Grammarphobia

By Pat and Stewart on February 10, 2025

Q: The act of clinking glasses and saying “cheers” is becoming known as “cheersing.” Well, there wasn’t already a word for this, so I guess we needed one. What do you think of this neo-verb?

A: The use of “cheers” as a verb meaning to say “cheers” in a toast, often while clinking glasses, has been around for at least two decades. Standard dictionaries haven’t recognized it yet, but two collaborative online dictionaries have entries:

Wiktionary defines it as “to say ‘cheers’ as a toast (to someone)” and has this example: “We cheersed and started drinking” (from Unheard Love: Experience the Illusion of Love, 2018, a novel by Kavya Mahadik).

Urban Dictionary (in a 2011 entry) says it’s a “clickety clank clack of glasses in union, most commonly to refer to beer mugs raised in celebration.” Example: “He spilt nearly half of his Budweiser when he cheersed his glass with Pat’s.”

The earliest example we’ve found is from Mosh Pit (2004), by the Canadian novelist Kristyn Dunnion: “Choosy Soozy was drinking shots at the bar with her friends. I cheersed her with my fist because I didn’t have a beer yet, and she yelled, ‘Hey, thanks for coming to the show!’ ”

Interestingly, saying “cheers” as “a toast or salutation before drinking” is relatively recent, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The interjection first appeared in the early 20th century.

The OED’s earliest citation is from a newspaper in Perth, Australia: “The brief toast of ‘Cheers, dears!’ ” (Sunday Times, Sept. 14, 1930). However, the dictionary cautions that “the earliest use so far traced comes from Australia but it is uncertain whether it originated there.”

As for the etymology, the OED says the interjection apparently originated as the plural of the noun “cheer,” which meant one’s countenance, face, or emotional state when it appeared in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.

The first two senses are now obsolete, but the third—the emotional state—is still seen in the somewhat musty expression “be of good cheer,” which Oxford dates back to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385):

“Loue hath beset þe wel be of good chere” (“Love hath beset thee well, be of good cheer”).

In the 15th century, the noun “cheer” took on the sense of “food and drink provided for a guest or (now chiefly) enjoyed on a festive occasion,” the OED says.

The dictionary’s first example is from Le Morte Darthur (circa 1470), Sir Thomas Malory’s Middle English prose version of the Anglo-Norman Arthurian tales. In this passage, the desolate Palamedes, who’s hopelessly in love with Isolde, doesn’t feel up to dinner:

“So they wente vnto mete, but sir Palomydes myght nat ete, and there was alle the chire that myght be had” (“So they went to dinner, but Sir Palamedes could not eat, despite all the cheer [food and drink] that might be had”).

In the early 18th century, the OED says, the noun “cheer” came to mean “a shout of acclamation, encouragement, or jubilation; esp. (in singular and plural) the loud, collective shouts and other expressions of acclamation of a company or crowd.”

The first Oxford citation is from The Barbacue Feast: or, the Three Pigs of Peckham, Broil’d Under an Apple-Tree (1707), by the British satirist Edward Ward: “A huge Whistle-booby Boatswain … commanded three Chears from the Company.”

The dictionary notes that the term could refer at this time to specific shouts of “hear hear,” “hurrah,” “huzza,” and so on. However, none of the examples cited include shouts of “cheer” or “cheers.”

In the early 20th century, the interjection “cheers” began being “used as an expression of encouragement, approval, or enthusiasm,” Oxford says. The first citation, which we’ve expanded, is from a letter written on May 30, 1915, by W. Robert Foran, a British Army officer, big game hunter, and writer:

“We go out in a couple of weeks to the front. Cheers! Love to all my old friends in the Club. Send me THE SCOOP. Best wishes from Вob” (from the June 19, 1915, issue of The Scoop, a daily published by the Press Club of Chicago from 1911-17).

And as we mentioned above, the earliest OED citation for the use of the interjection “cheers” as a toast or salutation before drinking appeared in Australia in 1930.

