Q. If, following CMOS 3.80, I’m using symbols to indicate notes to a table (asterisk, dagger, double dagger, and so forth), should the asterisk be superscripted like the other symbols?

A. A literal reading of paragraph 3.80 would suggest that asterisks, like other note references—whether numbers, letters, or symbols—should be superscripts. And superscripts are what you’ll get by default when you use the footnote feature in Microsoft Word or Adobe InDesign, further suggesting that this must be the right way to do it.

Asterisks are funny though. In many fonts, they look like superscripts even when they’re not. For example, in Source Serif 4, the Google font used for this Q&A (to match the text of the eighteenth edition of CMOS), here’s what an asterisk looks like as a superscript versus regular text (in a screenshot captured from InDesign):

That first asterisk seems too small; the second one, formatted as regular text, looks better to us.

If your asterisks seem smaller than they should be as superscripts, try formatting them as regular text. You might consider doing the same for the daggers and double daggers, especially in the smaller font sizes that are typical in tables. (Letters and numbers, on the other hand, could be mistaken as part of the text if they’re not raised above the baseline.)

Typesetters and designers won’t always agree about what looks best for asterisks and the like, but legibility is always important. Whether you’re formatting a table (or any other text) for publication or simply editing it in Word, it’s best to make sure the note references won’t be missed.

Note: For tables, you’ll usually want to enter footnote references and their corresponding notes below the table manually instead of using the notes feature in Word or InDesign (or other program); otherwise, they’ll get mixed up with notes for the main text. See also CMOS 3.77 and 3.80.

Q. Hello! CMOS 10.8 says to italicize abbreviations only if the full term would be italicized in the text. How would you handle a term that’s defined in the text with an accompanying abbreviation in parentheses? Would both the term and the abbreviation be in italics? Thank you!

A. If the abbreviation stands for a term that’s in italics only because it’s being introduced as a word or phrase that you are defining in the text, then the abbreviation can usually be presented in regular text:

The term ibidem (ibid.) is one of the few scholarly abbreviations from Latin that remain common in academic texts.

But if the abbreviation itself is used in this way, it should be in italics:

The term ibidem (abbreviated ibid.) . . .

Quotation marks are another option:

The term ibidem (abbreviated “ibid.”) . . .

Rules related to italics for situations like these aren’t etched in granite. In general, our recommendation for key terms and their abbreviations is to use italics (and quotation marks) sparingly but without sacrificing readability. See also CMOS 7.57 (on the use of regular text for common Latin words and abbreviations), 7.58 (on italics or bold for key terms), and 7.66 (on italics or quotation marks for words used as words).

Q. Does CMOS have guidelines about using “where” to refer to something other than a place? For example, “This is a situation where extra care is needed.”

A. We don’t, but Bryan Garner, the author of chapter 5 in CMOS (on grammar and usage), does. See Garner’s Modern English Usage (5th ed., Oxford, 2022), under “where.” That entry has two relevant subentries: (1) on where for in which and (2) on where for when.

The first subentry explains that in formal prose, the locative where shouldn’t be used as a relative pronoun, as when a phrase like “a case where” is used instead of “a case in which.” But in prose with a “relaxed tone,” including text with contractions (like many of the answers in this Q&A), where is not only acceptable but may even be preferable.

Your example (“a situation where”) seems perfectly OK to us, but if you are going for a formal, elevated style, change “where” to “in which.”

As for where in place of when (which is temporal rather than locative—i.e., referring to time instead of place), Garner says that writers who do this have “misused” the word. So, for example, you should write “a year when,” not “a year where.”

Q. Why doesn’t the 18th ed. website have a downloadable PDF of the hyphenation guide, as the previous editions had? I hate scrolling.

A. The hyphenation guide under CMOS 7.96 in the eighteenth edition consists of HTML text formatted as a table, which is visible to the Find feature in browsers (unlike the PNG offered in the seventeenth edition) and is considered by accessibility experts to be preferable to PDF.

