THE American Grammar Guide: The Chicago Manual of Style, Seventeenth Edition, Released 09.05.2017

For all United States authors—whether you write fiction or nonfiction books, regardless if you plan to self-publish said works or to go the traditional publishing route—your main go-to guides should be:

1. For Grammar: The Chicago Manual of Style, Seventeenth Edition (aka 17CMS herein), which released in early September 2017. Per 17CMS 1.1, these grammar rules and their many exceptions apply to books and journals for publication (meaning, both fiction and nonfiction books).
2. For Spelling (per 17CMS 2.54): Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (aka Web11). However, note that rules like 17CMS 7.89 may override some preferred Web11 spellings.

Don't believe me? Check with any of the Big Five publishers. Aside from their own in-house style guides (that trump both Web11 and 17CMS on certain issues), you'll find they use the same two reference books that I do, because this pair represents the standard accepted guidelines for US book publishing.

I've been copyediting for almost a decade now, starting out with a well-known NYC publisher for 5.5 years, but now I work exclusively with Indie-publishing authors. So I've gone through three editions of the CMS to date. Here's a photo of my flagged copies of 15CMS and 16CMS. Do your copies look like mine? Ha!

As you can see in the next picture, my 17CMS copy is more pristine and for two reasons. One, I've just had it for not quite three months. Two, I also purchased the 17CMS online version, which should keep my physical reference book a tad neater. We'll see in a year or two.

So all authors should be aware of the basic grammar and spelling rules, checking these two reference books and hiring editors as needed.

On a side note, check out my new website (link in my signature below). I've got the bare bones setup initiated but will add more pages in my spare time.

Hope everyone had a happy and safe and fun Thanksgiving. Got your tree up yet? Mine is, but it's pretty bare at the moment. This year will be another experiment, as I have mischievous pets who like to play with the wooden ornaments and chew on the (fake or real) needles. I may have to remove my tree from my house. I hope not.

Have a great weekend, all.

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

https://deniseannbarker.com
amazon.com/author/denisebarker

Prefix and Suffix Hyphenation Tip

As a professional copy editor of more than seven years now, I see lots of manuscripts. As a longtime lover of reading, I read a lot of books. And hyphenation problems abound in both (yes, traditionally published as well as Indie pubbed).

For instance, I'm reading a 2003 nonfiction paperback right now, a how-to guide directed at authors, by a well-known traditional publisher (which I will not name here) and already have multiple marginalia concerning misspellings (dealing with unneeded hyphens), and I'm only on page 34 of 241 total pages. Sad but true. And this publisher should be using the same American book guidelines as I do (16CMS and Web11, defined below). I usually contact the publisher with these finds for correction in the next reprint, as I will for this one.

Anyway ...

So here's your quick overall tip regarding hyphenation when affixing prefixes and suffixes to a word:

DON'T.

DO NOT.

DO NOT. DO NOT. DO NOT.

Yes. You read that right. And you will be correct more times than not if you DO NOT hyphenate when adding prefixes and suffixes to other words. There are exceptions of course, but for general purposes DO NOT hyphenate when adding prefixes/suffixes.

Want examples?

Here are some: prenuptial agreement, postpartum depression, preschool, antebellum, midday, nonfiction (this one is a particular pet peeve of mine, especially when misspelled as "non-fiction" by authors, authors of nonfiction!), etc.

I don't know if a quick glance at the dictionary is causing this problem or not. After all, there is a "post-" prefix entry and a "post" as a noun entry and a "post" entry as a verb, adverb, etc. The hyphen in the initial prefix entry just differentiates the bald, stand-alone prefix from the noun/verb/adverb entries.

NOTE: Just because there is a prefix entry (like "anti-") or a suffix entry (like "-ward") that INITIALLY shows the hyphen to connote its "fixability" (affixing to another word) DOES NOT MEAN THE HYPHEN STAYS WHEN JOINING IT TO A WORD. Read further in the dictionary's entries to see the actual uses of the prefix or suffix. You will most likely not see the hyphen in use there with the examples.

If you want to delve further into this, then look up each compound word in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (Web11) to confirm.

However, beware, because sometimes 16CMS 7.85 (The Chicago Manual of Style, Sixteenth Edition, rule 7.85) will override Web11, meaning 16CMS allows more hyphenless prefix/suffix combinations than Web11 shows, in keeping with 16CMS's "spare hyphenation" rule.

