The Chicago Manual of Style (CMoS), one of the most-used style guides in publishing, is headed for an update to its 18th edition later this year and editors are eager to know what changes it will contain. Russel Harper, editor of CMoS, chatted with Mark Allen on That Word Chat, live at the ACES 2024 conference, giving us a glimpse at the changes coming.
Changes Announced
- Location will no longer be required in citations and bibliography entries.
- “Headline Style” will now be called “Title Case.”
- In Title Case, prepositions of 5 letters or more will now be capped (e.g., about, without, throughout).
- When an initial the is part of the title, cap it: The New York Times, but the Los Angeles Times.
- It will now be french fries (but it’s still French dressing).
- If what follows the colon is a full sentence, cap the first word.
- Joining email are ebook and esports.
- Singular they will be fully allowable in formal writing.
We’ll have to wait for the fall to get the rest of the changes and make decisions on what to follow. I’ll be eagerly reading through the full change list, guiding my clients on how to update their house style guides.
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Good call on capping and italicizing “the” for newspapers! Was a headache!
I agree, Lola. It bothered me not to cap and ital a the that was part of newspaper title.