The Chicago Manual of Style Online’s Q&A is a sparky but good-hearted facet of the writing and editing world, and behind the cheeky voice is editor Carol Saller.
The Q&A, published monthly, fields questions from writers at large: “We get some doozies,” Saller admitted. “Endless, inventive, sometimes heartbreaking questions.”
Saller and the editors respond with wit, humor, brevity, and a sharp pen to settle arguments and clarify confusion. With its cult-like following, the Q&A was begging to be transformed into a best-of book, giving us “But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”?” from the University of Chicago Press.
Saller read select questions from the book, which she admitted is organized in loose categories based on the questions, each chapter preceded with an editorial comment on the chapter’s questions. The Q&A’s smart tone is nicely captured in certain responses:
Q. Is the following correct? “In one of my more popular poems . . .” Is there a hard-and-fast rule regarding most versus more?
A. Absolutely. In contexts like these, more is an unspecified but nonetheless greater quantity than less, as well as a possibly exact but unexpressed quantity less than most. Of course, if you have a more popular poem, you probably also have a less popular one, so perhaps it’s best not to say.
Q. I usually put a comma in the opening salutation of an e-mail—“Hi, Megan”—and this always pleases Megan, a journalist, who believes e-mail salutations should follow the rules of dialogue punctuation. But when I write to Ruth, a physical therapist, I revert to “Hi Ruth,” honoring Ruth’s opinion that a comma after “Hi” in an e-mail looks nerdy. Are Megan and I correct? Is Ruth on to something? Valuing my friendship with each, should I continue to respect the opinions of both?
A. Your question sent the team here into a dithering frenzy. After several meetings and polls, however, the decision is in: you and Megan are a good match, but you should probably let your friendship with Ruth fade. (The punctuation, for e-mailing purposes, is moot.)
When asked about the discrepancy between AP’s yearly turnover in editions versus Chicago’s relatively long edition updates (generally around seven years go by between new editions of CMOS), Saller replied, “AP is for journalists who have to be up to the minute. Chicago is written for scholars. A new edition is a tremendous interruption in book editing. Scholars tend to take many years.
“We’re a conservative publication that codifies accepted, settled style rather than setting style for the next century.”
But “settled style” doesn’t necessarily mean unchanging and unwavering style. Saller declared, “I don’t believe that this stuff is religion. It’s preferences. … You never have to do anything that isn’t helpful. If the style guide says you do, you need a better guide.”
Though the nitpickery — and sometimes stubbornness — of copyediting has its small joys, Saller advised, “When you’re young you want to be in charge, but realize the benefits of opening your mind. Work for the reader and try to make it the best text it can be. Copy editors tend to be smart, educated and meticulous. They have a certain personality. I preach that you should let go of all of that.”
She nodded. “It is the right thing to do.”
Saller’s own book, “The Subversive Copy Editor,” on the very subject of letting go in copy editing, will be released on May 6. “But Can I Start a Sentence with “But”?” will be released April 22.
