Titled or entitled? The newest CMOS Q&A

Read this Q&A section and all the previous ones at www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda

November’s edition of CMOS Q&A covers a range of language dilemmas, from choosing between "titled" and "entitled" to present the name of a book, to navigating hyphenation rules when two of our trusted sources disagree, to punctuating dialogue like a pro. We hope you find it as enlightening as we did!

New Questions and Answers

Q. In text, I write: “. . . a book titled, ABC Book.” But should I use the word “titled” or “entitled” in front of the title? Also, should the title be preceded by a comma, as I’ve done here? I’ve always included the comma, but that may not be correct. Please help. Thanks!

A. Both titled and entitled are correct, and in this context they mean the same thing. Normally, you can use titled—that is, unless you’re feeling entitled (the other meaning of that word) to use the slightly fancier-sounding entitled.

But omit the comma before the book title. Many writers assume that a comma is needed before the title of any book or other work mentioned mid-sentence, probably because the words in italics or quotation marks resemble quoted writing or speech. In other words, titled (or entitled) is often treated (incorrectly) like said would be.

Instead, you should save your commas for direct quotations introduced like the one in the third example below (but not the fourth one; see also CMOS 12.14):

I just started writing a book titled ABC Book.

and

The first chapter is called “It’s Now or Never.”

but

My publisher said, “It’s now or never.”

or

My publisher said that “it’s now or never.”

Q. While The Chicago Manual of Style still supports a no-hyphen version of “up to date” when not before a noun, Merriam-Webster appears to support using hyphens in all cases. I am not sure which to advise my clients to use.

A. When Merriam-Webster and CMOS disagree relative to hyphenation, follow CMOS. Because CMOS says specifically that “up to date” remains open after a noun—an up-to-date solution but his equipment was up to date (see the hyphenation guide at CMOS 7.96, under “phrases, adjectival”)—that’s what you should advise.

Keep in mind that Chicago favors a spare hyphenation style. What this often means in practice is that any compound adjective that follows the noun it modifies (i.e., instead of directly preceding it) can usually be left open. There are only a few adjective phrases that retain hyphens in any position—among them all-consuming and high-spirited—as described in CMOS 7.92.

But those are exceptions. In general, documents that include relatively few hyphens in compound adjectives after a noun will be the ones that are the most up to date as far as Chicago style is concerned (up to and including the 18th edition).

Q. I’m proofreading a manuscript in which a lot of dialogue tags are followed with descriptive verb phrases. But instead of using gerunds to do this (“I like cats,” he said, smiling), the author opts nine times out of ten to use a conjunction (“I like cats,” he said and smiled). In most of these cases, my instinct is to put a comma after the dialogue tag, but I’m unable to find any CMOS rule that applies to this specific instance.

A. A comma in your second example isn’t strictly required; the word “and” introduces the second half of a compound predicate (“smiled”), which is easier to see if you reorganize your example and replace the quoted dialogue with an indefinite pronoun:

He said something and smiled.

But the transition from speaking verb (“said”) to action verb (“smiled”) in the original version of the example is a little abrupt, and we agree with your instinct that a comma after “said” would be helpful:

“I like cats,” he said, and smiled.

For a similar take on this issue, see Amy J. Schneider’s The Chicago Guide to Copyediting Fiction (University of Chicago Press, 2023), 163–64. See also CMOS 6.24 (on commas with compound predicates) and 12.41 (on punctuation with speaker tags).

Q. I’m proofreading a book that was previously published in the UK for forthcoming US publication. The hyphenation of “century” compounds using BCE/CE preceding a noun is inconsistent throughout. Examples: “A first-century-CE graffito from a wall in Pompeii”; “A second-century BCE satire.” My inclination, guided by CMOS 7.94 (on multiple hyphens), is to follow the second example, without a hyphen before BCE/CE, which is also how the UK edition was styled. I can’t seem to find any CMOS guidance that specifically addresses this issue, though. Is my inclination sound? Many thanks for any help.