We understand that many people liked the downloadable PDF option, but the HTML table format (unlike either an image or a PDF file) can be readily converted to whatever format you’d like. Here are two options:

1. Print to PDF. In Chrome for Windows, (a) select the table text (e.g., by dragging your mouse from the top left of the table all the way down to the bottom); (b) right-click anywhere in the selected text to bring up the context menu; (c) choose Print; and (d) change Destination to Save as PDF instead of sending the table to a printer. Before you save, you can adjust the settings in Chrome to resize the table as desired or to keep the background graphics (in this case shading), among other options. Other browsers and platforms will have similar options.

2. Copy and paste into Microsoft Word. Select the table text as in step 1a above and then copy and paste it into Word. You can then use Word to adjust fonts and borders and the like as desired. This file can be used as is, or you can save it as a PDF directly from Word. These steps should work equally well in Google Docs (among other programs).

In sum, the HTML format for the table in the eighteenth edition makes it possible to create and customize your own PDF or other version of the hyphenation guide in just a few steps. The process may not be as much fun as making a miniature CMOS ornament, but the result is probably more useful.

Q. When using the author-date style, can I put two citations to one sentence like the following?

At that time, no one, including the show’s producers Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, and Sam Simon, could have anticipated the sudden “Simpsons craze” that was to come (IMDb 2026) (Henry 1994, 87).

If not, how else could I do this? Only the names of the producers were taken from IMDb while the claim of fame is from Henry 1994.

A. It’s best not to try to cite separate parts of the same sentence unless it’s perfectly clear what each citation refers to; in your example, we can’t really tell which part is from IMDb and which is from Henry.

But first, there are some other issues that should probably be addressed in your example. We’ve done some digging and determined that your “Henry 1994” almost certainly refers to the following article:

Henry, Matthew. 1994. “The Triumph of Popular Culture: Situation Comedy, Postmodernism and The Simpsons.” Studies in Popular Culture 17 (1): 85–99. http://www.jstor.org/stable/23413793.

Henry, however, does not seem to use the phrase “Simpsons craze” in that article (or the word “craze” by itself)—not on page 87 or elsewhere. Perhaps you’re drawing on this passage from page 87:

The Simpsons was, therefore, inevitable, the next logical step in the blue-collar tradition; its enormous success, however, was quite unexpected.

If that’s the case, then you shouldn’t put “Simpsons craze” in quotation marks. Some people probably referred to that show’s huge popularity in that way, but your source refers to an “enormous success,” not a craze.

Next, if it’s your own claim that the show’s producers could not have predicted the show’s success (something that Henry’s article doesn’t seem to address either), then you need to make that clear.

As for the identity of the producers, The Simpsons has had such a long run that according to IMDb (on its page for the full cast and crew), it’s had more than 150 producers to date. Moreover, the three people you list are credited at IMDb as the show’s creators, not its producers.

Taking all that into account, here’s one way that you might revise the sentence in your question (assuming you have a reason for introducing the creators at this point and that you’ve established elsewhere that you’re talking about the show’s earliest days):

According to Henry (1994), the show’s “enormous success . . . was quite unexpected.” And though Henry does not mention them, the show’s creators—James L. Brooks, Matt Groening, and Sam Simon (IMDb 2026)—were likely among those taken by surprise.

Make sure that “IMDb 2026” in your reference list includes the link to the main page for the show (https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096697/), where the creators are listed. (But note that at IMDb’s page for the full cast and crew, only Groening gets a creator credit; Brooks and Simon are credited, along with Groening, as developers, one more thing you may want to consider when revising your text.)

Finally, if you were to cite two sources at the end of a sentence, you’d usually do that when both sources supported the same idea, in which case you’d separate them with a semicolon: (IMDb 2026; Henry 1994). See also CMOS 13.116.

Q. I’m editing a list of security recommendations. Would you put a hyphen in “password-protect” when used as a verb?

A. According to the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96 (sec. 2, under “phrases, verbal”), compound verbs like that one are left open unless entered in Merriam-Webster with a hyphen. There’s no entry there for that verb, hyphenated or otherwise, so we’d write password protect.

