A new edition of the Chicago Manual of Style comes out every seven years: The latest editionwas published on September 19, 2024. There are other manuals of style, but the ChicagoManual is the best for writing in the humanities. Every writer, editor, and copyeditor of seriousscholarly work in the humanities must own a copy of the latest edition. No, you cannot get awaywith buying an earlier edition on the cheap - you will just make life a nightmare for everyoneelse if you do, for there are numerous changes in the 18th edition, and the differences aresignificant. No excuses. Keep it close at hand and consult it frequently. The other day Iwondered whether the title "Sir" was capitalized. I picked up the Manual, and there was theanswer (yes, it is capitalized - see paragraph 8.33).

The jacket of the 18th edition is a lurid acid yellow. With a list price of $75, the Chicago Manualis not cheap. But, with 1198 pages that were typeset, printed, and bound in the United States, itis reasonable value for the money.

There are a bunch of changes in this edition. I don't consider them necessary, I don't considerthem improvements, I think Chicago is making changes for the sake of change, but better thedevil you know than the one you don't. 13.23: In a note with more than two authors, list only thefirst author, followed by "et al." - in previous editions, it was more than three authors. 13.72: Donot use the 3-em dash for repeated names in a bibliography; instead, repeat the author's name.8.52: The word "County" is now capitalized in the names of Irish counties, so you write "CountySligo" instead of "county Sligo."

The blurb on the front jacket flap trumpets a new section about inclusive language (5.255-66); itis unhelpful and trendy. The mere mention of "Latinx" (5.259) already looks embarrassing now.However, the nine paraphrases to avoid the pronoun "he" (5.265) are creative and useful."Black" should be capitalized and "White" may be (8.39). This is different from the rule used bythe Associated Press, who capitalize "Black" but do not capitalize "white," which I find illogical.Happily, Chicago leaves a lot of leeway to authors, editors, and publishers (5.257).

The section on "Good Usage Versus Common Usage" (5.254) remains useful but is getting outof date: I'm afraid "less" versus "fewer" is a lost cause. If you don't believe me, go find asupermarket with a checkout line for "10 Items or Fewer." I don't like the word "decimate," andI'd prefer it to drop out of use. Etymologically it means a loss of ten percent, but it is alwaysused for a loss of much more than that. It's confusing. I'd like to see entries about "y'all" and"veggies": Since "you" long ago supplanted "thou" for the second person singular in English,"y'all" has been pushing its way forward, ceasing to be a regional usage of the American South,but instead a way of distinguishing the second person plural from the second person singular."Veggies" for "vegetables" is increasingly accepted, at least in journalism and on restaurantmenus. In ten to twenty years, it will probably be adopted into formal English prose, and in thirtyyears "veggies" will have supplanted "vegetables" entirely - it's easier to pronounce.

The most useful paragraph in the entire Manual is 5.209, which obliterates the commonmisconception that you cannot start a sentence with "but" or "and" (this is also mentioned in5.254). The section on grammar (5.1-251) is sensible. This is particularly praiseworthy, giventhat modern grammatical studies have taken some bizarre turns (see 5.2, 5.4).

The Manual says (13.6) that authors should include a URL in citations for every source that theyconsulted online. This will clutter up the manuscript. In my own experience, the addition of toomany codes in a large manuscript causes Microsoft Word to run slowly and even, at times, tocrash. And since I have consulted many sources before 1930 (which are all in the publicdomain), most of my sources can be consulted in Google Books or through Hathitrust or Gallicaor digitization projects sponsored by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, or indeed, theNewman Numismatic Portal; so nearly every source will have a URL. The Chicago Manualenvisions a world where we will read "books" in electronic format; each reference will be ahotlink on which we can click through to see the original passage. O brave new world!

Oddly, there is no guidance on how to cite coin auction catalogs or indeed other art auctioncatalogs (paragraph 14.134, about exhibition catalogs, doesn't really help).

It is annoying to have to shell out 75 bucks every seven years, and to learn that you no longermust replace authors' names with the 3-em dash, after you spent a whole summer day doingjust that. "Oceania is at war with Eurasia! Oceania has always been at war with Eurasia!" Oops,do a global replace of "Eurasia" with "Eastasia." But the Manual is so useful and so importantthat it is better to have it with these minor faults, than not to have it at all.

For more information, or to order, see:
The Chicago Manual of Style, 18th Edition(https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo213648716.html)

John writes: