Q. MS Word doesn’t like the “of” in this sentence: “All of these valves are on separate channels.” It puts a blue dotted line under “All of” and wants to get rid of the word “of” even though “of” starts a prepositional phrase. Is this some new trend? I know I could reword the sentence to read “These valves are all on separate channels,” but that seems to be a lot of work for what used to be (what I thought was) normal.

A. According to Bryan Garner, all the has been more common than all of the “since the beginnings of Modern English,” a pattern that holds when a word like its—or these in your example—is substituted for the. A Google Books Ngram comparing the frequency of the phrases all the things and all these things with and without of in published sources since 1800 backs this up. Substitute valves for things and the of-less versions are still in the lead. So it’s not a new trend. For whatever reason, the preposition of has long been considered optional or unnecessary in sentences like yours.

Still, as Garner notes, there are some exceptions, including when all is followed by a pronoun that isn’t either demonstrative or possessive, as in all of it (not all it). See Garner’s Modern English Usage (5th ed., Oxford, 2022), under “all. A. All (of).”

OK, but—exceptions aside—should you change all of to all “whenever possible,” as Garner suggests and Word supports? Yes, if you’re looking to cut unnecessary words, as editors usually are. But the phrase all of is just as correct as some of, many of, and most of—grammatically similar phrases that all require of where it might be optional after all.

So if you happen to think that all of works better than all in any given sentence, simply ignore the dotted blue underline, which is triggered by one of Word’s checks for “conciseness.” Most editors understand the value of being concise, but we also want things to sound natural.

Tip: In the desktop version of Word for Windows, the conciseness checks are listed in the Grammar Settings dialog box, which you’ll find by going to File > Options > Proofing, under Writing Style > Grammar & Refinements > Settings. If the box next to Wordiness (under the options for Conciseness) is checked, that’s what’s causing Word to flag all of. (Settings in Word for Mac will be similar.)

Q. I would like to know if boat names (smaller vessels, not big ships) should be italicized in fiction. I am editing a middle-grade novel that includes mention of a lot of boat names, and the italics feel wrong in the dialogue. Is there a case for italicizing the names in the narrative but not in dialogue?

A. If Victor Hugo can decide against applying italics to the name of a large vessel, you can do it for smaller ones. In Les Travailleurs de la mer, published in Paris in 1866 and in London that same year (as Toilers of the Sea, an English translation by W. Moy Thomas), the narrator explains that, “in spite of typographical usage,” references to the steamship Durande won’t be italicized (or souligner in French):

Having created his steamboat, Lethierry had christened it; he had called it Durande—‘La Durande.’ We will speak of her henceforth by no other name; we will claim the liberty also, in spite of typographical usage, of not italicizing this name Durande; conforming in this to the notion of Mess Lethierry, in whose eyes La Durande was almost a living person. (English ed., 1:132)

Après avoir créé ce bateau à vapeur, Lethierry l’avait baptisé. Il l’avait nommé Durande. La Durande, — nous ne l’appellerons plus autrement. On nous permettra également, quel que soit l’usage typographique, de ne point souligner ce nom Durande, nous conformant en cela à la pensée de mess Lethierry pour qui la Durande était une personne. (French ed., 1:136)

Note that the French edition uses italics to refer to the name Durande (“ce nom Durande”) but not to that name when it’s used for the ship (“la Durande”); the English translation doesn’t apply italics in either case. In the latest Chicago style, italics would be applied to “the word Durande”—and to “the Durande” as a ship—but not when referring to “the name Durande” (see CMOS 7.66 and 8.117).

So if it seems fussy or artificial or otherwise wrong to use italics for the names of the smaller boats mentioned in the dialogue of your book, you can take a page from Victor Hugo and go without them (assuming your author agrees). But if you do that, you might consider removing italics for boat names in the narrative also. Assuming you’d apply italics to the title of a book or the like whether it occurs in narration or dialogue, it’s probably best to be equally consistent for other categories. Even your middle-grade readers are likely to appreciate that.

For the capital T in Travailleurs (an alternative to strict sentence case for French titles), see CMOS 11.30.

Q. Greetings! If I’m interpreting CMOS 8.69 correctly, in a novel that takes place in NYC, should I suggest the author change “the Natural History Museum” (in narrative) to either “the natural history museum” or “the American Museum of Natural History” (the official name)? For some reason “the natural history museum” looks a little odd to me, but I also feel that it shouldn’t be capitalized because it’s not the official name. Many thanks for any advice!

A. You could just change the order to “the Museum of Natural History”; add “American” before “Museum” only if the context seems to call for using the full name. And though you could emulate Oxford University—which refers to itself either like that or as the University of Oxford—it’s probably best to stick more closely to what is in this case the museum’s official name. Any of the following would then be correct:

the American Museum of Natural History; the Museum of Natural History; the Natural History museum (lowercase m); the museum; a natural history museum in New York City

That way, sticklers can’t object that the name of the museum is wrong—or that the author is referring to the natural history museum in London or Los Angeles or San Diego—though not the museum in Oxford, which is the Oxford University Museum of Natural History (OUMNH) or, less often, the University of Oxford Museum of Natural History.