For a further level into this madness called the English language, I could tell you about the exceptions, then about the exceptions to the exceptions. I kid you not.

The basic hyphenation exception is that, if two of the same vowels end up together (like "anti-inflammatory" with its two Is), then you need the hyphen for added clarity. BUT that doesn't always work with two Es. For example, "pre-engineered" is hyphenated per Web11. Yet "preenrollment" is not, also per Web11. Go figure.

Hence my earlier statement regarding "exceptions to the exceptions."

So I suggest everyone wanting the easiest fix to just go with the basic rule discussed above: DON'T HYPHENATE WHEN AFFIXING PREFIXES AND SUFFIXES TO WORDS.

As a copy editor, I thank you. You authors who end up using my copyediting services have made my job so much easier and have made your manuscript so much "cleaner."

As a reader, I thank you. You authors not using me as a copy editor have made my reading pleasure so much more enjoyable as my copy editor side didn't kick in during my reading-for-fun time.

In case you are interested, I'll be doing more of these copyediting tip posts as my work allows. In other words, if I'm busy copyediting projects, you won't see many of these. If I'm not busy earning a living, then you'll see more posts like these.

Here's to happily reading more good books. There will never be a shortage of good books, so, authors, both traditionally and Indie published, keep on writing!

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley

The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra

What Exactly Does a Copy Editor Do?

It's easier to show than to tell what I do as a copy editor. [Note: "copy editor" used here is the two-word open noun version.] See how many errors you find in this one sentence:

He saide 'the quick brow fox jumped over moon and the grey goose was lose in the back yard, he said.

I'll show you two correct versions at the end of this post. For now, here are the errors and quick explanations where needed:

1. He saide should be He said.

2. As a dialogue tag (the He said at the beginning of a line of dialogue), it should be followed by a comma.

3. The opening quote should be a double-quote mark, not a single-quote mark, for those authors residing in and/or publishing in the United States.

4. The first word within the quoted dialogue should be initial capped, so the quick should be The quick . . .

5. Brow should be brown.

6. Jumped over moon is missing a word. Should be jumped over the moon.

7. A comma should precede and in our example above, pursuant to 16CMS 6.28, separating the two complete sentences (each having its own subject and verb).

8. Grey should be gray per US standards as the preferred spelling found in Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh Edition (Web11). Our other US guideline is The Chicago Manual of Style, Sixteenth Edition (16CMS).

9. Lose should be loose. The first means to misplace, to not be able to find something, to have lost it. The second means running about, moving freely.

10. Back yard should be one compound word, a noun, backyard, per Web11.

11. There needs to be a closing quote mark, a double-quote mark for US purposes, after the terminal punctuation following backyard.

12. The second he said at the end of the sentence is a repeat of the dialogue tag at the beginning of the same sentence. So one needs to be deleted. First, because it is a repetitive phrase. Second, because you only need one tag per line of dialogue (and not for every line of dialogue).

13. After deleting the second dialogue tag as repetitious, then you must change the comma at the end of the line of dialogue to a period.

So here is the corrected sentence:

He said, "The quick brown fox jumped over the moon, and the gray goose was loose in the backyard."

If you prefer to have the tag line at the end (but mix these up in your scenes), here is an alternate corrected version:

"The quick brown fox jumped over the moon, and the gray goose was loose in the backyard," he said.

Hope you have enjoyed this little peek into my world as to how I copyedit a sample line of text. [Note: "copyedit" used here is the transitive verb format, or t.v., which requires a direct object, as in "a sample line of text."]

"If your vocation isn’t a vacation, then quit, leap, change careers."

Denise Barker, Author, Blogger, Copy Editor
Books that Build Character(s)

amazon.com/author/denisebarker

http://denisebarkerauthor.blogspot.com/

http://bit.ly/DeniseBarkerBlog

http://bit.ly/AMAZONDeniseBarkerEbooks

http://bit.ly/BNDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/SMASHWORDSDeniseBarkerEBooks

http://bit.ly/KOBODeniseBarkerEBooks

What lies behind you and what lies in front of you pales in comparison to what lies inside of you. Ralph Waldo Emerson
When you give someone a book, you don’t give him just paper, ink, and glue.  You give him the possibility of a whole new life. Christopher Morley
The best inheritance you can leave your kids is an example of how to live a full and meaningful life. Dan Zadra