Garblog's Pages

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Chicago Manual of Style Q&A: New Questions and Answers, February 2013

The Chicago Manual of Style website has been updated for February 2013 with answers to questions asked by readers. I get a free monthly email message listing the questions and a link to this site for the answers.

Among the questions:

Q. Over the years, both clients and other practitioners have consistently used the word gift as a verb, as in “I want to gift my house to my daughter.” This seems awfully stilted. Is there something wrong with the word give?

Q. A number of my friends and colleagues now use invite as a noun, as in “send him an invite.” I think it’s pretty lazy usage when the perfectly good word invitation is available. Am I just an old crank who doesn't like change?
Q. When making reference to western (occidental) cultures, western media, western identity politics, I prefer to use a lowercase w. However, my copyeditor has changed every instance of my use of western to Western. Who is right and why?
Q. Recently a fellow editor and I had a discussion on the use of “whether or not” and when the “or not” is needed.
Q. When referring to a zombie, should I use the relative pronoun who (which would refer to a person) or that (since, technically, the zombie is no longer living)?

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