When I learn new things that I consider interesting about the editing or publishing field, I can’t expect much of a reaction from most of my friends and family. They just don’t get it. But you, readers, might!

Did you know that the Chicago Manual of Style, the style guide of all style guides, is coming out with a 17th edition this September? New editions are several years apart, and as language evolves, more changes will occur in our style guides. So, I’m excited to see what’s new and what’s changed.

One example of a change is the acceptance of the word “themself.” If you even try to type that in a program that has spell check, you’ll see an angry red squiggle under it, or else spell check will automatically replace it with “themselves.” Since the singular “they” is becoming more and more accepted, we need a reflexive pronoun for it that’ll fit. For example, if you’re using “they” in a sentence to represent a singular person, usually with an unknown gender, you wouldn’t later say “himself” (what if the person is not a male?); “themself” is what would fit now.

Is any of that interesting to y’all? I hope so. As always, I’m here if you have questions.

Editor Amy