Q. When writing about the town in Massachusetts, should I use Foxboro or Foxborough? The latter is the technical, legal name; the former is what everybody (USPS included) prefers and actually uses.
A. Choose one and explain your choice. For instance: They lived in Foxboro, Massachusetts (officially Foxborough, although that spelling is largely ignored).
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Would you capitalize both terms in “Easter Bunny”? One of my coworkers argues that we should not capitalize the “bunny.” While she grants that, for example, we would capitalize “Santa Claus,” she argues that that is the character’s proper name. The same does not apply here. We’re talking about an unnamed bunny who happens to be active on Easter; hence, “the Easter bunny.” My feeling is that we should capitalize it, as we’re not talking about just any bunny, but a specific mythological figure. I think it falls under the penumbra of CMOS 8.34 and 8.35; whether or not “Easter Bunny” is the character’s proper name, it’s certainly used as such. What say you?
A. Both arguments have merit. Both styles are perfectly understandable as naming the bunny who is active on Easter. You could flip a coin. However, “Santa Claus” appears in the two dictionaries I checked; “Easter Bunny/bunny” does not. Given that Chicago leans toward lowercasing when possible, we would opt for “Easter bunny.” [Update: Apparently the Bunny won the coin toss. Merriam-Webster now includes an entry for Easter Bunny (capital B), listing “Easter bunny” as an equal variant.]
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I know that CMOS prefers theater to theatre, but when referring to degrees from the Department of Theatre (the university’s determined spelling), which should I go with?
A. Proper names must not be edited for style or spelling. Just as an editor would not change the spelling of your name, a street name, or the name of a retail product for consistency, the name of a department should not be changed to match a style guide’s preference.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am confused by how to style bacteria names. Merriam-Webster lists salmonella, streptococcus, and staphylococcus, as well as E. coli. Should they be treated as roman and lowercase (except for E. coli)? The bacterium Listeria is not listed. Is it inconsistent to style this as initial capped and italic if the other names are roman and lowercase?
A. Genus names like Salmonella should be capped and italic; their species are lowercased and italic: Salmonella enterica. However, when popular genus names are used generically (“I think he died of salmonella poisoning”) they are not capped or italicized. Note that you will see genus names all over the internet lowercased and in roman type, but that is probably because someone didn’t know how to make them italic. Please see CMOS 8.119–27 for the treatment of genus and species names and vernacular names.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. With reference to the NYPD crime data collection system, should I write COMPSTAT, CompStat, Compstat, or CompSTAT? All four seem to be used in journals.
A. If professional journals use all these forms, then you probably can’t get into much trouble just picking one. But to make a more informed decision, look online to see how it is used by authoritative sources. With a single Google search you can see from the results page that the NYPD itself uses CompStat, as do the University of Maryland and the New York City government. Good enough?
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. How do you handle real product names like Head & Shoulders Shampoo or Gorton’s of Gloucester? Do you italicize or put quotes around them, or just write them the way they are used on the product?
Q. The author of a journal article argues that the terms listed below should be capitalized because they are “descriptive units.” The terms are descriptive of the patterns seen on Native American rock art. However, they are not considered to be types of rock art and are capitalized unpredictably in published works. Should these terms be capitalized or not? Cross, Split Shield, Midpoint Band, Patterned Lines, Perching Crow, Teeth, Eyes, Face.
A. Capping is probably a good idea. Since many of the terms consist of common words, caps will aid comprehension of them as names of patterns and prevent the reader from taking the words in their common meaning. And if the manuscript was prepared with caps for all these names, retaining them will save work and lessen the possibility that you will miss a few and end up with inconsistency.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I have a question related to proper names and varying scholarly conventions. I am editing a volume on Jews in the medieval Middle East and have to make some final copyediting decisions. The standard convention for Arabic names is to transliterate rather than anglicize (Ibrāhīm, not Abraham; Muḥammad, not Mohamed; Isḥāq, not Isaac; Sulaymān, not Solomon). But for Hebrew names, the convention in Jewish studies until a few decades ago was to anglicize (Abraham, not Avraham; Japheth, not Yefet; Isaac, not Yizḥaq; Solomon, not Shelomoh). This raises problems of consistency.
Now that English-language readers are accustomed to foreign-sounding names, anglicization seems outdated. I have stopped doing it in my own writing. But will transliterating Hebrew names alienate authors accustomed by long habit to anglicizing them, or readers who search the scholarly literature for Shelomoh ben Yizḥaq but find only Solomon ben Isaac? And in the short term, should I impose transliteration on my authors who anglicize?
A. Styles that are in transition should be applied (or not) with the particular academic discipline, author preference, the document’s content, the readers, the likely longevity of the text, and any number of other factors in mind. A ruling from a style manual would only result in inappropriate enforcement. I’m sure you can see my point: these kinds of editorial decisions are best made by people like you and the writer, who are in a position to judge from experience.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. We are in a quandary over the surname Humphries. Per Chicago, all proper names ending in s form the plural by adding es. Thus Humphrieses. I argue that Humphries is the same whether it’s one Humphries or many—that is how most of us say it, and this conforms to the way we treat other nouns ending in ies. This name is used hundreds of times in this particular novel, usually in dialogue, and often in the possessive, both singular and plural. Should the plural forms be Humphries and Humphries’, or Humphrieses and Humphrieses’? Help!
A. There are always exceptions to a rule, and hundreds of Humphrieses would weary any reader. Break the rule in the spirit of the exceptions at CMOS 7.11—or ask the author if the name can be changed to one more happily pluralized.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I’ve been copyediting textbooks for more than a decade. I removed the title Dr. in a section about Martin Luther King Jr. because I thought that once a person is deceased, titles are not used in subsequent references. The editor strongly disagreed with this edit and stetted all the Dr.’s. For me, it was a matter of consistency; we don’t refer to Jonas and Albert as “Dr. Salk” and “Dr. Einstein.” (At least I don’t.) For the editor, it was an issue of respect for a man and his ideals. Is there a difference between dead scientific doctors and dead academic ones, or is Dr. King an exception to the rule?
A. Although I have never heard of the practice of removing honorifics after a person’s death, Chicago style does not use such terms in the first place. There are always justifiable exceptions, however, if an author or compiling editor feels strongly about it. Famous, revered figures like Dr. King are reasonable candidates for special treatment, as are people (especially elderly ones) who have a personal connection to the author and whom the author feels uncomfortable calling “Brown” instead of “Mrs. Brown” or “Professor Brown.” If an author wishes to use an honorific out of respect, you might ask whether all other names in the document should receive equal treatment. This is not always feasible, since there’s no way to know who has which degrees or who is married, and sometimes the query will serve to discourage an author from using any at all.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]