Capitalize 'Internet'? AP says no – Vint Cerf says yes While nerds have the pronunciation of "gif" to argue over, the rest of the world continues to battle over whether the word "internet" should be capitalized or not. This week the Associated Press stepped into the breach and announced from here on in, it would use a lowercase "internet" and a lowercase "web." Starting today, AP …
Just as the AP created a furore when it dropped the hyphen in "e-mail" back in 2011
Compound words start off as two words, then become hyphenated, then become one word. Examples are downstairs, WiFi, etc.
IMO as a writer and author, when we are referring to the Internet we are obviously referring to a proper noun and we all know what we are referring to. Proper nouns are capitalized.
OTOH I can get lazy and not want to hit that Shift key like everyone else.
andwhatabouthespacebar
whyuseitatall
itjustgetsinthewayofmetypingreallyfastright
And what about English? Is that still capped? Why, it's a common fucking thing, why should I have to cap english when you know what I'm talking about already? That's what I thought, you don't think things through very well. Nice try, elreg
Let's make this fucking CLEAR:
New York Pizza > Chicago Style Pizza
West Coast > East Coast
Internet > internet
Ren > Stimpy
Mac > PC
Chocolate > Peanut Butter
Jelly > Peanut Butter
Peanut Butter > Dog Food
5 > 4
> > <
As for the BBC establishing guidelines for the rest of us to follow, well, the idea of guidelines seems to be rather loose with them.
Got an invitation to take a survey on satisfaction with the BBC news site, after having already read a couple articles with embedded misspellings and oddities. The first page of the survey used the word 'seperate'.
Nowhere _within_ the survey did they ask questions about quality or other matters. They were mainly concerned with how often I viewed videos. Could there be some correlation there?
As for the BBC establishing guidelines for the rest of us to follow, well, the idea of guidelines seems to be rather loose with them.
To say the least! I just popped open my BBC Bbc ap and was faced with the horror of "Nato." That's no way to treat an acronym! At least I didn't have to work out the difference between NATO, "the Nato" and a theoretical group of natos, so it wasn't all bad.
An "internet" is multiple networks linked together by routers.
The "Internet" is the global public network.
But the "Internet" is made up of all the internets, which makes it an internet itself.
It is very, very difficult to enforce prescriptive language use. General usage tends to follow conventions and the current one (from some time in the 19th Century) is not to capitalise generics. So, we generally write the sun, the sea and the earth but will capitalise them at will when we feel a need to emphasise or differentiate.
Split infinitives, sentences that end with prepositions are perfectly correct grammatically but that doesn't stop people saying this isn't the case. Add proper nouns that are lowercased to the list. Fighting against this is like commanding the sea. But whatever floats your boat.
The Earth is always capitalized when referring to the planet, and the Sun is always capitalized when referring to the star(when referring to dirt or sunlight then the words start with lower case letters). That's because, like the Internet, they are proper nouns. Split infinitives, sentences that end with prepositions being improper are myths. Capitalizing proper nouns isn't a myth, so your argument is specious. When you find yourself agreeing with the AP, it's wise to take time to reconsider.
But the "Internet" is made up of all the internets, which makes it an internet itself.
No, The Internet is one possible internet - currently composed of other internets - which has found public dominance.
Another internet could be along in a few years. That would still be an internet, but wouldn't be The Internet.
Vic.
So why not capitalise the 'I' when referring to the big Internet which spans the globe. Then usage would be similar to that of other words such as parliament and queen, which are capitalised when the reference is singular and specific.
For example; The aim of parliaments is to provide representation for the people. In Parliament today a range of views were discussed. Several kings and queens attended the event. The Queen is very fond of her dogs.
The Grauniad has ignored this rule for some while. though whether this is because the editorial team think it is elitist or that they don't understand it is not entirely clear.
There are only two queens on this planet.Queen Elizabeth II, and Queen Margrethe II.
Queen Mathilde of Belgium, amongst others, might disagree with you...
Vic.
Did whichever book you learned this from also define a microcomputer as a computer small enough to fit on your desk, usually at the same time as defining a mainframe and a minicomputer?
Do you still refer to your desktop as a microcomputer? And who actually talks about minicomputers these days?
Language changes. Especially in the technology field. Why would you think a definition made 25 years ago holds any weight today?
"Do you still refer to your desktop as a microcomputer?"