If you strongly prefer the hyphen, you could cite the OED, which does include an entry for the term, where it’s hyphenated (password-protect). The OED mostly reflects British usage, but many similar verbs are listed in either Merriam-Webster or the OED with a hyphen (e.g., double-click, fact-check, hot-wire, fast-forward). And though the term password-protect isn’t listed in either Microsoft’s or Apple’s style guide, the similar verb write-protect is listed in Microsoft’s guide (and in the OED) and copy-protect is entered in Apple’s guide (all as of February 3, 2026).

In sum, Chicago style would call for password protect (no hyphen), but the hyphen is nonetheless a reasonable choice recorded in at least one major English-language dictionary and reflected in similar terms.

Q. Would you please confirm that “over the top” is not hyphenated when used as a predicate adjective or adverbial phrase. Example: “It’s extreme,” she said. “Way over the top.”

A. We can confirm that Chicago style doesn’t require hyphens in over the top when it’s used as a predicate adjective (as in your example, where it modifies the implied subject “It” from the previous sentence) or when it’s used an adverb (“they went over the top with their demands”). But you won’t necessarily get this answer from the dictionary.

Merriam-Webster’s entry for that term shows two forms: the phrase over the top (without hyphens) and the adjective over-the-top (with hyphens). That hyphenated adjective, however, isn’t the last word.

In Merriam-Webster’s entries for over-the-top and many other hyphenated compound adjectives, the hyphens are generally presented as if they’re a permanent fixture of such terms. But more than a few of these terms—from clear-cut to well-versed—can be left unhyphenated when they follow rather than precede a noun that they modify, a usage long supported by CMOS. For example, you could refer to “an over-the-top solution” (with hyphens) but “a solution that was over the top” (no hyphens).

This nuance may be falling out of fashion (perhaps because it’s so easy to toggle over to the dictionary for any hyphenation question and copy whatever’s entered there), but it still matters in Chicago style. For more on this subject, see “Compound Modifiers After a Noun: A Postpositive Dilemma,” at CMOS Shop Talk. See also the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96, under “phrases, adjectival”; for adverbs, see “phrases, adverbial.”

Q. Why are heaven and hell not capitalized like any other named noun? Assuming that these religious terms refer to a place (even if they are metaphorical or metaphysical) why would they not be capitalized like any Walmart? Is capitalization not applied to any specific, named place?

A. Both of those terms are entered with a lowercase h in Merriam-Webster and the OED, and lowercase is the more common form for both in published documents going back more than two hundred years (as this Google Ngram suggests).

Starting with the metaphorical, if you were to write that you were “in Heaven” thanks to an especially tasty milkshake and that you’d have “a Hell of a time” finding anything as good again, those initial caps would stand out as oddly literal. But when these same two words are used in their traditional senses in the context of theology, initial caps would seem normal, especially for Heaven (which Merriam-Webster labels “often Heaven”—capital H—for the religious meanings).

Even if the context isn’t religious, initial caps would still be perfectly appropriate for either term whenever a religious meaning is implied, even loosely, especially if that’s your preference.

See also CMOS 8.110.

Q. How should I capitalize a foreign phrase within a title? For example, in sentence case, “The loi de position as a pedagogical norm.” I recall that an isolated non-English word would be capitalized (“The Loi as a . . .”), as would the first word in an included non-English title, but I can’t find anything regarding a phrase.

A. Except for any words that would be capped in the original language, both words and phrases in sentence-case titles can remain lowercase. The following titles from peer-reviewed journals illustrate this usage:

“The loi de position and the acoustics of French mid vowels,” by Benjamin Storme, in Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics 2, no. 1 (2017): 64,* https://doi.org/10.5334/gjgl.300.

“Diachronic evolution of the subordinator kak in Russian,” by Natalia Serdobolskaya and Irina Kobozeva, in Linguistics 62, no. 3 (2024): 691–728, https://doi.org/10.1515/ling-2021-0213.

but

“Volk against Kaste: Nondemocratic popular sovereignty in Nazi Germany,” by Luna Sabastian, in Journal of Modern History 96, no. 4 (2024): 842–80, https://doi.org/10.1086/732675.