In the dictionary’s next example for this sense of the word, two old friends exchange drinking salutations:

“ ‘Cheers!’ said the one, and ‘Here’s mud in your eye!’ the other” (from The Clock Ticks On, a 1933 mystery by the British author and journalist Valentine Williams).

In the late 20th century, the interjection “cheers” took on the sense of “thanks” in British English. The first OED example is from the British journalist Phillip Howard in The Times, London, Aug. 4, 1976:

“By a remarkable transition from the pub to the sober world at large outside cheers has become the colloquial synonym in British English for ‘thanks.’ ”

Finally, here’s an example from Kingsley Amis’s novel Jake’s Thing (1978). In this passage, Jake is relieved that a news agent doesn’t smirk when he sees a racy magazine among those Jake has selected:

“As it turned out he had been hard on this man, who politely didn’t smile or leer when he saw Jake’s selection, named a cash sum once and said Cheers five times, the first time when he noticed the approach of his customer, again when he handed the magazines, again when he took money, again when he gave change and the last time when bidden good-bye.”

Grammarphobia

By Pat and Stewart on February 10, 2025

Q: The act of clinking glasses and saying “cheers” is becoming known as “cheersing.” Well, there wasn’t already a word for this, so I guess we needed one. What do you think of this neo-verb?

A: The use of “cheers” as a verb meaning to say “cheers” in a toast, often while clinking glasses, has been around for at least two decades. Standard dictionaries haven’t recognized it yet, but two collaborative online dictionaries have entries:

Wiktionary defines it as “to say ‘cheers’ as a toast (to someone)” and has this example: “We cheersed and started drinking” (from Unheard Love: Experience the Illusion of Love, 2018, a novel by Kavya Mahadik).

Urban Dictionary (in a 2011 entry) says it’s a “clickety clank clack of glasses in union, most commonly to refer to beer mugs raised in celebration.” Example: “He spilt nearly half of his Budweiser when he cheersed his glass with Pat’s.”

The earliest example we’ve found is from Mosh Pit (2004), by the Canadian novelist Kristyn Dunnion: “Choosy Soozy was drinking shots at the bar with her friends. I cheersed her with my fist because I didn’t have a beer yet, and she yelled, ‘Hey, thanks for coming to the show!’ ”

Interestingly, saying “cheers” as “a toast or salutation before drinking” is relatively recent, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. The interjection first appeared in the early 20th century.

The OED’s earliest citation is from a newspaper in Perth, Australia: “The brief toast of ‘Cheers, dears!’ ” (Sunday Times, Sept. 14, 1930). However, the dictionary cautions that “the earliest use so far traced comes from Australia but it is uncertain whether it originated there.”

As for the etymology, the OED says the interjection apparently originated as the plural of the noun “cheer,” which meant one’s countenance, face, or emotional state when it appeared in the late 12th or early 13th centuries.

The first two senses are now obsolete, but the third—the emotional state—is still seen in the somewhat musty expression “be of good cheer,” which Oxford dates back to Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (circa 1385):

“Loue hath beset þe wel be of good chere” (“Love hath beset thee well, be of good cheer”).

In the 15th century, the noun “cheer” took on the sense of “food and drink provided for a guest or (now chiefly) enjoyed on a festive occasion,” the OED says.

The dictionary’s first example is from Le Morte Darthur (circa 1470), Sir Thomas Malory’s Middle English prose version of the Anglo-Norman Arthurian tales. In this passage, the desolate Palamedes, who’s hopelessly in love with Isolde, doesn’t feel up to dinner:

“So they wente vnto mete, but sir Palomydes myght nat ete, and there was alle the chire that myght be had” (“So they went to dinner, but Sir Palamedes could not eat, despite all the cheer [food and drink] that might be had”).

In the early 18th century, the OED says, the noun “cheer” came to mean “a shout of acclamation, encouragement, or jubilation; esp. (in singular and plural) the loud, collective shouts and other expressions of acclamation of a company or crowd.”

