Q. Curriculum vitae or vita? According to Merriam-Webster vitae is the plural of vita, but another source indicates that vitae means the “course of one’s life” and vita means “a short biographical sketch.” If these definitions are accurate, it would
make sense to use vitae, as the course of one’s life is made up of many singular events or sketches.
A. The two phrases are synonymous. Vita is Latin for “life,” and while it’s true that its plural
is vitae, in the phrase curriculum vitae the word vitae is not a plural; it’s the genitive singular, translated “of life.”
So curriculum vitae means “course of life” and vita (“life”) is a shorter way to say it.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I often see initialisms such as EPA and FDA appear without “the.” For example,
“One of FDA’s regulations prohibits this.” This comes up
particularly often in technical and legal writing and strikes me as pompous. And, yes, these people also speak this way. Please
tell me I’m right.
A. But you aren’t right. Local usage and idiom vary; I might say, “I believe the
FBI is responsible” but “I believe AIG is responsible,”
and you might say the reverse. The writer gets to choose, keeping in mind the document’s readers and
any precedent that seems obvious from the research.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hello there, I am usually pretty confident about sorting out punctuation, but recently I encountered some information set
out as follows.
Title: xxx
Date: xxx
Ref. no.: xxx
I know the colon and the period look silly next to each other, but I guess I just need to know which one to remove and why.
A. I realize we’ve been hammering lately on not having two periods or two punctuation marks in a row,
so I don’t blame you for being confused, but the dot in “no.”
is not part of the sentence or phrase punctuation; it’s part of the abbreviation. You have to have it.
And the colon has its own job to do, so you have to have it as well. A period can do double duty: if an abbreviation ends
a sentence, you don’t need two dots. But the period is not flexible enough to convey the meaning of
a colon.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I read a lot and have been working on a novel of my own for a while now. In most of the materials I read the authors use
“had had” and “that that” quite often.
For example: “He had had the dog for twelve years and everyone knew that that was the real reason he
didn’t want Animal Control to take it.” I doubt there is any actual rule against
this, but I find it to be unattractive on a purely aesthetic basis and try to avoid it like the plague when writing. Is there
anything to this or am I just weird?
A. As you can see here, correct isn’t always pretty. So you aren’t weird; you’re
a writer, and one of the things that makes you a writer is that you’re sensitive to ugliness. Once you’re
sensitive to clichés, you’ll be all set.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Do footnotes have to start with number 1? Can I start my first footnote with number 2? Is that considered wrong?
A. Let me guess: you want to delete note 1 but you didn’t use an automated feature for creating your notes,
and you don’t want to renumber notes 2 through 798 by hand. You’ve got a bit of
a chore ahead of you unless you can think up a new note 1, because yes, it’s considered wrong to begin
with note 2.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hello, arbiters of messy prose. In a scholarly work on global labor conditions, plural-singular nonagreement involving the
word “ability” occurs about fifty times, as in “Rules regarding
paid leave affected families’ ability to earn a living.” My instinct is to change
“ability” to “abilities” in this and
similar cases, but is it really necessary? Thanks!
A. In your sentence, the singular seems right, but sometimes the plural can work if the noun is less abstract and more countable
than “abilities”: Rules regarding paid leave affected families’
savings accounts. The plural would also work if “abilities” were used in a slightly
more countable, and thus more properly plural, way: Special education can improve students’ abilities
in several areas. The singular works best with abstractions that the possessors share in the singular: The new cafeteria menu
affected the students’ morale.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In the latest Q&A on your website, I noted that an answer contained the word “lowercased.”
Is this really a verb or another example of a noun erroneously transformed into a verb? I cannot imagine that you would make
such an error, but I have never heard that verb before!
A. “Lowercase” is a fine verb; you can look it up in a dictionary. And in any case,
I don’t know any rule against making a noun into a verb. Writers and speakers of good English have been
verbifying for a long time, and sometimes it works out well. I understand your resistance, though. I winced recently when
I heard someone say, “Let’s see if we can solution that.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I am working on a book that is more of an information-type book. The author consistently used “it’s,”
“I’m,” “I’ve,”
“don’t,” “doesn’t,”
etc., throughout the entire thing. I went through with the spelling check (I’m using Microsoft Word),
and it suggested changing them to “it is,” “I am,”
“I have,” etc. I do not think that one should use the abbreviated version. For
one, it doesn’t save any space and appears rather unprofessionally written. This will be a published
book. Is there a definitive rule on this or is it simply up to the writer/editor on how these words should be used?
A. There’s no rule against contractions in the real world, but your version of Word evidently didn’t
get the memo. You can change this in the Tools menu (Options → Spelling and Grammar →
Settings → Style) or in Word 2007 via the MS Office Button (Word Options → Proofing → When correcting
spelling and grammar → Settings → Style) once you decide on your document’s
level of formality. Published content varies in its tone, and therefore in its tolerance of contractions. If your writer naturally
uses contractions, wiping them out will change his tone of voice, so you should talk to your editorial supervisor and the
author about the preferred tone for this book before letting Word have its way.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Does one “maximize the total cost of ownership” or “minimize
the total cost of ownership”? This phrase is going to be our service’s tagline
so we need to get it right.
A. If you make the cost of ownership as high as possible, you maximize it; if you make it as low as possible, you minimize it.
Before you decide, you need to be sure which one your service aims to do. And after you decide, if you think it’s
possible that others might be confused about what it means, you should probably keep working on that slogan.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Don’t you think it is improper to use both Porsche and Jimmy Choo as proper nouns (instead of proper
adjectives) in a Q&A about proper writing technique?
A. If you believe that to be proper, writing must be stilted, literal, and driven by specious legal or technical precautions,
then yes, I suppose the answer was improper. (But that’s what we love about the Q&A.)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]