[thelist] [OT] Email vs. E-mail vs. email vs. e-mail

[David Wagner]

Miriam Frost wrote:

 > Conventional / popular usage is not always the same as correct.

Sad, but true. I'm a pretty firm believer in laissez-faire language.
Mostly because it's more fun that way -- though I can certainly see the
need for rules, too.

 > I believe that "e-mail" is preferred in more academic or journalistic
 > arenas

I shudder to think what the world would be like if academics and
journalists controlled language development. (No trolling intended, I
promise.)

 > because in according to most English pronunciation rules, an initial
 > "e" followed by a consonant is pronounced as a schwa, an unaccented
 > vowel.*

 > (Naturally, there's an exception we're all familiar with: evolt.org --

...Which proves that we're moving beyond the spoken word as the baseline
of the English language, and into the written word.

"e-mail" is certainly the most technically correct of the options given;
it's a contraction of "electronic mail", and all abbreviations or
contractions need *something* (usually a period or apostrophe) to take
the place of the removed portion. It makes logical sense, and is much
easier to read aloud.

However, "email" is easier to type, and has long been the standard for
one of the major groups that brought it (the word and the tool) into
popular use -- high school and college students, most of whom are more
concerned with getting the point across than being technically correct.
"email" is totally recognizable when you're reading it silently.

I had an extended debate with my dad about this when I was still in high
school. He conceded, eventually, that "email" makes perfect sense as
long as you don't care about standards, morality, ethics, global
thermonuclear warfare, etc. He followed up with some muttering about
looking forward to the day when my kids get to generation-gap me.

By then, I'm sure, we'll all be communicating with Microsoft brand
telepathy, or "tP" for short.

 > They named the dictionary after me, and then spelled my name wrong....

Sue 'em. :)

<tip type="Mozilla Mail" author="David Wagner">

Those of us who are crazy enough to use Mozilla (I'm still on 0.9.9) for
our email must keep in mind that the editor still needs some work.

I'm trying to get into the habit of cutting and pasting all of my
outgoing messages (especially ones with quoting) into Notepad (with text
wrap off), then pasting them back, in order to make sure that the line
wrap is correct. It often isn't.

If I forget, the quoting gets funky and the message turns out ugly,
especially after 3 or 4 times back and forth. This makes me cranky.

Those composing HTML email may disregard this tip, and step out into the
alley for a severe beating about the head.

</tip>

--

David Wagner
dave at worlddomination.net