In that last example, the initial capitals in Volk and Kaste follow the rule for German nouns (see CMOS 11.42). Here are the same three titles in title case (usually preferred in Chicago style for the titles of works):

“The Loi de position and the Acoustics of French Mid Vowels”

“Diachronic Evolution of the Subordinator Kak in Russian”

“Volk Against Kaste: Nondemocratic Popular Sovereignty in Nazi Germany”

As the first example suggests, the non-English terms are in sentence case, according to which the first word and any other word that would normally be capitalized gets an initial cap. Alternatively, we could have applied title case to the French phrase:

“The Loi de Position and the Acoustics of French Mid Vowels”

You can do that if you know the parts of speech in the other language. In the title above, de remains lowercase as a preposition, but the nouns Loi and Position (which would normally be lowercase in a French title when not the first word) get initial caps. See also CMOS 11.28.

__________

* The number 64 is the article ID assigned by Glossa, an online-only open-access journal that isn’t paginated across issues in the traditional way (see CMOS 14.71 for more details). If you were to cite specific pages in a note (from the PDF version, which starts at page 1), you’d want to clarify what the numbers mean: “. . . (2017): pp. 3–4, article no. 64.”

Q. Is the term “Clouds of Glory” (the specific ones that accompanied the Israelites in the desert) a proper noun? And if it is, would you capitalize the transliterated term? E.g.: “The Ananei HaKavod (Clouds of Glory) protected the Israelites as they traveled through the desert.”

A. Unless your sources suggest a clear preference for or against initial capitals for that term, it’s up to you. Whichever you choose, capitals or lowercase, you can usually do the same for the transliterated Hebrew. Lowercase: “ananei hakavod (clouds of glory).” Initial capitals: “Ananei HaKavod (Clouds of Glory).” (Some sources capitalize the Hebrew term as either Ananei haKavod or Ananei Hakavod.) See also CMOS 11.103.

Q. I’m editing a nontechnical text, but I’ll occasionally come across a technical unit of measurement such as °F or m². What is the rule regarding when to use the symbol versus writing out the measurement?

A. Except in tables and similar contexts where abbreviations are the norm (and where they’re often required to make things fit), it’s usually best to spell out abbreviations and symbols for units of measurement and the like in nontechnical prose (e.g., “water freezes at 32 degrees Fahrenheit”; “more than ten square meters”).

See chapter 10 in CMOS for more details and examples (start with the overview in paragraphs 10.1–12). For the use of numerals for exact quantities (as in “32 degrees Fahrenheit”), see paragraph 9.14.

Q. CMOS 14.122 offers advice on how to date an entry in an unpublished diary, but I do not see full instructions for citing such a diary. Could you offer a sample footnote or two?

A. Let’s start with an example of how to cite an unpublished letter in a note (adapted from the examples in CMOS 14.127):

1. George Creel to Colonel House, September 25, 1918, box 31, folder 986, Edward Mandell House Papers, Yale University Library.

That’s American journalist George Creel writing to Edward M. House, an American diplomat and adviser, at that time, to President Woodrow Wilson. The example assumes that House has been identified more fully in the text. (See this article on House in Britannica for the form used in the note; “Colonel” was an honorary rather than a military title.)

A letter is similar to a diary entry, and House’s diaries are also included in the same collection at Yale. House’s diary entry from the same day as the letter could be cited as follows (and note that “Colonel House,” the addressee in the letter from Creel, isn’t used in this context):

2. House, diary, September 25, 1918, Edward Mandell House Papers, Yale University Library, original transcript, ser. 2, vol. 6, https://archives.yale.edu/repositories/12/archival_objects/1748077.

The diary entry, unlike the letter, has been digitized, so we included a URL for the part of the collection where the diary may be found (plus a few more details about the location in the collection). For a diary that isn’t in a public collection, adjust your entry accordingly. Here’s a general-purpose form that can be adapted as needed:

3. So-and-So, diary, February 3, 2026, quoted with the permission of [name of person who owns the diary].

For an alternate date format that may be suitable for works that cite many letters or diary entries, see CMOS 14.122. See also 12.3.