If you’ve ever found yourself agonizing over whether to write “7%” or “7 percent” in a quote, debating the merits of hyphens versus en dashes, or wondering if Napoleon needs his accent (spoiler: he doesn’t in English), then you’re in the right place. This month’s Chicago Manual of Style Q&A is here to settle these pressing dilemmas—with a side of grammar geekery.

Q. Is it okay for “%” to be changed to “percent” in quoted text to match the rest of the document, similar to how you can change en dashes to em dashes in CMOS 12.7?

A. It’s better to leave the symbol as is. Readers who look for the original text of a quotation that includes “a 7 percent increase” may have trouble finding the relevant passage if it has “a 7% increase” instead—or, if not, they may wonder what other changes have been made without notice.

By comparison, dashes are dashes. A reader consulting the source of a quotation that included “a 7 percent increase—defying all expectations” is unlikely to be tripped up by finding “a 7 percent increase – defying all expectations.”

In other words, we consider the difference between dashes to be purely typographical, whereas the difference between “%” and “percent” is just beyond that threshold—more like a case of synonyms.

Q. In the following sentence, is it correct to use an en dash after 25 but a hyphen after 30? “The report referred to a 25– to 30-year-old oak tree on the perimeter of the parking lot.”

A. It looks as if you’re trying to extend the logic behind expressions like “pre–Civil War,” where the idea is that an en dash, which is longer than a hyphen, bridges the space in “Civil War” to apply the prefix “pre” to both words in that phrase.

But Chicago style for your example would be to write “a 25-to-30-year-old oak tree,” with four hyphens. Only in the case of two different ages rather than a range would we recommend something like what you’ve written, but with a suspended hyphen instead of an en dash: “a 25- or 30-year-old oak tree”—which is short for “a 25-year-old or 30-year-old oak tree.” (See CMOS 7.96, section 1, under “age terms.”)

In each of those examples, the hyphen in “25-” is like the one in “30-”; an en dash rather than a hyphen after the first number might look like a mistake, and it wouldn’t necessarily make the expression any clearer. For more on suspended hyphens, see CMOS 7.95.

Q. Is it incorrect to include a space before a question or exclamation mark? E.g., “Do you like chocolate ?” Thank you.

A. In English? Yes, a space would be incorrect. But if you’re writing for a French audience, such a space would be expected. Just make sure it’s a nonbreaking space (see CMOS 6.129).

If you set your proofing language to French (under Review > Language), Microsoft Word will add a nonbreaking space next to certain marks of punctuation automatically as you type—not only before question marks and exclamation points but before colons and semicolons and between French quotation marks (or guillemets, « ») and the text they enclose. Word includes more than a dozen varieties of French, from Belgian French to Swiss French, and most add these spaces; the setting for Canadian French adds them only for colons and guillemets.

In English, however, such spaces are not required even if you’re quoting a French source verbatim in an otherwise English-language document. For more details, see CMOS 11.31.

Did you know? French typesetters used to add spaces before commas also (but not periods). See “One Space or Two” at CMOS Shop Talk (esp. footnote †).

Q. How would you style Napoleon’s name in something like “They researched the tin buttons on the uniforms of soldiers in Napoleon’s army.” Merriam-Webster has “Napoléon I” under the “Bonaparte” entry but “Napoleon I” under the “napoleon” entry. Encyclopaedia Britannica has “Napoleon I” as its first entry. CMOS 5.128 has “if Napoleon was in fact poisoned” as an example. So should my example sentence have an accent on “Napoleon,” include the “I,” or include “Bonaparte”?

A. Although fidelity to a person’s name is an important consideration, Napoleon Bonaparte entered the English vernacular long ago—without the accent. So, whereas “Napoléon” is the correct spelling of that name in French (where the accent is mandatory), there’s no need to use the French spelling in an English-language context.

As for the Roman numeral, add it only when needed for clarity—for example, to distinguish Napoleon I (or, in French, Napoléon Iᵉʳ) from Napoleons II and III. (Superscripts like the one in “Napoléon Iᵉʳ” are generally retained in an English-language context; see CMOS 11.30.)

