At CCU we provide content that we believe in, are proud of, and, as the following exchange shows, are sometimes in dire need of!

Karen received an email that touched upon the rather confusing mix of transliteration systems that are in (simultaneous existence) in Taiwan. Karen forwarded the email to Mary, our senior copyeditor, and me asking if we were familiar with this situation. As Mary has spent many hours writing and rewriting the Berkshire Manual of Style for International Publishing (or BMSIP for short), and is an expert on the CMS (Chicago Manual of Style), she quickly responded with the following message:

“Only in the context of the foreign name section of CMS 16.85 (about indexing); the final caveat after the Thai entry is “Seek expert help.” Which we included in BMSIP, by the way.”

A few minutes later, Mary followed up on her own email:

“You both probably think I am crazy to mix up Taiwan and Thailand . . . that’s what I get for answering email while supposedly focusing on something else.”

But Mary isn’t the only one that sometimes mixes up Taiwan and Thailand, and we happened to have a nice video on our website, by the Two Chinese Characters, that explains the difference between the two. Of course, I had to sent Mary the link to this video (and she loved it), and I will give it to you as well: Taiwan isn’t Thailand. You can pick up some vocabulary along the way (Chinese, that is, not Thai), so go and check it out!