An honest doctor at a hospital is a result of how different honest and hospital sound. Accents matter too. British accent that doesn’t sound out the “h” will use an hotel instead of a hotel.
I want to publish a MS soon on an MS topic. First MS is manuscript starting with M sound, but the second is abbreviation for multiple Sclerosis, sounding as em es., hence “an” is used there.
How we break a sentence at the end of a sentence is also determined by the sound of the word after breaking. Examples:
- democ-racy okay but not demo-cracy. Knowl-edge okay but not know-ledge (second changes the pronunciation).
- If project means to calculate or show, pro-ject is the way to go. If project means a task or problem that requires work, proj-ect would be right.
- Use spaces to meet the pronunciation guidelines above.
Other Rules of Divisions:
- Divide URLs along . and //.
- Dividing after vowel is preferred (unless it changes pronunciation).
Use of Italics
Lesson #4 – Use Italics sparsely
Use italics for emphasis (“He was the murderer!” is correct) but highlighting an entire sentence for emphasis loses the impact of emphasis. In normal roman font, place the important clause at the end of the sentence (that will work better than italics for emphasis).
Other ways to emphasize is by capitalizing the first letter like a heading. Ex: “I am a Bad Mother!”
Same rule is applied for mottoes and signs.
Other Syntax Rules:
- Use italics for single letters like q.
- Use Italics or quote when a term is not used functionally.
- School grades like A are capitalized.
- Initials like Ramnik G. is proper way to abbreviate my last name, but to conceal my name, proper way would be to use 2 em dash and no period as follows: Author R——
Hyphenation Rules
General Rules:
- When multiple words appear before a noun, hyphenate. Reddish-brown sky. But “the sky was reddish brown” takes no hyphen.
- Age: a three-year-old is correct and so is three years of age.
- I was late by a half hour is correct and so is a half-hour class.
- Fractions: one-half is accurate with a hyphen.
- Grandfather’s father is great-grandfather
Lesson #5: TCMOS goes into greater detail and has a table for hyphenation. Its a great resource to have for editing.
My Takeaways
Sometimes, it is possible to be right in over one way. It’s better to remain consistent. While Chapter 7 felt easy and following common sense, the devil is in the details, and don’t overlook this chapter as trivial. Rules are countless.
Source: The Chicago Manual of Style, SEVENTEEN EDITION.