As for “Bonaparte,” you can usually add that at your first mention of Napoleon, who is otherwise typically referred to by his first name.

Q. Dear Manuscript Editing Department, I am proofreading a bibliography using CMOS and wanted to ask where the period should go relative to the following title of a journal article: “In/Visibility and the (Post-Soviet) ‘Queer Closet.’ ” That placement seems to be the generally accepted solution in American English. I wonder, however, if, for the computational age, the following solution were not more appropriate: “In/Visibility and the (Post-Soviet) ‘Queer Closet’.” I find that it makes the string that one copies in order to search for it online correspond to what is in databases and on journal sites. Many thanks!

A. The period does look good between the two marks—where it solves the spacing problem between consecutive single and double quotation marks (we’ve added a narrow nonbreaking space to the first version of the title in your question, per CMOS 6.11)—but it’s not Chicago style.

And though we could make an exception for titles like the one you cite, we’d arguably then need to apply that same exception for periods (and commas) relative to single quotation marks everywhere for the sake of consistency—which, again, wouldn’t be Chicago style.

As for searches, the placement of the period (as well as its presence or absence) didn’t seem to make any difference in our tests, whereas the quotation marks and other marks of punctuation in the article title caused the occasional hiccup in certain library databases.

For a brief history of quotation marks relative to periods and commas—including the rationale for Chicago style (and, by extension, American English style)—see “Commas and Periods with Quotation Marks” at CMOS Shop Talk.

Q. I find ISBNs extremely useful when trying to locate copies of books of interest, especially when searching for secondhand copies of out-of-print books, for requesting books on interlibrary loan, and for disambiguating common names or titles. I’m writing a literature review in the form of an annotated bibliography and would like to include ISBNs in the entries for those books that have them, as a convenience and finding aid for readers. I can’t find any guidance for inclusion of ISBNs in Chicago-style footnotes or bibliography entries, even as an optional item. Can you provide a recommended template or example of placement and formatting?

A. Sure. Here’s how we’d recommend adding ISBNs to the bibliography entries for three different editions of Daniel James Brown’s bestselling book about a rowing team’s quest for Olympic gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics (listed here in chronological order, from the 2013 Viking hardcover to the 2023 Penguin Books movie tie-in edition):

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat. Viking, 2013. ISBN 978-0-670-02581-7.

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat. Penguin Books, 2014. ISBN 978-0-143-12547-1.

Brown, Daniel James. The Boys in the Boat. Movie tie-in ed. Penguin Books, 2023. ISBN 978-0-593-51230-2.

In general, an ISBN or other optional information may be added to an entry in a bibliography when needed, following the period at the end of the other citation data. But if you need to include an ISBN within a note, we’d suggest adding it in parentheses, as part of the facts of publication:

1. Daniel James Brown, The Boys in the Boat, movie tie-in ed. (Penguin Books, 2023; ISBN 978-0-593-51230-2), 33–34.

The hyphens in the ISBN, which are optional, will help those who need to manually copy or type the number. For more on ISBNs and how they work, start with CMOS 1.36 and these FAQs from ISBN.org.

Q. Hello, Chicago doesn’t seem to have an example of how to cite a contribution to a new edition of a book. Should the edition number follow a period or comma in the reference list entry below? Though my example is in Chicago 17 style, the question is still relevant for Chicago 18 style, so I would appreciate your guidance. Thanks!

Rothbard, Murray N. 2006. “The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism.” In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 1–23. 2nd ed. Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute.

A. The best place for an edition number for a book is usually just after the title. When it’s part of an “In . . .” statement (as in your example), it follows a comma. As of the 18th edition, Chicago no longer requires a page range for a chapter or other contribution to a book or a place of publication, so your author-date entry would look like this:

Rothbard, Murray N. 2006. “The Libertarian Heritage: The American Revolution and Classical Liberalism.” In For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto, 2nd ed. Ludwig von Mises Institute.

