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At 11:21 AM 4/30/97 -0700, Katherine Graden wrote:
>I prefer e-mail over email as an abbreviation for "electronic mail." After
>all, do we say xray or x-ray? Tshirt or t-shirt?
>
>The other thing I have against email is that "email" is the German word for
>"enamel." Granted, using email when discussing electronic mail probably
>wouldn't bother anyone who doesn't know German. But it gets to me every
>time I see it in print.
>
>Kathy Graden
>(kgraden -at- mail -dot- dancris -dot- com)
>
Yup. Let's look to the dictionary for guidance:
A-frame or aframe?
C-section or csection?
G-man or gman?
H-bomb or hbomb?
I-beam or ibeam?
O-ring or oring?
S-curve or scurve?
T-shirt or tshirt?
U-boat or uboat?
x-axis or xaxis?
X-rated or xrated?
(My dictionary gives x-ray, X-ray, X ray and xray for the
"relatively high-enengy photon with wavelength in the
approximate range from 0.01 to 10 nanometers."
This existing body of usage, coupled with the
existence of a word "email" that means enamel,
suggests we use "E-mail," although "e-mail" is a
resonable COMPROMISE.
And, lest anyone think I am hyphen-happy,
what on earth can we do about the journalists
who have adopted a pattern of prefixing
particles like "ex-" to multiword phrases?
Do representations like "ex-mother of the year"
or "ex-big man on campus" bother anyone else?
--g
Guy K. Haas Software Exegete ghaas -at- netscape -dot- com
M/S MV-050 415-937-3773
Netscape Communications Corporation
501 Middlefield
Mountain View, CA 94043
My opinions are mine--Netscape's are their own.
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