The Abbeville Manual of Style

The Abbeville Manual of Style is currently on hiatus. Check back soon for new posts!
The Best of The Abbeville Manual of Style
Books, Literature, and Publishing

The Life of Publishing
The “Bookster” Threat
Splendor in the Library
Lit Fans Bid U Adieu
Seeking Literary Love
Is Editing Necessary?

Art

Andrew Wyeth R.I.P.
On The Painted Word
Marlene Dumas at MoMA
Gustave Courbet: The Origin of Style

Interviews

Lois Lowry, Newbery [...]

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In today’s epic battle against The Chicago Manual of Style, we confront a glaring omission in their “Glossary of Troublesome Expressions.” Here’s the relevant passage:
carat; karat; caret. Carat measures the weight of a gemstone; karat measures the purity of gold. To remember the difference, think of 24K. Caret is a mark on a manuscript indicating where matter [...]

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Throughout the long mock war we’ve waged against The Chicago Manual of Style, we’ve always preferred to tangle with their print edition, largely because the paint-peeling shade of orange they chose for the cover has been good for so many cheap potshots. Today, however, we came across an item on their Web edition—the color scheme of which [...]

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Publishing industry experts agree that of all the events to take place at this year’s BookExpo America, the most hotly anticipated was a potential confrontation between Abbeville and the publishers of The Chicago Manual of Style. For the past year or so, as our readers know, we’ve been waging a series of grammar and editing battles against the [...]

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As readers of our site (and Janet Reid’s and John McIntyre’s) know, we’ve waged an epic series of mock editing battles against The Chicago Manual of Style over the past year. As epic battles go, however, this one has remained remarkably stealthy: so much so that until now, the opponent hasn’t known we’ve been fighting it. This hasn’t [...]

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In today’s installment of our ongoing war against the House of Orange, we take issue with—well, really just amusement from—The Chicago Manual of Style’s touchy “historical note” on Ruman numerals. According to CMOS 9.70:
The use of subtrahends (back counters) was introduced during the Renaissance. Note that IIII, not IV, still appears on some clock faces. The Romans would have [...]

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Knock knock. Who’s there? Orange. Orange who? Orange you glad you’re not The Chicago Manual of Style right about now? It’s time for another steely-eyed, Abbeville-style grammatical battle, and with a cover like that, there aren’t too many places Chicago can hide.
Actually, we’re treating them today to a graphical, not a grammatical, smackdown. We dearly [...]

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As we resume regular posting at this, our brand-new Web location (abbeville.com/blog—tell all your friends; tattoo it on your forehead; trace it in wet concrete when no one’s looking), we thought we’d kick things off with one of our signature battles against The Chicago Manual of Style. To the barricades!
Our bone of contention today [...]

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You think Chicago’s politics could use some cleaning up these days? You should see their editing! HI-OHH! That’s right, it’s time for another battle against our formidably orange opponent, The Chicago Manual of Style. Eat your heart out, Janet Reid.
Our bone of contention today is “extracts,” otherwise known as block quotations—that is, quotations lengthy enough to require [...]

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Time yet again for a rousing battle against our formidably orange opponent, The Chicago Manual of Style. In Chapter 18 (”Indexes”), the Chicago editors weigh in on the subject of “Cross-References,” and in the process violate the very rules they lay down. Unfortunately, they do so in the least entertaining way possible. To wit: Chicago 18.19 declares that whenever See also [...]

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Ordinarily our battles against the Chicago Manual of Style are waged on the killing fields of English grammar, usage, and style, but occasionally we like to hit our opponent from a completely unexpected direction. This week no less an eminence than “Grammar Girl,” a.k.a. Mignon Fogarty, host of the wildly popular podcast on all things grammatical, [...]

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Oh, man. Some style manuals just weren’t meant to be arbiters of style. Thumbing through the Chicago Manual’s quaintly-named “Glossary of Troublesome Expressions,” we came across this stunning act of capitulation:
effete. Traditionally, it has meant “decadent, worn out, sterile.” Today it is often used to mean either “snobbish” or “effeminate.” Because of its ambiguity, the word is [...]

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Yes, it’s time for another brief wrangle with the only style guide whose jacket color can be seen from outer space: The Chicago Manual of Style. We came across a puzzling entry today in their “Word Usage” section (a simpler title would have been “Diction,” but we’ll let that go) regarding the distinctions among “odious,” “odorous,” [...]

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We couldn’t resist a little one-round bout with The Chicago Manual of Style after this passage caught our eye today:
Word Usage
5.204. Gender bias. Consider the use of gender-neutral language. On the one hand, it is unacceptable to a great many reasonable readers to use the generic masculine pronoun (he in reference to no one in [...]

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Today we at Abbeville square off yet again against our older, more orange rival, The Chicago Manual of Style, in a grueling battle for style guide supremacy. (You can find previous battles here and here.) This time, the fight is personal. In one of the opening chapters of their latest edition, Chicago presumes to [...]

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To-day we here at Abbeville are squaring off against the reigning heavyweight champion of style guides, The Chicago Manual of Style, over one of the most devilishly contentious punctuation marks ever invented: the hyphen. It’s going to be a tough fight, but we’re prepared to face that big orange style Goliath armed with nothing but [...]

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Anyone who’s ever wielded a red pen or stared down the business end of a semicolon will know that the Abbeville Manual of Style is not the only style guide in existence. (Not yet…not yet.) Its title is, of course, an homage to the Chicago Manual of Style, companion to generations of editors and [...]

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