(If you were following CMOS 17, the edition number would precede the page range: “. . . Manifesto, 2nd ed., 1–23. . . .”) In a reference list entry for the book as a whole, the edition number would follow a period:

Rothbard, Murray N. 2006. For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto. 2nd ed. Ludwig von Mises Institute.

Bibliography entries would follow the same pattern (except for the placement of the year of publication; see CMOS 14.1).

Generally speaking, a particle is a word that doesn’t belong to the usual classes of words like noun, verb, pronoun, etc.

Authorities disagree as to which words to call “particles,” but most agree that the to of an infinitive and the words that look like adverbs or prepositions in a phrasal verb are particles. Compare:

The family traveled to Paris. (preposition governing the noun Paris.)
Now they are ready to go home. (particle, part of the infinitive “to go.”)

Jack and Jill went up the hill. (preposition governing hill)
Mr. Abrams will set up the conference room for the next meeting. (particle, part of the phrasal verb “set up.”)

The particle most likely to cause difficulty for the non-native speaker is the “adverbial particle” used to create a phrasal verb.

A phrasal verb is “a fixed combination of verb and adverbial particle” used in many colloquial and idiomatic expressions.

Phrasal verbs present difficulties for non-native speakers because their meaning is difficult or impossible to guess from the individual words that make them up. For example:

His son said that he was ready to turn in.

Where were you when the meeting broke up?

Some phrasal verbs have different meanings, according to context. For example:

put out
He put out the light and went to bed. (“extinguish” in the sense of interrupting an electric current)
The firemen put out the fire. (“extinguish” in the sense of smothering flames)
Don’t forget to put out the cat before you leave the house. (“place outside”)

pass out
The heat caused the girl to pass out. (faint)
The lecturer asked me to pass out the papers. (distribute)

turn up
Turn up the radio so I can hear it. (increase the volume)
I didn’t expect you to turn up here. (appear)

add up
Her behavior this morning doesn’t add up. (make sense)
She waits until she gets home to add up her tips. (count)

break down
He’s likely to break down on the witness stand. (become emotionally upset)
The CEO asked the accountant to break down the quarterly figures. (analyze)

fill in
Be sure to fill in every blank on the second page. (complete)
The boss asked me to fill in for her at the summit meeting. (substitute)

Sometimes the particle is separated from the verb by another word:

He took his boots off before entering the house. (removed)
They called the doctor in when the child’s fever increased. (summoned)

Writers targeting non-native speakers may want to pay special attention to phrasal verbs when revising, either to replace a phrasal verb with a simple one-word substitute or to avoid using the same phrasal verb with different meanings in the same document.

Phrasal verbs easily replaced by one word
throw away: discard
send back: return
pull through: recover
put off: postpone
call off: cancel
cut down on: reduce
put up with: tolerate

Are you ready to test your knowledge? Here’s a fun little quiz!

Exercise – Smothered Verbs

Each of the following sentences includes a smothered verb (i.e., a word that has been formed from a verb). Revise the sentences as necessary for conciseness:

1. The committee will hold a meeting this Wednesday evening at seven o’clock.

2. I will make a decision after studying the criteria you have given me.

3. We hope someone can provide an answer to this political question.

4. A school counselor’s job is to give advice to the students.

5. Please take into consideration the suggestion your father made.

Answers and Explanations

In order to improve sentences containing smothered verbs you simply need to replace them with the original verbs. Example: Her guardian has made provision for her in his will. You should replace “has made provision” with “provided.”

1.
Original: The committee will hold a meeting this Wednesday evening at seven o’clock.
Correct : The committee will meet this Wednesday evening at seven o’clock.

2.
Original: I will make a decision after studying the criteria you have given me.
Correct : I will decide after studying the criteria you have given me.

3.
Original: We hope someone can provide an answer to this political question.
Correct : We hope someone can answer this political question.

4.
Original: A school counselor’s job is to give advice to the students.
Correct : A school counselor’s job is to advise the students.

5.
Original: Please take into consideration the suggestion your father made.
Correct : Please consider the suggestion your father made.

