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Do British newspapers not capitalize the word Internet? I know all American papers capitalize it because it's a proper noun. I'm wondering if that's just a recu

Do British newspapers not capitalize the word Internet? I know all American papers capitalize it because it's a proper noun. I'm wondering if that's just a recurring typo in this article or if British journalists follow a different convention.

wikiburner 13y ago
To be honest, I'm American and I sometimes feel weird capitalizing it in emails or documents because a lot of Americans don't capitalize it in common usage. Also, I've seen conflicting U.S. style guides on it.
colinm 13y ago
Maybe back in the 90's.
- hawkharris 13y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your comment. Will you elaborate on it?
codev 13y ago
The Guardian is pretty progressive in style terms. I think there's an increasing tendency to write it as internet and they're closer to the cutting edge than a more conservative (style-wise) newspaper like the NYT. Here are their capitalisation rules: http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710 http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710
- hawkharris 13y ago
  Thanks for taking the time to find and share this interesting guide. I think that The Guardian is a very progressive paper in general, but I'm not sure that lowercasing "the Internet" is a progressive move. The Internet is capitalized because it's a proper noun: not just any general network, but a specific global network of computers. [1] There is only one Internet. If an author is referring to a subset of the Internet, he or she should be specific and elaborate. E.g. Is the author talking about an intranet? In other words, it seems that NOT treating the Internet as a proper noun perpetuates a misunderstanding about what it is and how it operates. It implicitly gives writers a license to be more vague in their description of computer networks. But I'm curious to hear your take on this. What do you see as the advantages of lowercasing the word? [1] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitalizing-proper-nouns?page=all http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitaliz...
  - hmsimha 13y ago
    In social network analysis, there's the concept of a giant connected component in a graph where edges propagate between nodes over time. That's essentially what I consider the internet to be. There's only one of them by virtue of giant connected component emergence in that kind of network. I've never viewed it as a proper name.
dredge 13y ago
The Guardian's style guide[1] has it in lowercase, as does the BBC News[2]. Reuters[3] is slightly more nuanced: Capitalise as a noun, lower case as an adjective e.g. internet banking, internet cafe. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/i http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/i [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofjournalism/how-to/news-style-guide/i http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofjournalism/how-to/news... [3] http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=I#Internet http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=I#Internet

wikiburner 13y ago

To be honest, I'm American and I sometimes feel weird capitalizing it in emails or documents because a lot of Americans don't capitalize it in common usage. Also, I've seen conflicting U.S. style guides on it.

colinm 13y ago

Maybe back in the 90's.

hawkharris 13y ago
I'm not sure I understand your comment. Will you elaborate on it?

codev 13y ago

The Guardian is pretty progressive in style terms. I think there's an increasing tendency to write it as internet and they're closer to the cutting edge than a more conservative (style-wise) newspaper like the NYT. Here are their capitalisation rules: http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710 http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/c#id-3043710

hawkharris 13y ago
Thanks for taking the time to find and share this interesting guide. I think that The Guardian is a very progressive paper in general, but I'm not sure that lowercasing "the Internet" is a progressive move. The Internet is capitalized because it's a proper noun: not just any general network, but a specific global network of computers. [1] There is only one Internet. If an author is referring to a subset of the Internet, he or she should be specific and elaborate. E.g. Is the author talking about an intranet? In other words, it seems that NOT treating the Internet as a proper noun perpetuates a misunderstanding about what it is and how it operates. It implicitly gives writers a license to be more vague in their description of computer networks. But I'm curious to hear your take on this. What do you see as the advantages of lowercasing the word? [1] http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitalizing-proper-nouns?page=all http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/capitaliz...
- hmsimha 13y ago
  In social network analysis, there's the concept of a giant connected component in a graph where edges propagate between nodes over time. That's essentially what I consider the internet to be. There's only one of them by virtue of giant connected component emergence in that kind of network. I've never viewed it as a proper name.

dredge 13y ago

The Guardian's style guide[1] has it in lowercase, as does the BBC News[2]. Reuters[3] is slightly more nuanced: Capitalise as a noun, lower case as an adjective e.g. internet banking, internet cafe. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/i http://www.theguardian.com/styleguide/i [2] http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofjournalism/how-to/news-style-guide/i http://www.bbc.co.uk/academy/collegeofjournalism/how-to/news... [3] http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=I#Internet http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php?title=I#Internet