I found the Chicago Manual of Style 16th Edition at the library book sale. It was published in 2010; it was the first edition of Chicago to go online. They are up to the 18th edition now. It is pristine and built like a linebacker, a 1,026-page, vacuum-packed guide to writing English words, sentences, and paragraphs that make sense, make your argument, and make angels sing.

Chicago was my brother…my captain…my king when I was a copy editor. I used to hum “I will survive” while paging through it. These days, I can live without Chicago. I write, someone else edits. And frankly, although searching a 101-page paper index is charming, it is infinitely faster to search online.

I opened Chicago 16 (not the album by the stupid band) to find the definition of the comma splice. Comma splices run free in Elizabeth Strout’s new novel, The Things We Never Say. I am impressed by this book, but not by the copy-editing.

“Comma splice” was not included in Chicago 16’s index. I finally found what I wanted under “sentences, run-on.” If I subscribed to Chicago, I could’ve found it online in their searchable version. I could also have found it in seconds at grammareer.com or any other free grammar resource.

Oh well. It was the last day of the library sale and they were charging $5 per bag of books just to get rid of them. I couldn’t resist.

Our tomato plants are gone, but Lucky (in pursuit) and Tango (spinning out) rock on.