Slashdot Mirror
It's Just the 'internet' Now?
This morning Wired News announced that 'web', 'net', and 'internet' will no longer be capitalized in their stories. Is this the next logical step after ditching 'e-mail' in favor of 'email' , or should the global computer network still be treated with a proper name? For more discussion, see Wikipedia, The Chicago Manual, and an article profiling Joseph Turow's de-capitalization efforts.
It doesn't bother me either way, captialized or not, but I think the comparision to television and phonograph isn't quite correct at this point. As of right now, we only have one Internet, hence referring to it as "the Internet", whereas there are many televisions, etc. To me the captialization comes more from using it like a proper name more than like a brand name. Somewhere down the road maybe there will be many networks called internets and it would make more sense to use it just as a normal noun.
Or we could just not worry about it and get to work on the more pressing problems... should Microsoft be spelled with a $?
There never was a reason to capitalize "Internet"?!
Or perhaps Wired News simply don't know what they're talking about?
The "internet" is any set of networks connected with routers. The "Internet" is the largest such network, that uses TCP/IP.
From FOLDOC:
Internet
internet
I am a genius; therefore, you suck.
Another one that always bothered me..."worldwide" is one word. So it should be Worldwide Web...as in ww.slashdot.org and not www.
I almost NEVER proper-case microsoft (lower-casing/deprecation intentional). Sometimes, to get around honoring uppercasing for ms, I just use the initial msie, ms excel, NT4.0, win XP or W2K SP#... This way, it looks like a minor omission.
Hmm, I guess ms will try to use meta tags and other technology to "clean up" documents, especially those that have "microsoft" (lower-casing/deprecation intentional) in them. Or, didn't they try that, only to be blasted for over-reaching into peoples' documents?
When will we get people to correctly use:
-"log on" as a verb and "logon" as the noun?
-"insecure" for emotional states of mind
-"non-secure" regarding the nature of the Internet. The Internet cannot be "insecure", since it is not a sentient/organic/thinking thing.
When I was aboardship/aboard ship, and was Petty Officer of the Watch, I/we answered the landline/land line as "Quarterdeck, USS Flint. Petty Officer Syes Speaking. This is a non-secure line; how may I help you sir, or ma'am?"
Phone lines are never insecure, so why the Internet? I think it was because a bunch of marketers took over the security message aspect of the Internet. Or, some engineers who are FANTASTIC programmers just happened to select the wrong word from the dictionary and it "stuck".
Even "unsecure" might seem better that "insecure".
=========
Hmmm... I just ran a "dictionary.com" search on "insecure" and got these:
1. Not sure or certain; doubtful: unemployed and facing an insecure future.
2. Inadequately guarded or protected; unsafe: A shortage of military police made the air base insecure.
3. Not firm or fixed; unsteady: an insecure foothold.
4. Lacking stability; troubled: an insecure relationship.
5. Lacking self-confidence; plagued by anxiety: had always felt insecure at parties.
========
Well, to me, number 2 sounds stupid, as if someone POST-COLDWAR got caught up in the "insecure Internet" description thing.
I guess I'll have to go to pre-Internet boom dictionaries to find out if "insecure" back then was described as in item #2 above...
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Can we now ban apostrophes in "CPU's", "MP3's", etc.? It just kills me that even The New York Times (which is normally a stickler for grammar) has adopted that bastardized punctuation as their standard.
When violence rules the world outside / And the headlines make me want to cry / It's not the time to just keep quiet
It's funny that in the development of the roman alphabet, originally there were only capitals. Lowercase letters were developed to make text more legible. So what do we actually still use capitals for? I mean, capitalizing names or words in a title or nouns etc. is just a convention. Just like spelling. In Europe, languages occasionally undergo a spelling change. What bugs me is why they never change the spelling to be consistent, let alone phonetic (e.g. corresponding 1 to 1 with the sound).
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
This is exactly right. Because, really, if someone says "internet," is there going to be any other one that you're going to confuse it with?
"Each time you smile, it'll only last awhile. Life may be scary, but it's only temporary."
It is a network of networks, thus it sits between other networks and earns the inter- prefix. Intra- means within one's own logical grouping.
You are attempting to pick words apart to prove what they actually mean. It'd be nice if languages were logical and that approach actually worked, but it doesn't.
"Anti-semitic", for example, doesn't mean "against semites", but "hating Jews", since that's what it was first coined for. "Homophobia" is not "fear of similarity" but of "homosexuals".
First there were networks. Then there was "internet protocol", which could be used to connect networks. Then there was "internet", any set of 2 or more hosts using internet protocol. Only 15 years later was "intranet" coined, to mean a LAN using application protocols popularized on the Internet.
An interesting point that I have considered many times.
Those that want to keep "God" in the U.S. pledge, etc., claim that "God" is a generic term for a spiritual, not religious concept; and, therefore, does not endorse any specific religion. Bill O'Reilly holds this belief, as do many conservatives.
Those that want to remove "God" from the U.S. pledge, etc., claim that "God" is the proper name for the Judeo-Christian supreme being and represents an endorsement by the U.S. government of a specific religion. Which is, of course, unconstitutional.
My suggestion to mend this dilema has always been to uncapitalize "God" thereby removing the association with the Judeo-Christian supreme being. Hell, I'd even be for making it plural... One nation, under gods, indivisible...
My unrealistic suggestion is to change "God" to "the laws of physics".