Internet Errors
Hi all, Mary Pat here. I hope your summer was splendid. Though, out here at Our Lady of Perpetual Correctness-West, we never really did get a summer. Not in the weather sense of the season, anyway. It stayed cool here at our South Bay headquarters.
Nevertheless, in between vacuuming up the crumbs from Father Flannigan's pilfering of the sacramental biscuits, I did manage to come up with a few English grammar tidbits for you. Once again, I am drawn to that wondrous vehicle of modern communication, the Internet.
One thing that really puts a crimp in my habit is the misuse of the King's English on corporate websites. These are the electronic equivalents of bill boards for your businesses. Companies intend them to put their best foot forward. Yet most are rife with common sense errors. As they say, the way you do one thing--like filching the communion crackers--is the way you do everything. Here are the most common blunders I've found:
Internet: The Internet is a proper noun. After all, there is but one Internet, no mistake about that. As such, it requires capitalization. Same thing goes for the Web--just one of those too. So capitalize it.
Website: This one is a bit trickier. If we're talking about a particular Web site, such as our own www.WritersResourceGroup.com, then we're referring to a proper noun. It is a particular thing. So it demands capitalizing. However, if we are referring to a number of web sites, no single one in particular, no capitalization is needed.
Another point about web sites is the number of words they require. Note that I've switched here between using web sites and websites. My trusty Chicago Manual of Style says both are correct. However, for more formal presentations I will use Web site. Informally, or for friendly emails, website is perfectly acceptable.
By the way, here's a trick I learned here at WRG when we're writing content that must be compliant with Search Engine Optimization rules. The major search engines are generally not case sensitive. So when we come to a key word on which the SEO search must hit, we'll usually ignore the rules of capitalization and enter the word several times both ways. Also, if Web site is one of those SEO words, then we'll use it capitalized and uncapped as well as in both one and two word versions. We must write for our audience who is searching the Web for us. They may not have the benefit of my most excellent grammar tips. Alas, the Internet has forced us to bend the grammar rules sometimes to the painful point of breaking.
E-mail: So which is it? E-mail, Email, email or e-mail? Let's start with the hyphen. The Chicago Manual of Style (every grammarian's bible) says it must contain the hyphen. Don't lose the hyphen. As for capitalization, it's unnecessary.
Again, for SEO content, use and misuse e-mail, E-mail, email and Email throughout your piece. Your audience doesn't know any better and neither may those writing the search engine rules.
Online: You've probably also seen it as on-line. As the English language absorbs new concepts, they generally begin as two words--on line. As the usage becomes more common, a hyphen is usually added--on-line. When the word finally gains general acceptance, the hyphen is dropped.
Since the Internet was first born in the 1960s as the military's DARPA-Net, then was widely commercialized in the mid-1990s, it has been with us for some time. As such, you are perfectly within your rights to drop the hyphen and go with online.
There you have it. I am now late for the driving lessons I promised Sister Marie Baptiste. Since she came over to OLPC-West from our outpost in New Jersey (see my April 2010 submission, Misuse of Plurals), she's been pestering me to teach her to drive.
Until next time, I'm Mary Pat for Writers Resource Group.
--SMP 
