Re: web site or website; e-mail or email

["Dick Margulis" <margulis -at- mail -dot- fiam -dot- net>]

Editorial consensus tends to migrate in a consistent direction with all neologisms--from marked and hyphenated to unmarked and unhyphenated. So I try to stay ahead of the curve by aggressively dehyphenating, much as Win does: email, online, onsite, workaround, etc.

However, I've resisted "website" (or, more truthfully, I went there and then backed off). World Wide Web is a proper noun. So we write about our Web-enabled application, Web-powered technology, etc., using Web as shorthand for World Wide Web. (Similarly, the Internet gets a cap when we're talking about the one that the World Wide Web is a part of; intranet doesn't, of course.) With all these capitalized Webs floating around, it just seems more consistent and natural to refer to Web pages and Web sites with caps as well. I still use websites in informal internal email, but I've gone back to two words, with cap, for all external communications and publications.

That's just where I'm at for now. The current may push me over the dam a year from now.

Dick  

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: Win Day <winday -at- home -dot- com>
>
>         websites
>
>         email
>
>And in my industry (refining and petrochemicals) you'll find words like
>
>         startup
>
>         shutdown
>
>         turnaround
>