The first Oxford citation is from The Barbacue Feast: or, the Three Pigs of Peckham, Broil’d Under an Apple-Tree (1707), by the British satirist Edward Ward: “A huge Whistle-booby Boatswain … commanded three Chears from the Company.”

The dictionary notes that the term could refer at this time to specific shouts of “hear hear,” “hurrah,” “huzza,” and so on. However, none of the examples cited include shouts of “cheer” or “cheers.”

In the early 20th century, the interjection “cheers” began being “used as an expression of encouragement, approval, or enthusiasm,” Oxford says. The first citation, which we’ve expanded, is from a letter written on May 30, 1915, by W. Robert Foran, a British Army officer, big game hunter, and writer:

“We go out in a couple of weeks to the front. Cheers! Love to all my old friends in the Club. Send me THE SCOOP. Best wishes from Вob” (from the June 19, 1915, issue of The Scoop, a daily published by the Press Club of Chicago from 1911-17).

And as we mentioned above, the earliest OED citation for the use of the interjection “cheers” as a toast or salutation before drinking appeared in Australia in 1930.

In the dictionary’s next example for this sense of the word, two old friends exchange drinking salutations:

“ ‘Cheers!’ said the one, and ‘Here’s mud in your eye!’ the other” (from The Clock Ticks On, a 1933 mystery by the British author and journalist Valentine Williams).

In the late 20th century, the interjection “cheers” took on the sense of “thanks” in British English. The first OED example is from the British journalist Phillip Howard in The Times, London, Aug. 4, 1976:

“By a remarkable transition from the pub to the sober world at large outside cheers has become the colloquial synonym in British English for ‘thanks.’ ”

Finally, here’s an example from Kingsley Amis’s novel Jake’s Thing (1978). In this passage, Jake is relieved that a news agent doesn’t smirk when he sees a racy magazine among those Jake has selected:

“As it turned out he had been hard on this man, who politely didn’t smile or leer when he saw Jake’s selection, named a cash sum once and said Cheers five times, the first time when he noticed the approach of his customer, again when he handed the magazines, again when he took money, again when he gave change and the last time when bidden good-bye.”

According to The Washington Post, “At the National Science Foundation, staff have been combing through thousands of active science research projects, alongside a list of keywords, to determine if they include activities that violate executive orders President Donald Trump issued in his first week in office. Those include orders to recognize only two genders and roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The search is driven by dozens of flagged words, according to an internal document reviewed by The Washington Post and two NSF employees with knowledge of the review process who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak.”

The words triggering NSF reviews provide a picture of the sievelike net being cast over the typically politically independent scientific enterprise, including words like “trauma,” “barriers,” “equity” and “excluded.”

Here is a sampling of keywords drawing scrutiny to science:

activism

activists

advocacy

advocate

advocates

barrier

barriers

biased

biased toward

biases

biases towards

bipoc

black and latinx

community diversity

community equity

cultural differences

cultural heritage

culturally responsive

disabilities

disability

discriminated

discrimination

discriminatory

diverse backgrounds

diverse communities

diverse community

diverse group

diverse groups

diversified diversify

diversifying

diversity and inclusion

diversity equity

enhance the diversity

enhancing diversity

equal opportunity

equality

equitable

equity

ethnicity

excluded

female

females

fostering inclusivity

gender

gender diversity

genders

hate speech

hispanic minority

historically

implicit bias

implicit biases

inclusion

inclusive

inclusiveness

inclusivity

increase diversity

increase the diversity

indigenous community

inequalities

inequality

inequitable

inequities

institutional

Igbt

marginalize

marginalized

minorities

minority

multicultural

polarization

political

prejudice

privileges

promoting diversity

race and ethnicity

racial

racial diversity

This list is not a complete list, although it is quite extensive.

The Washington Post adds that “According to an internal document, NSF grants that are flagged for “further action” because they don’t comply with the executive orders could be subject to a range of additional steps, including modification to be in compliance or being terminated in part or whole.”

