Changes to the Chicago Manual: Bad News for All You Xerxes Bloggers and Euripides Reporters
The Chicago Manual of Style's new 16th edition is out, complete with updated style rules for book publishers and anyone else who follows this style. Some major style changes are here.
Per Chicago,
* web now takes a lowercase W, even though Internet and World Wide Web are still treated as proper names;
* you now capitalize the S in street when writing "at the intersection of Maple and Main Streets";
* iPod now gets a lowercase I when it begins a sentence; and, my favorite:
* "Names ending with an 'eez' sound - Names like Xerxes or Euripides now form the possessive in the usual way—with an apostrophe s. (When these forms are spoken, however, the additional s is generally not pronounced.)"
Again, that's for people who follow the Chicago Manual. All you AP Stylebook devotees can go back to puzzling over why Chicago continues to put so much focus on Xerxes and Euripides.
About June
June Casagrande was born in March and lives in a small house. She wrote a grammar/humor book called "Mortal Syntax" and, before that, one called "Grammar Snobs Are Great Big Meanies." She sincerely hopes you buy a million copies of each.
Connections
Causes June Casagrande Supports
Planned Parenthood, ClimateCrisis.net, the Richard Dawkins Foundation, Pet Orphans of Southern California, KIVA
So the Great Big Meanies are
So the Great Big Meanies are losing control. Bad news indeed!
Indeed ...
... T'is a sad day when the plural of Xerxes is formed the same way you form other plurals ...
I never understood...
...the lower-case rule for "streets," but I'm sort of sad now that they've changed it.
Huntington Sharp, Senior Editor, Red Room
I just hate change ...
... I do. I don't particularly like that about myself but, for obvious reasons, I'm not gonna change.
I've always liked the lowercase s for First and Elm streets because it makes more sense to me. They're sharing the word, so it's no longer a piece of either proper name.
AP hasn't changed this -- just Chicago. Adnd most of the editing work I do is in AP style. So I'm still all about the lowercase S.
xerxeS and euripedeS
Since I only need to form the possessives of Xerxes and Euripedes about 30 or 40 times a week I don't think I'll worry about that. But the capital S in Broad Street, etc. is simply going back to a rule that was established long before I was born and that was in 1934. And it does make perfect sense. If the word street doesn't refer to a particular street it is lower case. Like Salt Lake City or the Beury Building. Tulpehocken Street. Why not?
Charlie