Q. I’ve polled all the editors in the building on this, plus checked your manual. Other than rewriting the sentence entirely so it wouldn’t matter if we had “is” or “are,” no one is quite sure how to handle it. I hope you can help, wish this were a chat room. :) Is a term like “award(s)” plural or singular? To me, since the reader will “read” it as plural, it should be plural, but that’s the advertising copyeditor in me. As for grammatical correctness, I don’t really know if it’s a plural word or not, since technically the “s” is only inferred, right?
A. A term ending in “(s)” is both plural and singular. If you must use such a device (and it can be a useful shorthand), you have to be prepared to adjust the surrounding context as necessary: for example, “the award(s) is (are) accounted for.” A parenthetical plural verb must correspond to the parenthetical ending. But that’s an awkward example. In general, avoid such shorthand unless it can be used simply and effectively, as in the following example:
Place an “about the author(s)” statement on the copyright page (usually page iv).
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. My boyfriend and I are having a battle royal over the use of apostrophes in plural names. In his PhD dissertation he repeatedly refers to a family by the name of Wallace. When he refers to them in the plural, he insists that the correct form is “the Wallace’s,” which seems entirely incorrect to me. I hold that it should be “the Wallaces,” just like “the McDonalds” or “the McPartlands” or “the DeVitos.” He is backing up his position with the example “the G.I.s,” which he insists should be pluralized as “the G.I.’s.” Please help. This is ruining our dinner conversation!
A. Usually in such arguments, the woman is right. Yours is no exception. The plural of names of persons and other capitalized nouns is usually formed with the addition of s or es. An apostrophe is never used to form the plural of family names. Write “the Wallaces,” “the Joneses,” the “Jordans,” etc. See paragraph 7.9 of the eighteenth edition of CMOS for the full statement of the applicable rule. As for G.I., Chicago style is GI (no periods), the plural of which we write as GIs. See paragraphs 10.4 and 7.15.
[reply from Q.]: Ohhhh thanks!!!! I can’t wait to show this to [my boyfriend].
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Greetings from New Zealand. May I please ask you what is the plural of “thesis” and whether this word is of Latin or Greek origin? Many thanks.
A. For this sort of thing, we at the University of Chicago Press must rely on the lexicographers. According to Merriam-Webster, the plural is “theses” and the origin is Greek.
[This answer relies on the 18th edition of CMOS (2024) unless otherwise noted.]