Q. Is it grammatically accurate to say something like, “I’m going to dress warmly”? My hunch is no, because “dress warmly” means that I’ll be smiling and emotionally warm as I’m dressing, given that “warmly” modifies the verb “dressing.” If all that is true, then what I’m unsure about is how to fix the sentence. Can you suggest any good alternatives besides writing around it like so: “I’m going to dress in warm clothing”?

A. If you say you’re going to dress warmly, that means you’re going to put on warm clothes, whereas addressing someone warmly would mean greeting that person with affection or kindness. Words often have more than one sense depending on how they’re used; according to Merriam-Webster (among other dictionaries), warmly is no exception.

Or maybe you’re thinking of the feel badly versus feel bad principle. That’s different, though, because unlike dress, the word feel can be a linking verb. Linking verbs reflect the predicate back onto the subject—as when you feel bad, where the adjective bad modifies the pronoun you. But when you feel badly, you are literally not good at feeling something (either physically or emotionally). See also CMOS 5.175.

Q. How should one style the title of a work in a discussion not of that work, but of its title. As an example, consider the following sentence:

The novel’s title, “Pride and Prejudice,” refers to a pair of traits seen in all of its characters.

Should the title be set in roman and within quotation marks because it is a phrase being mentioned (rather than used)? Or does the fact that it IS a title prevail, so that it should be italicized and without quotation marks? Or perhaps some tertium—or even quartum—quid? My sense is that because in that sentence its referent is not Austen’s book itself but the character flaws that recur in its plot, the italics would be inappropriate. Do I have that right?

A. You might be overthinking this. The novel’s title is Pride and Prejudice, a three-word italic phrase that names a pair of traits exhibited by many people, including the characters in that book. Chicago-style italics for book titles doesn’t prevent you from discussing what the words mean.

But if you really want to get your readers to home in on the title words as words, try something like this: “The nouns in the novel’s title, pride and prejudice, refer to a pair of traits . . .” or “The nouns in the novel’s title, ‘pride’ and ‘prejudice,’ refer to a pair of traits . . .”

For the use of italics or quotation marks to refer to words as words (either treatment is correct), see CMOS 7.66.

Q. Does CMOS have guidance for the White House’s recent changes to the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali?

A. Relative to matters of style, yes: Spell a generic word like gulf with an initial capital when it’s used as part of a proper name but not otherwise (“the Gulf of Mexico,” but “the gulf”; see CMOS 8.54); don’t add “Mount” before the name Denali (see 8.56); and spell out “Mount” in names like Mount McKinley rather than abbreviating it as “Mt.” (see 10.35).

Other than that, it’s easy enough to confirm that the names of those two geographic entities were officially changed (at least in the United States) to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, respectively, in accordance with an executive order issued on January 20, 2025, by the White House. What an author does with that information will then depend on various factors, including a publisher’s house style (if any) and considerations related to historical accuracy.

For additional guidance, see the AP Stylebook, which issues regular updates geared toward those who cover the news. In a pair of updates added on January 30, 2025, that guide says to use the original name for the gulf “while acknowledging the new name,” but, for the mountain, it says that “the Associated Press will use the new official name of Mount McKinley.” For the gulf, AP points to the long history of the older name together with the fact that the gulf shares its borders with Mexico; for the mountain, AP cites the fact that it lies entirely within the United States, which lends broader authority to that name change.

Q. With coordinate adjectives separated by a conjunction, there’s no comma: “A stable and sensible approach.” I assume it would be the same for contrasting adjectives: “A sensible yet volatile approach.” Though if you wanted to emphasize the volatility, you might set it off with commas: “A sensible, yet volatile, approach.” Does this all sound right?

A. That sounds right to us, though whenever you interrupt an adjective-plus-noun construction with an intervening phrase set off by commas, the result tends to be a little awkward. If you want to smooth things out while keeping the emphasis on volatility, try rephrasing. For example:

an approach that’s sensible yet also volatile

a sensible approach, albeit a volatile one

Or you could embrace the interruption by applying something stronger than commas:

a sensible—yet volatile—approach

a sensible (yet volatile) approach

See also CMOS 6.51.

