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Produced and hosted by Jon Gordon, Future Tense brings you the latest technology topics in daily five-minute capsules. From electronic privacy and digital democracy to spam and computer worms, Future Tense keeps you up to date on the rapidly changing world of technology.
Future Tense is heard in the United States during broadcasts of the CBC's As It Happens.
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Most publications use a capital "I" to begin the word "Internet." Technology news and culture site Wired News capitalized "Internet," "Web" and "Net" until Monday. No more, says copy chief Tony Long.
Another take on the big I or little i issue from NPR's Talk of the Nation.
Regarding the statement, "Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was."
I disagree. And so does the 1999 edition of Wired Style; Principles of English Usage in the Digital Age by Constance Hale & Jessie Scanlon. It provides great explanations as to why Internet, Web and Net are capitalized (and why email shouldn't have a hyphen).
Until now, one could always tell if a writer was a newbie or experienced Internet professional by how they used or misused these words.
Next I expect that Wired will change ZIP Code to zip code or worse zipcode.
I have always deferred to Wired for our style guidelines. I suppose I will continue to follow their lead, although reluctantly.
Posted by David Vinge | August 18, 2004 10:40 AM
Re: The recent Wired style change and recent Future Tense interview Re: Internet vs internet
Wired is flying in the face of common useage of these terms in the networking trade:
An internet is a network of interconnected networks.
The Internet is a specific network of interconnected networks, currently the largest internet as it turns out.
Correct: Many companies have huge internets. However, none has an internet as large as the Internet.
If Wired insists on talking about The Internet as merely the internet, they're further confusing a terminology landscape already littered with confusion and weirdness.
Someone should put the professor who originally asserted this ill-founded idea out of his misery.
Grumble
RayK
Posted by Ray Kaplan | August 18, 2004 11:02 PM
Ray Kaplan's comments nailed it. Get a clue, Wired.
We aren't talking about The Newspaper or The Magazine. The Internet is not a medium, it is specific entity and hence a proper noun.
Posted by Mike Peterson | August 18, 2004 11:32 PM
