Chicago decades

From The Chicago Manual of Style: the CMOS Shop Talk blog considers names for decades. I remember the semi-facetious “aughts” from a graduate course on the idea of the decade in literary history.

One small instance of the care that goes into revising The Chicago Manual of Style:

Sixteenth edition, 9.34: “Decades are either spelled out (as long as the century is clear) and lowercased or expressed in numerals.”

Seventeenth edition, 9.33: “Decades are either expressed in numerals or spelled out (as long as the century is clear) and lowercased.”

The sentence reads more easily with the shorter element, “expressed in numerals,” first. And switching the elements eliminates the slight glitch in reading that might come with “and lowercased or expressed in numerals.”

Yes, I love The Chicago Manual of Style. Chicago style is far superior to APA and MLA, IMO.