Q: I was surprised when autocorrect changed “intermittent” to “intermit.” I checked and, lo and behold, there is a word “intermit.” Does it not strike you as odd that the base-form is less known than its “built-up” version?

A: We don’t use, or recommend using, the autocorrect function in a word processor. Our spell-checkers flag possible misspellings but don’t automatically “fix” them. Word processors have dictionaries, but not common sense—at least not yet!

As for the words you’re asking about, the adjective “intermittent” (irregular or occurring at intervals) is indeed more common than the verb “intermit” (to suspend or stop). In fact, the verb barely registered when we compared the terms on Google’s Ngram Viewer.

However, “intermittent” isn’t derived from “intermit,” though both ultimately come from different forms of the Latin verb intermittere (to interrupt, leave a gap, suspend, or stop), according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The Latin verb combines inter (between) and mittere (to send, let go, put).

When “intermit” first appeared in English in the mid-16th century, it meant to interrupt someone or something, a sense the OED describes as obsolete.

The modern sense of the verb—“to leave off, give over, discontinue (an action, practice, etc.) for a time; to suspend”—showed up in the late 16th century.

It means “leave off” in the dictionary’s earliest citation for the modern usage: “Occasions of intermitting the writing of letters” (from A Panoplie of Epistles, 1576, by Abraham Fleming, an author, editor, and Anglican clergyman).

As we’ve said, “intermit” isn’t seen much nowadays. English speakers are more likely to use other verbs with similar senses, such as “cease,” “quit,” “stop,” “discontinue,” “interrupt,” or “suspend.”

When the adjective “intermittent” appeared in the early 17th century, Oxford says, it described a medical condition such as a pulse, fever, or cramp “coming at intervals; operating by fits and starts.”

The earliest OED citation is from an English translation of Plutarch’s Ἠθικά (Ethica, Ethics), commonly known by its Latin title Moralia (The Morals), a collection of essays and speeches originally published in Greek around the end of the first century:

“Beating within the arteries here and there disorderly, and now and then like intermittent pulses” (from The Philosophie, Commonly Called, The Morals, 1603, translated by Philemon Holland).

The adjective later took on several other technical senses involving irregular movement, but we’ll skip to its use in everyday English to mean occurring at irregular intervals. The earliest OED citation for this “general use” is expanded here:

“Northfleet a disunited Village of 3 Furlongs, with an intermittent Market on Tuesdays, from Easter till Whitsuntide only” (Britannia, or, An illustration of the Kingdom of England and Dominion of Wales, 1675, by the Scottish geographer John Ogilby).

Knowing when to capitalize religious terms can be hell. Or should that be Hell? And there we get to the crux of the matter. Are words from religions always capitalized? Is it only when you use these terms in a religious context? Or should you just say “to heck with it” and stop caring?

Well, before you do that, check out our guide to capitalizing religious terms.

When to Capitalize Religious Terms

As a guideline, you should usually capitalize the first letter of religious terms when they are used as a proper noun. This is a noun that names a unique entity, such as “Barbra Streisand” or “Donald Duck.”

In a religious context, proper nouns may include:

• Religions and religious movements (e.g., Judaism, Methodism)

• Religious figures and deities (e.g., Jesus, Zeus)

• Holy texts (e.g., Bible, Quran)

• Religious holidays (e.g., Easter, Diwali)

• Titles when used with a name (e.g., Reverend Green)

However, there are some cases where the correct capitalization depends on how you’re using a term. We will look at a few of these below.

God, Gods, Goddesses and Proper Nouns

As mentioned above, you should always capitalize the first letter in a proper noun. If you were referring to the Christian deity, for instance, you would need to capitalize the “G” in “God”:

I am here only by the grace of God.

But some words, like “god,” can be either proper or common nouns depending on how we use them. So if you were referring to gods and goddesses in general, or any god or goddess where “god” is not part of their name, you would need to use a lower case “g” instead:

Prior to Christianization, the Anglo Saxons worshipped the Germanic gods and goddesses, including Ēostre, the goddess of the dawn and spring.