Q. The rules in CMOS 9.63 for abbreviating number ranges do not seem to be followed in one of the examples for a range of folio pages in 14.54: “fols. 176r–177v” (for the front and back of two consecutive leaves). Why isn’t “fols. 176r–77v” preferred? Thanks for your time and clarification.

A. In the abbreviated range 176–77, there’s little chance that a reader might think you’re referring to pages 176 and 77. But in 176r–77v, the intervening r makes it more likely that “77v” could be mistaken for a reference to the verso of page 77. So our editors decided to repeat the hundreds place for clarity. We’ll consider adding this exception to our rules for abbreviating inclusive numbers—along with any others that might be warranted—in a future edition of CMOS.

Q. Does the Chicago 18th (author-date style) use “para/paras” when referring to specific sections in websites? For instance, does the quotation that follows adhere to Chicago style? “APA Style provides a foundation for effective scholarly communication because it helps writers present their ideas in a clear, precise, and inclusive manner” (APA 2025, para. 1). Thank you!!

A. Yes, we do use those abbreviations; see CMOS 13.117, which shows how to cite a specific page, paragraph, section, volume, or the like in a parenthetical author-date citation in the text. The relevant example is this one:

(Claussen 2015, para. 2.15) or (Claussen 2015, ¶ 2.15)

For two paragraphs, you would use either “paras.” or “¶¶” (for these plural forms, see CMOS 7.15 and 10.49, respectively).

In your example, however, citing “para. 1” or “¶ 1” could be misleading because the paragraphs in the source you quote from aren’t numbered (see “About APA Style” at the APA Style website, archived September 3, 2025, at the Wayback Machine). Instead, you could refer to the first or opening paragraph in your text, but only if that information is relevant. If it’s not, then you don’t need to specify which paragraph; the source is relatively short, and the quoted text provides the key to its location on the page (via the Find tool in any browser). If you still want to add it to your citation, try this: (APA 2025, first para.).

For more on citing website content (including how to cite archived web pages), see CMOS 14.104. For abbreviating the names of organizations listed as authors in author-date citations, see 13.127.

Q. Do I cite a Substack post differently from a blog post? Or would it be cited like a website?

A. You can usually cite a Substack post like a blog post, with the name of the account (like the name of a blog) in italics (see also CMOS 14.105). Here’s an example in the form of a numbered note:

1. Elif Batuman, “Don’t Worry, Baby: Help from the Beach Boys,” The Elif Life, Substack, April 25, 2025, https://eliflife.substack.com/p/dont-worry-baby.

Q. How would you write the first parenthetic instance of an acronym or initialism when the first defined use is plural? For example, if the first use of the term “part number” happens to be plural, would the initial declaration of the initialism be “(PNs)” or “(PN)”?

A. If you can’t rephrase the first mention to use the singular “part number,” then the initialism should be plural: “part numbers (PNs).” The usual assumption is that readers introduced to the singular “PN” will figure out what “PNs” means if that form occurs later on in the same document. It seems fair enough to expect the reverse—that readers will understand the singular from the plural.

Q. Hi, I have a question about painter’s tape. I have an actual roll of blue masking tape that has “Professional Painter’s Masking Tape” on the label. Some say it should be “painters tape,” while others believe it should be “painters’ tape.” ScotchBlue’s website says “painter’s tape,” but a professional editor with many years of experience says the apostrophe should be deleted. Thoughts?

A. Chicago’s preference would be to retain the apostrophe. Tools of the trade and the like tend to form singular possessives, which would mean painter’s tape rather than painters’ tape. The same goes for painter’s gold, plumber’s snake, printer’s devil, and similar terms (not limited to the p’s). Each of those terms refers to something or someone used (or formerly used) by an individual in the context of an occupation.

Exceptions—like confectioners’ sugar, discussed in another Q&A—are rare. As for a plural attributive like painters, that’s more common when a plural possessive might make sense, as in farmers market (traditionally farmers’ market, a market for farmers) or Veterans Day (a day to honor veterans, which might plausibly be spelled with an apostrophe).

In sum, we agree with the usage of 3M’s ScotchBlue: painter’s tape. For more on words that end in ’s or s’—and why the word possessive doesn’t apply in the literal sense to most—see CMOS 5.22 (on the genitive case). See also 7.27.

Q. I would like to ask if there is a rule in CMOS for writing the numbers on a telephone keypad. For example, when writing the following: “To speak with a specialist, press 3. To cancel your contract, press 4.” Should the numbers be spelled out or kept as figures?

A. Use digits, as you’ve done in your question. The relevant advice is in CMOS 7.81, 7.82, and 8.156, which cover how to style the names of apps, devices, keys, menu items, file formats, and the like. The numbers on a phone qualify as keys on a device or an app, even if the phone predates modern computing.

