This is the sixth in a series of posts to address issues I have seen in the work of others with my suggestions for how writers can improve their manuscripts before turning them over to agents, editors, and the many other individuals involved in the process of turning a manuscript into a book.
#6 ITALICIZING FOREIGN WORDS
The Chicago Manual of Style recommends italicizing unfamiliar foreign words. But what is unfamliar and foreign to one person may be familiar to another. A standard means to determine the familiarity of a foreign word is whether it appears in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary.
When I edit the work of others, I use merriam-webster.com to look up all foreign words and place any not appearing there in italics. I do not rely on whether the words are familiar to me.
The exception—there’s always an exception—to this rule of italicizing unfamiliar foreign words is that foreign proper names are not be italicized.
In my own work-in-progress, set in Tehran in the mid-1970s, therefore, I have not italicized the names of streets even though the words do not appear in merriam-webster.com. In addition, I found many words I thought would be unfamiliar to readers in merriam-webster.com, likely because more than forty years have passed since I lived there.
Image credit: Photo by Charles Deluvio on Unsplash
Sandra Yeaman retired from the US Department of State in 2007 after 23 years as a Foreign Service Officer. As a management officer, she served at US embassies in Qatar, Barbados, Moldova, the United Arab Emirates, Yemen, Madagascar, Zambia, and Eritrea. In addition, she served in consular positions in Germany and Barbados and previously taught English as a Foreign Language in Iran and Romania.
She is familiar with Arabic, Farsi, German, Romanian, Russian, and Spanish. Her experiences overseas brought her in touch with underserved minorities and religious groups out of favor with the current government. These experiences provide her with a sensitivity in her writing and editing not easily attained by others.
These changes in environment and cultures challenged her notion of what success is. What made it possible for her to thrive in the midst of the change is the solid foundation she received in her childhood years in northern Minnesota.
Since retirement, Sandra has been writing her story and her journey from a young woman seeking adventure to a mature woman who found her mission. She hopes to complete her novel in 2021 and looks forward to gaining the expertise in the full range of pre-publication book preparation and marketing.
Sandra's Website
