Q. Can you offer any guidance as to how best to render people’s height? I’ve seen “five feet, two inches” (tall), “five-feet-two-inches” “five-feet-two,” “five-foot-two” (yikes!), “five-two,” all of the preceding with the hyphens placed otherwise or omitted, and, of course, good old 5' 2''. I’ve searched “Chicago” but haven’t found the answer. Help!
A. Usually, a hyphen is unnecessary: write “five feet, two inches tall,” “five feet, two inches,” “five foot two,” and so forth. But a hyphen is helpful in expressions such as “five-two.” If you write 5′2″, there’s no space after the sign for feet (a prime symbol). See CMOS 7.89, section 1, under “number + noun.” See also paragraph 10.66.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Some authors in the company for which I copyedit have been using an en dash, rather than a hyphen, for the negative sign in negative numbers, i.e., –3 versus -3. Some of our required fonts exaggerate the difference, and occasionally this results in negative signs of varying size in our technical documentation. I would prefer that all authors use the hyphen to create a more consistent look. As CMOS is this company’s style reference guide, I have searched through it for a recommendation regarding this topic but have not found one. Does CMOS have a preference?
A. CMOS prefers the actual minus sign, which is not the same as an en dash, in professionally typeset material. The minus sign is defined by Unicode as U+2212; the en dash is U+2013. See paragraph 11.2 and table 12.1 in CMOS for more information.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’m wondering about the proper uses of the prefix auto-. When one cannot find the word using this prefix
in the dictionary, is there a standard for how to use it? To hyphenate or not to hyphenate, that is the question. My specific
example is autosequence, auto-sequence, or auto sequence. Which would Chicago recommend?
A. All prefixes form words that are closed unless the word it is joined with is a proper noun, or if there would be ambiguity
owing to, for example, a doubled letter, or if the hyphenated version is in the dictionary:
autoloading
auto-destruction [hyphenated, I would suppose, because it is analogous to self-destruction]
autobus
auto-ovulation [to avoid double o]
auto-Nietzschean
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In “University of California Berkeley,” for example, which mark would you place
before “Berkeley”: hyphen, en dash, or comma? (I couldn’t
find this in your manual.) My preference would be either the en dash or the comma, but never the hyphen. What say you?
A. I think an analogy is appropriate, here. Canton is in Ohio. Therefore, Canton, Ohio. The University of California’s
East Bay institution is in Berkeley, California. So, it’s the University of California in (or at) Berkeley,
or the University of California, Berkeley. I can see an en dash being used as well, because an en dash can join one word to
a compound, as in “a jazz–rock ’n’
roll hybrid” (where the en dash joins “jazz” to “rock
’n’ roll”). Berkeley needs to be joined to the entire “University
of California,” so an en dash would work, but not a hyphen. By the way, the University of California
prefers the comma.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am an American translator working in Germany and I am having difficulty determining whether the following formulation is
correct according to Chicago style:
developing short-, medium-, and long-term steps for . . .
This looks so Germanized to my eyes, but perhaps I have simply been here too long. Thank you!
A. You have it right. The idea is that you are “developing short-term, medium-term, and long-term steps
for” something, but that you want to avoid repeating “term,”
so you simply delete the first two instances of “term”; et voilà: now you are “developing short-, medium-, and long-term steps.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the difference in usage between an em dash and an en dash?
A. I will try to condense the various bits of information scattered throughout CMOS. First of all, there are three lengths of what are all more or less dashes: hyphen (-), en dash (–), and em dash (—). I frame it this way because the work they do is roughly related to their length (though I don’t think CMOS puts it this way outright).
The hyphen connects two things that are intimately related, usually words that function together as a single concept or work together as a joint modifier (e.g., tie-in, toll-free call, two-thirds).
The en dash connects things that are related to each other by distance, as in the May–September issue of a magazine; it’s not a May-September issue, because June, July, and August are also ostensibly included in this range. And in fact en dashes specify any kind of range, which is why they properly appear in indexes when a range of pages is cited (e.g., 147–48). En dashes are also used to connect a prefix to a proper open compound: for example, pre–World War II. In that example, “pre” is connected to the open compound “World War II” and therefore has to do a little extra work (to bridge the space between the two words it modifies—space that cannot be besmirched by hyphens because “World War II” is a proper noun). Now, that is a rather fussy use of the en dash that many people ignore, preferring the hyphen.
The em dash has several uses. It allows, in a manner similar to parentheses, an additional thought to be added within a sentence by sort of breaking away from that sentence—as I’ve done here. Its use or misuse for this purpose is a matter of taste, and subject to the effect on the writer’s or reader’s “ear.” Em dashes also substitute for something missing. For example, in a bibliographic list, rather than repeating the same author over and over again, three consecutive em dashes (also known as a 3-em dash) stand in for the author’s name. In interrupted speech, one or two em dashes may be used: “I wasn’t trying to imply——” “Then just what were you trying to do?” Also, the em dash may serve as a sort of bullet point, as in this to-do list:
—wash the car
—walk the dog
—attempt to explain em and en dashes
This explanation is not intended to be exhaustive (for much more, see chapter 6 in CMOS), but I do hope that it helps to frame the different potential of each length of dash.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. When referring to a telephone call for which the calling party is not charged, is it (a) a “toll free call,” (b) a “tollfree call,” or (c) a “toll-free call.” My own preference is for c first, then b. However, our marketing bunch uses a. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated. This is driving me nuts (or at least nuttier than usual).
A. Chicago hyphenates all “free” words in any position: toll-free call; the call was toll-free. See CMOS 7.89, section 3, under “free.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]