Q. I’ve always followed this advice in Chicago: “If, as occasionally happens, the Collegiate disagrees with the Third International, the Collegiate (or its online counterpart) should be followed, since it represents newer lexical research.” We subscribe to the online Unabridged (which also includes the Collegiate), and lately this advice no longer seems to apply consistently. Merriam-Webster seems to be updating entries in the Unabridged and leaving the Collegiate with the older version. For example, the Unabridged has life-span while the Collegiate has life span. Typically, the hyphenated version would be the more up to date.
A. It’s true—the lexicographers at M-W can’t be everywhere at once, which leaves discrepancies between their various versions. But the kinds of changes you’re talking about are minor. It’s not as though life span is now so grossly incorrect that using it would invite viral shaming on Twitter. We hyphenate a compound to make it easier to read or to prevent misreading. If you use common sense and keep a style sheet, you needn’t worry about whether you’re up to the minute with M-W.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Is impactful a word and can it be used in place of influential?
A. Absolutely. Impactful is a word, and it is often used in place of influential. But like irregardless, ain’t, and alright (all of which are words in the dictionary), impactful is frowned upon as nonstandard English. Please see CMOS 5.250, under impact; impactful: “Avoid impactful, which is jargon (replacements include influential and powerful).”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Hi—I have researched this but would like a definitive answer. Is it “cell phone” or “cellphone”? Merriam-Webster shows it as “cell phone” but “smartphone” is one word.
Q. Hello. I wonder where in the CMOS might lie hidden the answer to the following question: should I refer readers to “Table 1, in contrast to Tables 2 and 3,” or to “Table 1, in contrast to tables 2 and 3”? In other words, should all items in a numbered series such as tables, sections, chapters, etc., be capitalized in such references? A minipoll among colleagues has yielded mixed results; hence my appeal to the Ultimate Authority in Such Matters.
Q. Is sizable or sizeable the preferred American English spelling? Our searches have come up with conflicting answers.
A. If your searches give you conflicting answers, you can be fairly certain that there is no significant preference. But a dictionary will tell you whether one is preferred. The entry in Merriam-Webster is this:
sizable or sizeable
and the front matter of the dictionary (or its Help page online) gives this explanation of how to read entries:
When a main entry is followed by the word or and another spelling, the two spellings occur with equal or nearly equal frequency and can be considered equal variants. . . . If two variants joined by or are out of alphabetical order, they remain equal variants. The one printed first is, however, slightly more common than the second. . . . When another spelling is joined to the main entry by the word also, the spelling after also occurs appreciably less often and thus is considered a secondary variant.
Thus sizable and sizeable are equal variants.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. I edit in the field of foods quite frequently and I see family-sized portion or medium-sized bowl and I’m inclined to think hyphenation with size should follow more after fun-size candy bar, but I haven’t come across any ruling one way or the other. Where I can, I delete it entirely (medium bowl) but other times it just really works to use a hyphenated phrase. I didn’t see a clear ruling or related ruling in your hyphenation table (CMOS 7.89). I also read through paragraph 5.92 on phrasal adjectives, and point 5 seemed the closest to addressing the issue. Perhaps sized reduces to size when hyphenated? I welcome and thank you for any answers to this question.
A. You can look up -size in a dictionary and see that -size and -sized are accepted variants and are normally hyphenated. It’s a good idea to choose one style or the other to use throughout a document.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. In formal writing, I have been shown by my coworkers that U.S. is the way to write United States. However, I was always told that very few abbreviations are to be used in formal writing, and the abbreviation U.S. should never be used in replacement of United States when writing federal documents.
A. Until the 17th edition, Chicago style was to spell out the noun in running text, but abbreviate the adjective as US. Now, we allow US as a noun, but only if the meaning is clear from context—that is, the usage is subject to editorial discretion. See CMOS 10.32. (Note that the federal government doesn’t necessarily follow Chicago style, however!)
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. What is the CMOS position on how to reference the titles of posters (such as those presented at professional conferences) in the body of a document? Should the title be in quotation marks, italicized, or something else?
A. If you type poster into the Search box or look under poster in the index, you’ll find an example at CMOS 14.217 showing that we quote such titles: “Implicit Causality Biases Influence Relative Clause Attachment.”
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. If you are referring to a specific war, like World War II, do you capitalize the word war even when you’re not attaching the full title, or leave it uncapitalized? For example, should I capitalize or not in the following sentence? The political fallout from the war was that Russia occupied East Germany.
A. If you type war into the Search box or look under war in the index, you’ll find examples at CMOS 8.113: World War I, Vietnam War, the war, the two world wars, etc.
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]
Q. Why is it so hard to find things in CMOS?
A. It must be just one of those things. If only there were a search box, or an index . . .
[This answer relies on the 17th edition of CMOS (2017) unless otherwise noted.]