Not generally. Not important. It's a personal computer; its actual internal makeup isn't important to me in most contexts.
"And who actually talks about minicomputers these days?"
I do if my conversation is in a context where the difference matters. But hardly anybody uses them any more.
"Language changes. Especially in the technology field. Why would you think a definition made 25 years ago holds any weight today?"
True dat, though plenty of words only 25 years old mean the same thing they did then. Even the ones that look different. (The chain printer on the IBM 360 at university looks -- and sounds -- a heckuva lot different from the inkjet on my desk, but you'd recognize both as "computer printers".) OTOH, "computer" used to mean a person who specialized in doing rapid calculations. More than 25 years ago, though. :)
I agree but then what is the WWW for then, if not to represent the whole of the Internet’s put together?
I suspect if it were easier to say in conversation it would be used more often, maybe a new word for the big picture is needed.IDK, IDC
So when 'I Don't Know and I Don't Care' are fine, it doesn't bother me in the least as to how the word is spelled, just our language adjusting itself for modern times although i prefer to use the shift key as little as possible.
If you say to a friend "I'll Google or Bing that for you" they'd understand what you meant, so from now on I'll use 'online' so I don't have to be worried some anal grammaticality correct at all times plonker giving me English lessons.
Regards, Ian.
"I agree but then what is the WWW for then, if not to represent the whole of the Internet’s put together?"
WWW != Internet. WWW = World Wide Web. Web is a term associated with HTTP and "web pages". There is no such thing as an Internet page, but there is such thing as SIP. The web is what you see in the browser. I remember when "the web" was most boring part of the Internet. Then you have the Intertube, and that my friends is where it all starts getting interesting. The next step is that you will be able to do away with science all together, since, at it's basic level, it's giving names to things. After a short while we then will not need logic and then not even language. We will have "evolved" to do away with all those pesky details and we can live in a world free from boundaries! Dazzle dazzle! shiny shiny! feeling feeling!
You kind of lost me at getting rid of science.
I would agree though, all Web traffic is Internet traffic, but not all Internet traffic is the WWW.
There are massive parts of the Internet that have nothing to do with the web (file transfers, email, gaming, I wont go on). All things that use the Internet, but go no way near the WWW (apart from web mail, yes, yes, I'm leaving.....)
On a different note, I have noticed that MS Outlook doesn't like Wifi (nor it seems does firefox, sorry Firefox) they both prefer Wi-Fi, which is a comparatively massive ballache (ball ache) to type.
Language, by it's nature (at least the English language in all it's various flavors) changes. As a tech writer in the defense industry seemingly eons ago, I used to use machine-gun... then that was changed to machinegun.
I do think that the greater network deserves the upper case, same with Web. If for not other reason then to avoid confusion.
Travelling Wave Amplifier Tube was changed to Travelling Wave Tube Amplifier for some reason.
But, surely, a "Travelling Wave Amplifier Tube" is a tube (which may form part of an amplifier), while a "Travelling Wave Tube Amplifier" is an amplifier (which may incorporate some kind of tube). The terms mean different things, and one should take care to use the one with the correct meaning.
The fact that one forms a more entertaining acronym than the other might lead us to consider terms like "TWA tube" or "TWT amplifier", but shouldn't lead us to use a term that has a different meaning from what we're trying to say.
That way lies madness.
Language, by it's nature (at least the English language in all it's various flavors) changes. As a tech writer in the defense industry seemingly eons ago, I used to use machine-gun... then that was changed to machinegun.
I hope that in your role as a tech writer you observed the difference between "it's" and "its". One is a contraction of "it is"; the other is the possessive form of the inanimate pronoun. It's the latter you want.
Languages with language bodies can huff and puff all they want, but in the end dictionary publishers who want to remain relevant have to publish non-approved common usage (perhaps marked with something like "not official") and eventually the language body will get dragged kicking and screaming to common usage anyway.
"His reasoning is that there is a public Internet and a private internet – an internet that does not connect to the outside world but uses the same protocols. He argues: "By lowercasing you create confusion between the two and that's a mistake.""
Isn't a private internet called an intranet? I don't see any confusion.
I still call it a LAN or simply network... Intranet was mostly a marketing term born when a marketing luser discovered HTTP works on a LAN too... and needed a new name for it. Of course the same luser who believes the Internet is an HTTP network, and works only if you use a browser. His brother later invented websockets to bring TCP/IP functionalities over the Internet...
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