Q. I work in curriculum. I need to be able to spell out large numbers so as to model how to read numerals correctly. I can find rules for when to hyphenate whole numbers, but I can’t find any for hyphenating decimals. Specifically, I need to know when to hyphenate the words to the right of the decimal (tenths/hundredths, etc.). Please advise. Thanks so much!

A. That’s a challenging question! Let’s start with a few numbers and how we would suggest spelling them out—on both sides of the decimal point:

1,357,201.5: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five tenths

1,357,201.58: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and fifty-eight hundredths

1,357,201.580: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five hundred eighty thousandths

1,357,201.5803: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five thousand eight hundred three ten-thousandths

Note that we’ve used commas between groups of numbers to the left of the decimal point but not to the right, which reflects how the numbers are grouped (and punctuated) as digits. But we’ve treated the numbers to the left of the decimal point as a single value rather than as a series (which might require a serial comma before and).

The rules for hyphenation are the same on both sides of the decimal point (see CMOS 7.96, section 1, “numbers, spelled out”). But note that Chicago’s preference for hyphenating simple fractions doesn’t apply to five tenths in the first example above, which simply names the number in the tenths place. It does, however, apply to an ordinal fraction like ten-thousandths:

five-tenths (a simple fraction)

five tenths (the number in the tenths place; see first example above)

ten-thousandths (the ten-thousandths place; see last example above)

See also CMOS 7.96, section 1, “fractions, simple.” Finally, note that some writers add and when spelling out certain numbers that include hundred (three hundred and fifty-seven thousand; two hundred and one); Chicago omits this and (see CMOS 9.5).

Q. I am wondering how best to cite, within one chapter of a multiauthor book, other chapters from the same volume. I am accustomed to simply adding “(see chapter X)” to the text, but one author is pushing back and wants to see them in the reference list. We are using author-date style.

A. Chapters in multiauthor books are likely to be consulted separately (and are sometimes offered for individual download or sale), so listing other chapters from that same book in the reference list at the end of your own chapter wouldn’t be the worst idea. But you should still let readers know that the chapter you’re citing is in the same book.

We’d suggest adding this information to the author-date reference for that chapter in your text—for example, like this: “(Smith 2025, in this volume).” The corresponding entry in your reference list would include the book’s title (per CMOS 13.109), so a similar comment shouldn’t be needed there:

Smith, Jane. 2025. “Chapter Title.” In Title of Book, edited by Joe Anyone. Publisher details.

If you cite more than a few chapters from your book, you may want to use a shortened form for the book: “In Anyone, Title of Book.” But even if you do that, you shouldn’t need to add a separate entry in the reference list for the book as a whole, the identity of which should be obvious to anyone who is already reading something from that book. For some additional considerations, see CMOS 14.10, under “author-date.”

Q. CMOS 13.128 shows how to use author-date citations in a footnote, but what about an informational footnote like, “The history of exclusion of Chinese people in the United States has been highly researched. To begin, see . . .”? Should the parentheses around the citations be removed, as in “To begin, see Chan 1991, Lee 2003, and Kurashige 2016”? Otherwise, it might seem as though the citations are substantiating the statement, rather than being offered as suggested reading.

A. In Chicago style, the “see” in “see Chan” means that you’re referring to a work rather than a person, and the year would retain parentheses whether in the text or in a note: “To begin, see Chan (1991), Lee (2003), and Kurashige (2016).” If you’re instead referring to the author in terms of the work, the wording would need to make that clear: “See the earlier efforts by Chan (1991) to digitize the archival records.”

Parentheses for the year are omitted only when the citation is itself in parentheses, in which case semicolons rather than commas separate the sources, as in “(to begin, see Chan 1991; Lee 2003; Kurashige 2016).” But if your parenthetical reference is to an author rather than a work, the year would get square brackets: “(See the earlier efforts by Chan [1991] to digitize the archival records.)” See CMOS 13.122 and 13.124.

