Being an editor, and aspiring to get some copyediting jobs eventually, I’ve become familiar with a number of style manuals, The Chicago Manual of Style being one of them. Unfortunatley, since they want to continue selling the book and making money, they have thus far refused to make an electronic edition of the book, even though such a thing would be infinitely more easy to search.

However, since they realize that this is an issue, they’ve made their website searchable, so that you can input queries which will return with the section and subsection of the hardcopy; with this information in hand, you can go to the appropriate section and find the rule you were looking for.

All this is a rather long-winded way of me explaining how and why I’m on the CMS’s mailing list, which includes a regular (monthly?) Q&A update. One of the Q&As this month made me laugh out loud when I read it, so I thought I’d share it.

Q. What is the rule about using a product or company name that implies the type of product to avoid redundant words, for example, Fred’s Bakery bakery products are the best in town? What is the justification for not including the adjective for products (bakery)?

A. The justification is that that would be silly.

[Read the rest of the Q&A]

But perhaps most amusing of all… The Chicago Manual of Style editors have senses of humor? Who knew!