Bug in Chicago 17 CSL

John P. McCaskey · August 7, 2023

When an old-fashioned long title has two components joined by “or”, the “or” should not be capitalized. See CMOS 17 14.91. But text formatted with the production Chicago 17 CSL has the "or" capitalized.

For example, my book has this title

Logic made easy: or A short view of the Aristotelic system of reasoning, and its application to literature, science, and the general improvement of the mind

but it gets formatted as

Logic Made Easy: Or A Short View of the Aristotelic System of Reasoning, and Its Application to Literature, Science, and the General Improvement of the Mind

adamsmith · August 7, 2023

I read 14.91 to avoid having a colon before the "or" to avoid confusing long titles with subtitles (note that none of the examples in 14.91 actually have a lowecase or after a colon) and, in fact, all citations to "Logic Made Easy" I find have the "or" preceded by either a comma or a semicolon.

In either case, even if Chicago would want a lowercase "or" after a colon there, I don't really see how we can reasonably automate that (subtitles can also start with an or, which should then be capitalized). If you are really set on keeping the title as is, you can apply the no case HTML tag as described here: https://www.zotero.org/support/kb/rich_text_bibliography

John P. McCaskey · August 7, 2023

Thanks @adamsmith.

That makes sense. I’ll just change colon to comma or use class="nocase".