Q. Is it grammatically accurate to say something like, “I’m going to dress warmly”? My hunch is no, because “dress warmly” means that I’ll be smiling and emotionally warm as I’m dressing, given that “warmly” modifies the verb “dressing.” If all that is true, then what I’m unsure about is how to fix the sentence. Can you suggest any good alternatives besides writing around it like so: “I’m going to dress in warm clothing”?

A. If you say you’re going to dress warmly, that means you’re going to put on warm clothes, whereas addressing someone warmly would mean greeting that person with affection or kindness. Words often have more than one sense depending on how they’re used; according to Merriam-Webster (among other dictionaries), warmly is no exception.

Or maybe you’re thinking of the feel badly versus feel bad principle. That’s different, though, because unlike dress, the word feel can be a linking verb. Linking verbs reflect the predicate back onto the subject—as when you feel bad, where the adjective bad modifies the pronoun you. But when you feel badly, you are literally not good at feeling something (either physically or emotionally). See also CMOS 5.175.

Q. How should one style the title of a work in a discussion not of that work, but of its title. As an example, consider the following sentence:

The novel’s title, “Pride and Prejudice,” refers to a pair of traits seen in all of its characters.

Should the title be set in roman and within quotation marks because it is a phrase being mentioned (rather than used)? Or does the fact that it IS a title prevail, so that it should be italicized and without quotation marks? Or perhaps some tertium—or even quartum—quid? My sense is that because in that sentence its referent is not Austen’s book itself but the character flaws that recur in its plot, the italics would be inappropriate. Do I have that right?

A. You might be overthinking this. The novel’s title is Pride and Prejudice, a three-word italic phrase that names a pair of traits exhibited by many people, including the characters in that book. Chicago-style italics for book titles doesn’t prevent you from discussing what the words mean.

But if you really want to get your readers to home in on the title words as words, try something like this: “The nouns in the novel’s title, pride and prejudice, refer to a pair of traits . . .” or “The nouns in the novel’s title, ‘pride’ and ‘prejudice,’ refer to a pair of traits . . .”

For the use of italics or quotation marks to refer to words as words (either treatment is correct), see CMOS 7.66.

Q. Does CMOS have guidance for the White House’s recent changes to the names of the Gulf of Mexico and Denali?

A. Relative to matters of style, yes: Spell a generic word like gulf with an initial capital when it’s used as part of a proper name but not otherwise (“the Gulf of Mexico,” but “the gulf”; see CMOS 8.54); don’t add “Mount” before the name Denali (see 8.56); and spell out “Mount” in names like Mount McKinley rather than abbreviating it as “Mt.” (see 10.35).

Other than that, it’s easy enough to confirm that the names of those two geographic entities were officially changed (at least in the United States) to the Gulf of America and Mount McKinley, respectively, in accordance with an executive order issued on January 20, 2025, by the White House. What an author does with that information will then depend on various factors, including a publisher’s house style (if any) and considerations related to historical accuracy.

For additional guidance, see the AP Stylebook, which issues regular updates geared toward those who cover the news. In a pair of updates added on January 30, 2025, that guide says to use the original name for the gulf “while acknowledging the new name,” but, for the mountain, it says that “the Associated Press will use the new official name of Mount McKinley.” For the gulf, AP points to the long history of the older name together with the fact that the gulf shares its borders with Mexico; for the mountain, AP cites the fact that it lies entirely within the United States, which lends broader authority to that name change.

Q. With coordinate adjectives separated by a conjunction, there’s no comma: “A stable and sensible approach.” I assume it would be the same for contrasting adjectives: “A sensible yet volatile approach.” Though if you wanted to emphasize the volatility, you might set it off with commas: “A sensible, yet volatile, approach.” Does this all sound right?

A. That sounds right to us, though whenever you interrupt an adjective-plus-noun construction with an intervening phrase set off by commas, the result tends to be a little awkward. If you want to smooth things out while keeping the emphasis on volatility, try rephrasing. For example:

an approach that’s sensible yet also volatile

a sensible approach, albeit a volatile one

Or you could embrace the interruption by applying something stronger than commas:

a sensible—yet volatile—approach

a sensible (yet volatile) approach

See also CMOS 6.51.