Notice that we do, however, capitalize Ēostre in the example above, even though we use a lower case “g” for “goddess.” This is because Ēostre is the name of a goddess, so it is a proper noun.

Other Inconsistent Capitalization

“God” is the most prominent example of something we only capitalize in certain cases. However, there are many religious terms that have second meanings. And you should only capitalize these words if you use them in a religious context, not when they’re used elsewhere.

For instance, we would capitalize “Catholic” in “the Catholic Church.” But “catholic” can also mean “all-embracing.” And we would not use a capital “C” to write about someone with interests in a range of seemingly unrelated things (i.e., someone with “catholic tastes”).

Likewise, we would capitalize the “M” in “Mass” if we were talking about the religious ceremony. But we would not usually capitalize the same word when using it as an adjective in “mass market” or “mass transit.” It pays, then, to double check whether religious terms have other uses.

Holy Pronouns

In the past, it was common to capitalize the first letters of pronouns when referring to religious figures. This is known as reverential capitalization. For instance, if we used “his” to refer to God, we might capitalize the “H”:

Our hearts shall rejoice in God and His holy name!

This is quite unusual in modern writing. However, if you do use reverential capitalization, there are two key rules to follow:

1. Only apply it to pronouns that refer to deities and divine beings.

2. Apply it consistently throughout your writing.

You can apply reverential capitalization in other situations as well, but it is most common with pronouns.

To ensure consistency, you may also want to have your writing proofread. But if you do, let your editor know which terms you’ve chosen to capitalize.

Heaven and Hell

Finally, we have heaven and hell. As a rule, you do not need to capitalize these terms. This is true even when referring to the Christian concepts of “heaven” and “hell.” Take Matthew 5:18 from the NIV Bible, for instance:

For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

However, some religious institutions do prefer to capitalize the words “Heaven” and “Hell.” And you should always capitalize ‘Heaven’ when referring to the famous gay nightclub in London.

What CMOS says

In their FQA section, CMOS provides an interesting perspective too.

The convention of hyphenating a compound modifier before a noun but not after—as in a well-known author versus an author who is well known—has been Chicago style since the first edition (published in 1906).

Over the years, CMOS has added certain exceptions, including for compounds with all and free, both of which retain their hyphens after the noun, as in a desire that’s all-consuming or a yogurt that’s fat-free.

The 18th edition lists some additional always-hyphenated compounds (besides the ones with all and free) in paragraph 7.92: cost-effective, dyed-in-the-wool, first-rate, high-spirited, ill-advised, old-fashioned, short-lived, and wild-eyed.

Those aren’t the only compound modifiers (also known as phrasal adjectives) that keep their hyphens after a noun. Some can be derived from the compounds listed above—including ill-defined and other terms with ill (see the hyphenation table at CMOS 7.96, section 3, “Compounds Formed with Specific Terms”).

But how will you know whether you’ve found one of these compounds that would remain hyphenated after the noun if it isn’t covered in CMOS? Dictionaries can help, but you may want to consult more than one.

Things That Are Well Known . . .

Well-known things (with a hyphen) are well known (without a hyphen), a principle that goes all the way back to the first edition of CMOS, which featured the examples “well-known author” and “a man well known in the neighborhood” (¶ 167; italics added).

The idea is that hyphens add clarity before a noun but are otherwise unnecessary.

The term well-known was also sufficiently well known to have been recorded in standard dictionaries from that era, as shown by this entry on page 1641 (via the Internet Archive) from an 1898 edition of Webster’s International Dictionary of the English Language (published in Springfield, MA, by G. and C. Merriam):

The literary example in that entry, from the nineteenth-century poet and essayist Matthew Arnold, happens to demonstrate the principle of hyphenation before a noun but not after: “A church well known [no hyphen] with a well-known rite [hyphen].”*

But you won’t find evidence for this convention if you consult the latest dictionary at Merriam-Webster.com, a modern successor (with Merriam-WebsterUnabridged) to the International. The entry at Merriam-Webster.com for well-known (as of December 2024) includes an example where the adjective follows the noun it modifies:

The anchorwoman in that example is well-known—with a hyphen. Any writer or editor consulting Merriam-Webster could be forgiven for retaining the hyphen in well-known after a noun. Should you do the same?

