The agency developed a modus operandi for such situations.
Is "modus operandi" italicised in such a sentence as this?
Best Answer
Obey the dictates of your manual of style, either the one you've chosen or the one thrust upon you. I use The Chicago Manual of Style, which specifies italics for Latin words that have not been adopted into the English:
His modus operandi is veni, vidi, vici.
I would say that any Latin term that has its own acronym in police procedures (i.e, "MO") has been incorporated into the language.
CMS places scholarly abbreviations ("ibid.", "op. cit", etc.) in roman type:
The abbreviation "op. cit." stands for opere citato, Latin for "in the
work cited."
The word sic, Latin for thus, to leave no doubt that a quoted passage is how it actually appears in its source, is italicized:
I would say no. Here is a quick guide on the correct usage of italics. To summarize: Don't use it for the proper noun. They example they give for a restaurant: if you write about a certain dish you ate that might not be commonly known, italicize it, but do not italicize the restaurant name.
The verb "called" has an appellative use and a non-appellative use. In the former, specific words are identified by which something is called. In the latter, no specific words are mentioned. (1) is an example of an appellative use and (2) is an example of a non-appellative use.
She called me "stupid."
She called me stupid.
In the appellative case, the words specified must be marked as occurring metalinguistically. That is, quotation marks or italics should be used.
All of your examples seem to be appellative, so you probably want the italics, except, perhaps, on the first one, involving Big John. This is because of the structure: "Big John" is not occurring in the standard object position of "called." I think that one might work without italics but I would include them for emphasis and consistency.
Best Answer
Obey the dictates of your manual of style, either the one you've chosen or the one thrust upon you. I use The Chicago Manual of Style, which specifies italics for Latin words that have not been adopted into the English:
I would say that any Latin term that has its own acronym in police procedures (i.e, "MO") has been incorporated into the language.
CMS places scholarly abbreviations ("ibid.", "op. cit", etc.) in roman type:
The word sic, Latin for thus, to leave no doubt that a quoted passage is how it actually appears in its source, is italicized:
*It was a hamm-handed [sic] attempt at humor.*