Q. I work in curriculum. I need to be able to spell out large numbers so as to model how to read numerals correctly. I can find rules for when to hyphenate whole numbers, but I can’t find any for hyphenating decimals. Specifically, I need to know when to hyphenate the words to the right of the decimal (tenths/hundredths, etc.). Please advise. Thanks so much!

A. That’s a challenging question! Let’s start with a few numbers and how we would suggest spelling them out—on both sides of the decimal point:

1,357,201.5: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five tenths

1,357,201.58: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and fifty-eight hundredths

1,357,201.580: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five hundred eighty thousandths

1,357,201.5803: one million, three hundred fifty-seven thousand, two hundred one and five thousand eight hundred three ten-thousandths

Note that we’ve used commas between groups of numbers to the left of the decimal point but not to the right, which reflects how the numbers are grouped (and punctuated) as digits. But we’ve treated the numbers to the left of the decimal point as a single value rather than as a series (which might require a serial comma before and).

The rules for hyphenation are the same on both sides of the decimal point (see CMOS 7.96, section 1, “numbers, spelled out”). But note that Chicago’s preference for hyphenating simple fractions doesn’t apply to five tenths in the first example above, which simply names the number in the tenths place. It does, however, apply to an ordinal fraction like ten-thousandths:

five-tenths (a simple fraction)

five tenths (the number in the tenths place; see first example above)

ten-thousandths (the ten-thousandths place; see last example above)

See also CMOS 7.96, section 1, “fractions, simple.” Finally, note that some writers add and when spelling out certain numbers that include hundred (three hundred and fifty-seven thousand; two hundred and one); Chicago omits this and (see CMOS 9.5).

Q. I am wondering how best to cite, within one chapter of a multiauthor book, other chapters from the same volume. I am accustomed to simply adding “(see chapter X)” to the text, but one author is pushing back and wants to see them in the reference list. We are using author-date style.

A. Chapters in multiauthor books are likely to be consulted separately (and are sometimes offered for individual download or sale), so listing other chapters from that same book in the reference list at the end of your own chapter wouldn’t be the worst idea. But you should still let readers know that the chapter you’re citing is in the same book.

We’d suggest adding this information to the author-date reference for that chapter in your text—for example, like this: “(Smith 2025, in this volume).” The corresponding entry in your reference list would include the book’s title (per CMOS 13.109), so a similar comment shouldn’t be needed there:

Smith, Jane. 2025. “Chapter Title.” In Title of Book, edited by Joe Anyone. Publisher details.

If you cite more than a few chapters from your book, you may want to use a shortened form for the book: “In Anyone, Title of Book.” But even if you do that, you shouldn’t need to add a separate entry in the reference list for the book as a whole, the identity of which should be obvious to anyone who is already reading something from that book. For some additional considerations, see CMOS 14.10, under “author-date.”

Q. CMOS 13.128 shows how to use author-date citations in a footnote, but what about an informational footnote like, “The history of exclusion of Chinese people in the United States has been highly researched. To begin, see . . .”? Should the parentheses around the citations be removed, as in “To begin, see Chan 1991, Lee 2003, and Kurashige 2016”? Otherwise, it might seem as though the citations are substantiating the statement, rather than being offered as suggested reading.

A. In Chicago style, the “see” in “see Chan” means that you’re referring to a work rather than a person, and the year would retain parentheses whether in the text or in a note: “To begin, see Chan (1991), Lee (2003), and Kurashige (2016).” If you’re instead referring to the author in terms of the work, the wording would need to make that clear: “See the earlier efforts by Chan (1991) to digitize the archival records.”

Parentheses for the year are omitted only when the citation is itself in parentheses, in which case semicolons rather than commas separate the sources, as in “(to begin, see Chan 1991; Lee 2003; Kurashige 2016).” But if your parenthetical reference is to an author rather than a work, the year would get square brackets: “(See the earlier efforts by Chan [1991] to digitize the archival records.)” See CMOS 13.122 and 13.124.