. . . May Also Be Well Understood

In those few cases where CMOS and Merriam-Webster disagree, as with well-known after a noun, follow CMOS when applying Chicago style. You would also do this for any compounds that aren’t in the dictionary. For example, the term well-understood isn’t currently in Merriam-Webster, not even the Unabridged (though it is in the OED):

For well-understood, then, you’d retain the hyphen before a noun but not after, per CMOS 7.91 and the hyphenation table at 7.96 (section 2, “adverb not ending in ‑ly + participle or adjective”).

And if you’re going to omit the hyphen in well-understood when it follows the noun, you should do the same for all other compound modifiers with well. That includes the ones in Merriam-Webster, from well-adjusted through well-worn, regardless of how the examples are hyphenated there.

After all, consistency is the No. 2 principle in copyediting. (“Do no harm” is No. 1.)

But what if you find a hyphenated compound adjective that’s listed in the dictionary but doesn’t seem to be covered in CMOS, not even in the hyphenation table?

A Postpositive Phenomenon (and Another Dictionary)

Let’s say you’re in the middle of editing and you come across the adjective clear-cut—after the noun: “That case isn’t clear-cut.” Do you retain the hyphen?

The hyphenation table in CMOS, section 2, under “adjective + participle,” seems to cover this case (where clear is an adjective and cut is a past participle), and the advice there says to leave such compounds open after a noun. But clear-cut itself isn’t listed there, and the process of identifying the parts of speech in a compound isn’t always so (spoiler alert) clear cut. Some of us will consult the dictionary also (or instead).

Merriam-Webster does list the adjective clear-cut, where it has a hyphen. The example included in the definition shows clear-cut before the noun (“a clear-cut decision”). But under “Recent Examples from the Web,” several of the quotations (as of December 2024) feature clear-cut as an adjective after the noun, where it’s hyphenated.

Those “Recent Examples” aren’t from Merriam-Webster, however, and that dictionary doesn’t generally say whether hyphens in compound modifiers can be omitted after a noun; the OED doesn’t either. But at least one major contemporary dictionary does: Collins English Dictionary, which is available at CollinsDictionary.com.

Collins includes separate entries for American English and British English. The entries for British English that are credited to Collins English Dictionary (entries at Collins come from various sources) sometimes include a note relative to hyphenation.

For example, the entry for clear-cut (where the term is hyphenated), includes the following note in parentheses: “clear cut when postpositive.” Here’s that entry:

According to Collins, postpositive means “(of an adjective or other modifier) placed after the word modified, either immediately after, as in two men abreast, or as part of a complement, as in those men are bad.” (See also CMOS 5.83.)

So that entry in Collins explicitly acknowledges the convention of hyphenating clear-cut before a noun but not after, as in a clear-cut case that’s clear cut. Collins does this also in its British English definitions for every well- term it defines (including well-understood).

Collins does not, however, include an unhyphenated postpositive exception for any of the terms in CMOS 7.92—including ill-advised:

Again, those entries carry the label “in British English.” But the basic principles related to hyphenation (including this one) are the same in British as in American English. It wouldn’t be ill-advised, then, to retain hyphenation after a noun for any hyphenated modifier listed in Collins that doesn’t include a postpositive exception (and vice versa).

In other words, whenever you come across a compound that you’re unsure about, Collins—though not necessarily the last word—is yet another resource you can use to check your hunches regarding hyphenation after the noun.

Summing Up

If you don’t know what to do with a compound modifier that’s not listed in paragraph 7.92, check the hyphenation table at CMOS 7.96. If you don’t find an answer there, try Merriam-Webster—or look for the term under the British English entries in Collins to see if there’s an exception there relative to hyphenation.

If you’re still unsure, resist the trend toward postpositive hyphenation and leave the compound open after a noun, provided the meaning of the text remains clear. After all, the main reason to hyphenate a compound modifier is to provide clarity before a noun, not after, a principle that is well established.†