Q. I am editing the program for our upcoming conference. We’re using commas to separate name, degree, job title, professional affiliation. This is fairly simple when there is one speaker with one affiliation (Presented by Donald Duck, Vice President, Duck Enterprises). However, it’s less straightforward when I’ve got multiple speakers with multiple affiliations and degrees: Donald Duck, Vice President, Duck Enterprises; Minnie Mouse, Chief Financial Officer, Mouse, Inc.; Jiminy Cricket, PhD, President, WishUponAStar, LLC and Professor, Dream Big University; and Elmer Fudd, President, PuddyTatt & Sons. What is the appropriate way to address this?
A. You could use parentheses: Donald Duck (Vice President, Duck Enterprises), Minnie Mouse (Chief Financial Officer, Mouse, Inc.), Jiminy Cricket, PhD (President, WishUponAStar, LLC; Professor, Dream Big University), and Elmer Fudd (President, PuddyTatt & Sons). Or you could make a vertical list:
Donald Duck, Vice President, Duck Enterprises
Minnie Mouse, Chief Financial Officer, Mouse, Inc.
Jiminy Cricket, PhD, President, WishUponAStar, LLC; Professor, Dream Big University
Elmer Fudd, President, PuddyTatt & Sons
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In the sentence “The times, they are a changin’” does the period come before or after the apostrophe? Logic would dictate after, but it does not look right aesthetically.
A. Logic wins in this case: the apostrophe is part of the word, not punctuation for the sentence, and therefore it must cleave to the word, ugly or not: changin’.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Apparently from now on the ellipsis has been banned. Which punctuation marks can take its place?
A. Hmm. Is this a state or local ordinance? (Surely not federal—Congress would never cooperate on that.)
Unless we missed a major memo, I’m confident that you can carry on eliding.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Are periods always used with the initials of a person’s name? This is for use not with running text,
but rather on a memorial on a university campus. And the donor sees no value in the use of periods.
A. The donor is usually right. Chicago style does require periods after name initials, but display type is not bound by such
rules.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What’s the accepted usage when one wants to put both a question mark and an exclamation mark? For instance,
“Who could blame him” is clearly a question, but in context becomes more like
an exclamation.
A. You can use an exclamation point. Readers will understand: Who could blame him! It’s a rhetorical question
in any case, and such questions often take a period rather than a question mark.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I write for a children’s magazine in which we sometimes provide suggestions for dialogue within the
text of a paragraph. Inserting commas before the quotation marks seems disruptive. Would the following be acceptable? When
you feel upset, saying “I’m frustrated” or “I
need a minute to cool off” can help.
A. You’re right—sometimes the syntax eliminates the need for a comma. In this case
“saying X” is a gerund phrase that acts as the subject of the verb “can
help,” and it’s not ideal to put a comma in the middle of a subject phrase.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. As you know, CMOS 6.63 says, “When a colon introduces two or more sentences . . . the first word following it is capitalized.” The two examples seem to suggest that the sentences following must comprise a series of some sort. Based on my understanding, I lowercased the first word following the colon in these two sentences:
I’ve learned at least one important thing through my bout with cancer and tragedy: everything happens for a reason. Even when I can’t see the reason, God can.
I love Ann’s poem because it expresses such an important truth: we’re not perfect. I’m not perfect by any means, and I’m not trying to put myself forward as some great role model.
My decision, however, was questioned and debated within our editorial team. Did I make the right call, per CMOS? Can you clarify what it means to “introduce” two or more sentences?
A. I think you’ve got the idea. There are bound to be gray areas where a person could interpret more than one sentence as “being introduced by” the colon. But if the material introduced by the colon clearly runs out at the end of the first sentence, that first sentence is lowercased.
She clung to her wishes: She wished the evil prince hadn’t eaten the golden egg. She wished he would leave the kingdom forever. And she wished someone would do her ironing.
She was furious: she wished the evil prince would leave the kingdom forever. But meanwhile, there wasn’t an egg left in the house and the laundry was waiting.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. At the end of a paragraph, is a single word followed by an ellipsis considered a widow? My thought is that punctuation shouldn’t be considered, and that it would be a widow, but then the ellipsis does seem more substantial than a period or other mark . . .
A. It’s a widow only if it is the first line at the top of a printed page. As for whether it would pass elsewhere, that’s debatable. CMOS allows a single word in that position, but if it is hyphenated, a minimum of four characters (not counting punctuation) should be carried over. See CMOS 2.116; see also figure 3 in “How Books and Journals Are Produced.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In a sentence, a colon should always be preceded by an independent clause. Why doesn’t the Chicago Manual state this explicitly? All your examples follow the principle. Why doesn’t the manual just say that
the introductory clause has to be independent?
A. Because we’re a bunch of spineless and ineffectual prevaricators? Or because there are times when a
colon need not be preceded by an independent clause? A case in point: this one.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Is it acceptable to use a semicolon and and tagged onto the second-to-last item of a bulleted list? Apologies if I missed this on the CMOS site.
A. If your list forms a sentence, yes, semicolons work well, and there’s no rule against using and.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]