How do I love The Chicago Manual of Style? Let me count the ways.
I admit to being a religious fanatic, and CMoS is my scripture. It's nice to run a situation through the search on CMoS online concordance and have it spit out chapter and verse--er, locations. With regard to the serial comma, quoth the Chicago Manual in chapter six, verse twelve, "Use thine the serial comma, which English hath given unto you, excepting in situations involving the ampersand" (Kristin Paraphrase Version). Armed with this information, I can defend the changes I make to a manuscript.
To further illustrate my love for the CMoS (while simultaneously illustrating my misplaced priorities), today when both my laptop and my Chicago Manual of Style were jostled from their spots on the porch swing, I reached first to save the book. This was not the best reflex. Neither the book nor the laptop were harmed, but it could have been much worse.
Sure there are things I don't like about the CMoS--In the M6 Open Discussion I mentioned that "starting a sentence with a number" situation. I admit starting a sentence that way is maybe not the best practice, but writing a rule to proscribe it seems excessive. But then, I don't make the rules--I only enforce them.
Do I know all the things in the CMoS? Nope. Not yet. And reading it straight through makes my eyeballs bleed--okay, not really, but reading the manual is a dangerous cure for insomnia, what with the thing weighing in at 3.2 pounds but feeling more like twelve. I wish there were a better way to download the necessary info to my brain.
