i might return...

Since learning that I am the fourth most famous image source on mini-burgers in the world ¹, I have been considering returning to this blogging game. Seems it brings some fame afterall.

For now I am just excited that people ask the Chicago Style Manual people questions like this:

Q. I am editor for a group of academic writers, who recently squawked when I mentioned the following guideline in the CMOS, 15th edition (8.180): use lowercase and no italics for “the” in a newspaper title, even if it is part of the official title. Their concerns: (1) it seems unscholarly to treat “the” as a generic term when it is part of the official title; (2) doesn’t this flout copyright protocol? (3) why does the rule apply only to American newspapers? I found myself unable to offer concrete reasons for the rule, so I said I would ask the CMOS editors directly.

A. The reasoning is that it’s not practical to make a rule that requires checking every newspaper to see whether its official title has The in it or not. (Keep in mind that the convention was established in pre-Internet days.) And it doesn’t help to use The only in the cases where you can easily confirm it, since that would imply that titles without The were also definitive, when in fact they simply hadn’t been checked. As for copyright, titles are shortened all the time in scholarly writing. Foreign titles are exempt because it’s also impractical to research whether the first word in a foreign title means “the” or not. Most of us can recognize an article in Spanish or French, but even then, are we sure about words like de and da? What about Polish or Portuguese or Russian?

I hope this helps squelch the squawking.

Yes indeed it is excellent and I love the friendly collegial tone, all cardigans and cups of tea. But what about magazines. I argued for The Big Issue even though I always write the Age. Squawk, squawk.

¹ It's true.. try "mini burger" in google image search. Sure it's only 35% of the internet or whatever Alex said google searches, but it's the 35% that counts isn't it? Tal was pretty excited with the fame this brings her too.. as the model posing with the mini burger.