A. We agree with your inclination, which also happens to be supported by Chicago’s recommendation to omit hyphens in compound modifiers consisting of a number plus an abbreviation, as in the 33 m distance (see CMOS 7.96, sec. 1, under “number + abbreviation”). That example isn’t perfectly analogous to a first-century CE graffito, but it’s close enough.

Q. Regarding professional titles (e.g., “chef”) that appear before a person’s name in running copy, it’s not clear when such titles should be initial capped. In CMOS 8.20, Chicago indicates that “professional titles are capitalized when they immediately precede a personal name and are thus used as part of the name (traditionally replacing the title holder’s first name).” But in 8.31, Chicago writes, “When preceding a name, generic titles that describe a person’s role or occupation—such as philosopher or historian—are normally lowercased.” So my question is, Do you have any guidance for distinguishing between a “professional title” and “generic titles that describe a person’s role or occupation”? It would seem that this is a contradiction in Chicago, but perhaps I’m missing something? Any input on this issue would be greatly appreciated!

A. The difference between a professional title and a job description won’t always be crystal clear. If you’re unsure about a particular term not covered in CMOS, try looking up usage for someone famous and using that as your model.

For example, would you refer to “Chef Julia Child,” with a capital C in Chef, and by extension to “Chef Child”? This n-gram from Google Books suggests that this choice would be an outlier. And it’s not how Child and other professional chefs are referred to in the book Appetite for Life, the authorized biography of Child by Noël Riley Fitch (Anchor Books, 1999). Instead, modeling the usage in that book—which refers, for example, to “the teaching of chef Pierre Mangelotte” (181)—you’d refer to chef Julia Child or to Julia Child, the chef (but never to “Chef Child”).

Still, if you wanted to call a particular character “Chef Smith” in a novel or story, that could work well, assuming that’s how the character would be addressed by others (in the manner of a doctor or a coach; see CMOS 8.37). And there may be some real-life chefs who insist on the same—as well as some books that apply the initial capital. But lowercase for chef seems like the more appropriate choice in most cases.

Words for other types of jobs can be investigated in the same way. If your efforts fail to yield a clear choice, go with lowercase.

[Editor’s update: As one of our readers has pointed out to us, Julia Child may often be referred to as a chef, but she was not a chef in the strictest sense of that term, in which a chef is someone who has run a kitchen in a restaurant or similar organization. Such a professional would include, for example, the chef José Andrés, who is often referred to as Chef José Andrés or Chef Andrés, where “Chef” is considered to be his title. Our advice above should have included this distinction.]

Q. In the headline “Rack ’em Up and Play,” would Chicago support ’em or ’Em? (It’s for an article about a billiards-themed mobile game. We follow Chicago, so our headlines are always in title case. And we have a casual style, hence the contraction.) I’m consumed by indecision. On the one hand, ’Em is technically a pronoun, standing in for Them, and pronouns regardless of length are capitalized in headlines. On the other, I get stuck on the fact that the initial letter of the full word is what would be capitalized, and that initial letter is removed by the contraction. No initial letter, no capital? Aesthetically the lowercase option looks better to me, but other colleagues have said lowercase looks like a mistake to them. Help!

A. Our vote would be to apply an initial capital: Rack ’Em Up and Play. The similar contraction ’twas is usually written ’Twas at the beginning of a sentence (as in the opening line of that famous nineteenth-century American poem: ’Twas the night before Christmas . . .), even though the T in ’Twas would be lowercase if the contraction were to be spelled out (It was . . .). In other words, there’s at least one well-known precedent for ignoring an initial apostrophe for the purposes of capitalization.

Q. How should one cite a published book that is in an archival (personal papers) collection? The most important element of the book is not the text but the annotations added by the person whose collection the book is in. Thanks!

A. Cite the book like any other book; then cite the archive according to the advice and examples in CMOS 14.119–29, prefacing this information with “in” if it immediately follows the book citation (cf. CMOS 13.25).

The goal is to make it clear which book you’re citing and where the copy that has the annotations can be found. The annotations themselves can be discussed anywhere—in your text, in your notes, or in an addendum to a bibliography entry for the book (see CMOS 13.68, item 3)—and you can cite specific page numbers where applicable. But the annotations wouldn’t be cited as a separate entity.