3 ms·

Internet to be lowercase in New York Times and Associated Press

26 points by peterkshultz 10y ago

MichaelGG 10y ago
Guess I'm old. I've always capitalized it and generally never seen informed people using lowercase. And that's ignoring the public Internet versus any internet.
- emddudley 10y ago
  Have you ever used the term 'internet' to refer to networks other than the main worldwide network? I never have, so lower-casing it seems pretty reasonable to me, based on my current use of the term.
sverige 10y ago
But the Hindernet will still be capitalized.
kevin_thibedeau 10y ago
> "It will probably take a while to get shift-I out of our muscle memory." If only there was technology to flag potential spelling errors in the editor along with all of the other automated style rules used by the industry.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
ghshephard 10y ago
As early as 1990, I recall the guidance on capitalization being, if you are referring to internet as a class of internetwork, (possibly an internal network) then you use the lower case. If you are referring to Internet as the Internet (that is, the world wide network, globally routable, connecting all sites) you use the capital letter. The difference is between the noun, internet, and one particular internetwork, the Internet. In the last 25 years or so, the concept of an internet has basically disappeared (for the most part, maybe we just call it a LAN/WAN now), while the Internet (soon, according to NYT and AP, internet) is all that people mean when they refer to internet now. Which I guess is how language evolves.
sintaxi 10y ago
This makes sense. The "internet" belongs alongside air, water, electricity etc. It's now a ubiquitous part of this world and in my books everyone has the right to access it without censorship or surveillance.
CM30 10y ago
Maybe now the iOS spellchecker might do the same thing.
payne92 10y ago
One Internet, one Earth. Proper nouns, all capitalized.
- paulddraper 10y ago
  And one Universe. --- When television first came out, it was capitalized. If you think the internet is a medium, it makes me sense lowercase.

26 points by peterkshultz 10y ago

Guess I'm old. I've always capitalized it and generally never seen informed people using lowercase. And that's ignoring the public Internet versus any internet.

emddudley 10y ago
Have you ever used the term 'internet' to refer to networks other than the main worldwide network? I never have, so lower-casing it seems pretty reasonable to me, based on my current use of the term.

sverige 10y ago

But the Hindernet will still be capitalized.

kevin_thibedeau 10y ago

> "It will probably take a while to get shift-I out of our muscle memory." If only there was technology to flag potential spelling errors in the editor along with all of the other automated style rules used by the industry.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

ghshephard 10y ago

As early as 1990, I recall the guidance on capitalization being, if you are referring to internet as a class of internetwork, (possibly an internal network) then you use the lower case. If you are referring to Internet as the Internet (that is, the world wide network, globally routable, connecting all sites) you use the capital letter. The difference is between the noun, internet, and one particular internetwork, the Internet. In the last 25 years or so, the concept of an internet has basically disappeared (for the most part, maybe we just call it a LAN/WAN now), while the Internet (soon, according to NYT and AP, internet) is all that people mean when they refer to internet now. Which I guess is how language evolves.

sintaxi 10y ago

This makes sense. The "internet" belongs alongside air, water, electricity etc. It's now a ubiquitous part of this world and in my books everyone has the right to access it without censorship or surveillance.

CM30 10y ago

Maybe now the iOS spellchecker might do the same thing.

payne92 10y ago

One Internet, one Earth. Proper nouns, all capitalized.

paulddraper 10y ago
And one Universe. --- When television first came out, it was capitalized. If you think the internet is a medium, it makes me sense lowercase.