What's new in the Chicago Manual of Style (18th edition), with Russell Harper and Mary Laur

09/19/24 • 51 min

2 Listeners

Grammar Girl Quick and Dirty Tips for Better Writing

1015. The Chicago Manual of Style is updated every seven years, and this year's update is a big one! I talked with two of the editors — Russell Harper and Mary Laur — about the major changes, how the decisions get made, and the history of the CMOS (pronounced "sea moss").

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🔗 Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.

🔗 Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.

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| HOST: Mignon Fogarty

| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475).

| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.

Audio Engineer: Dan Feierabend
Director of Podcast: Brannan Goetschius
Advertising Operations Specialist: Morgan Christianson
Marketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina Tomlin
Digital Operations Specialist: Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Video: Nat Hoopes

| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.

| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.

Previous Episode

Do words like 'mandate' and 'cockamamie' come from words for men? Grammatical doppelgangers. A pair of teeth.

1 Recommendations

1014. This week, we debunk misconceptions about gendered language, tracing the etymology of words like "cockamamie" and "gynecology." We also look at the flexibility of English grammar, examining how common words like "that" and "up" can function as different parts of speech in various contexts.

The "gendered words" segment was written by Samantha Enslen, who runs Dragonfly Editorial. You can find her at dragonflyeditorial.com.

The "grammar leaks" segment was written by Edwin Battistella, who taught linguistics and writing at Southern Oregon University in Ashland, where he served as a dean and as interim provost. His books include Bad Language: Are Some Words Better than Others?, Sorry About That: The Language of Public Apology, and Dangerous Crooked Scoundrels: Insulting the President, from Washington to Trump. It originally appeared on the OUP blog and is included here with permission.

🔗 Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.

🔗 Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.

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🔗 Get the edited transcript.

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🔗 Join Grammarpalooza (Get texts from Mignon!): https://joinsubtext.com/grammar or text "hello" to (917) 540-0876.

| HOST: Mignon Fogarty

| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475).

| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.

Audio Engineer: Dan Feierabend
Director of Podcast: Brannan Goetschius
Advertising Operations Specialist: Morgan Christianson
Marketing and Publicity Assistant: Davina Tomlin
Digital Operations Specialist: Holly Hutchings
Marketing and Video: Nat Hoopes

| Theme music by Catherine Rannus.

| Grammar Girl Social Media Links: YouTube. TikTok. Facebook.Threads. Instagram. LinkedIn. Mastodon.

References for the "gendered language" segment:

Becker, Thomas. Autohyponymy: Implicature in Lexical Semantics, Word Formation, and Grammar. Journal of Germanic Linguistics 14(02):10 –136, June 2002.

Forster, Tim. Are Gendered Words like “Mankind” Inherently Sexist? Babbel.com, March 1, 2021. Accessed August 7, 2024.

Merriam-Webster Online. www.merriam-webster.com.

Oxford English Dictionary. Oed.com. Available by subscription.

Online Etymology Dictionary. https://www.etymonline.com/word/menagerie

Shariatmadari, David. Eight words that reveal the sexism at the heart of the English language. The Guardian, January 27, 2016. Accessed August 7, 2024.

Next Episode

Why some verb sets are so odd (like 'go/went'). Corporate euphemisms. Goggy.

1 Recommendations

1016. This week, we look at why some verbs are so irregular that their forms don't even seem related, like "go" and "went." Then, we look at the surprising finding that corporate euphemisms are worse than annoying — they can also hurt a company's stock price.

The "suppletion" segment was written by Valerie Fridland, a professor of linguistics at the University of Nevada in Reno and the author of "Like, Literally, Dude: Arguing for the Good in Bad English." You can find her at valeriefridland.com.

The "corporate euphemisms" segment was was written by Kate Suslava, an associate professor of accounting at Bucknell University. It originally appeared on The Conversation and appears here through a Creative Commons license, BY-ND 4.0.

🔗 Share your familect recording in a WhatsApp chat.

🔗 Watch my LinkedIn Learning writing courses.

🔗 Subscribe to the newsletter.

🔗 Take our advertising survey.

🔗 Get the edited transcript.

🔗 Get Grammar Girl books.

🔗 Join Grammarpalooza. Get ad-free and bonus episodes at Apple Podcasts or Subtext. Learn more about the difference.

| HOST: Mignon Fogarty

| VOICEMAIL: 833-214-GIRL (833-214-4475).

| Grammar Girl is part of the Quick and Dirty Tips podcast network.