Most phones, now and in the past, have used numerals for the numbers on their dials or keypads (physical or virtual), as on this rotary dial from Western Electric (ca. 1960, National Museum of American History):

Numerals were also the natural choice as part of telephone exchange names, as in BUtterfield 8, the title of a 1960 movie (based on a novel of the same name by John O’Hara) featuring an Academy Award–winning performance by Elizabeth Taylor. Note the all-caps BU and numeral 8, which together add up to 288 (because B = 2 and U = 8 on a telephone dial/keypad), an exchange for Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

For more on telephone numbers, see CMOS 9.59.

Q. Does CMOS prefer the use of “persons” or “people” when describing a collection of human beings, such as you might find at a grocery store?

A. More than one person at a grocery store would normally be referred to as people, not persons. According to Garner’s Modern English Usage, the traditional distinction between persons for smaller numbers (especially of specific people) and people for larger numbers (especially of people considered more generally) has fallen out of style in favor of people in most contexts (5th ed. [Oxford, 2022], under “people. A. And persons”).

So one might have once referred to the people at the grocery store but the two persons ahead of me in line. Today, people is usually considered to be the more natural choice for both and can be used just about anywhere the plural is called for.

Q. A few years ago, Vox published an article making a distinction between titles, subtitles, and “reading lines” for books (“ ‘A Novel’: An Article,” by Eliza Brooke, February 14, 2019). The article claimed that when a work has the form of Title of Book: A Novel, “A Novel” is not a true subtitle but instead “explains its contents to a potential reader and serves as a useful signpost when you’re rooting through an unsorted stack of books.” How should these “reading lines” be treated in citations? If they appear not solely on the book cover but also on the title page, it would seem to me that they should be treated as a subtitle. Is that right? Or should these reading lines be omitted since they are not real subtitles as argued in the Vox article, and if so, what is a good guideline for distinguishing them from subtitles?

A. Assuming authorship and other relevant details have been supplied, most books can be identified from a main title alone. Subtitles are often informative, though, so we would advise including them in the titles of books that have them at least once, as on first mention or in a full note or bibliography entry.

But we agree with the Vox article that a subtitle that merely identifies a book’s genre isn’t a proper subtitle. The phrase “A Novel” does that, so you can leave it out, even if it appears on the title page (see also CMOS 13.91). By contrast, you’d want to include a subtitle like the one for the book All the Ways We Said Goodbye: A Novel of the Ritz Paris, by Beatriz Williams, Lauren Willig, and Karen White (William Morrow, 2020).

Not that there’s anything wrong with including a generic subtitle in a source citation, especially if it appears on the title page. But when that subtitle is shared with countless other books and doesn’t say anything special, it’s usually safe to omit it.

Q. Here’s a funny question. How do you treat a source where the author name or pseudonym is the same as the name of the website or blog? Is there a way to eliminate repetition from the entries below?

Mercer, Ilana. 2017. “Article Title.” IlanaMercer.com. August 1.

Bionic Mosquito. 2015a. “Blog Post Title.” Bionic Mosquito, August 5.

Thank you!

A. Your first author-date reference list entry, for the Mercer article, is fine as is. It’s clear that a URL featuring the author’s name must be the author’s website. It also happens to reflect the website’s copyright line: “© 2008-2025 ILANAMERCER.com”; applying caps to only the I and M (domain names aren’t case sensitive) increases legibility.

Your second entry is also fine as is. Most readers would figure out that the italics for the second instance of Bionic Mosquito mean that it’s a title rather than an author or publisher. But you can help readers out a little with one or two clarifications:

Bionic Mosquito [pseud.]. 2015a. “Blog Post Title.” Bionic Mosquito (blog), August 5.

We’d recommend adding that first one—which clarifies that “Bionic Mosquito” is a pseudonym (the square brackets show that it’s an editor’s interpolation). The parenthetical description “(blog)” is less important to include but could be helpful for an audience that may not know the source material. In both cases, include a full URL at the end of the citation—or, in published form, provide a link from the title or elsewhere. See also CMOS 13.6, 13.82, and 14.105.

Q. When a printed work misspells an author’s name, how should that name be represented in notes and bibliography entries for that work? Should the misspelled name be used, silently corrected, or somehow pointed out? If the author on the title page is “Ezra Fisk” but the correct spelling is “Ezra Fiske,” might we use “Fisk[e], Ezra” as the bibliography entry? I suppose that similar questions could also be asked of typos in other bibliographic information.

A. Your solution is a good one. But not all readers can be expected to understand the nuances of bracketed insertions, so you could instead do something more explicit than a bracketed e:

Fiske, Ezra [spelled “Ezra Fisk” on the title page]. Title of Work. Publisher, date.

Readers will then be more likely to know what to expect when tracking down the cited source. (If the variant spelling occurs on more than the title page, adjust the bracketed comment accordingly.) For additional considerations, start with CMOS 13.82; see also 12.70.