AP Style Alert: Don't Capitalize Internet and Web Anymore (poynter.org)

Saturday the Associated Press announced they're changing the rules in their influential stylebook: the words "internet" and "web" should no longer be capitalized. "The changes reflect a growing trend toward lowercasing both words," their standards editor told Poynter.org, pointing out that both words "have become generic terms." Words tend to be lowercased as their usage becomes more common, and Poynter.org points out that "In 2011, e-mail became email... in 2010, Web site became website." In 2013 the AP even revised their usage of the term "illegal immigration," advising "use illegal only to refer to an action, not a person: illegal immigration, but not illegal immigrant," as part of a push towards'ridding the Stylebook of labels."

Comments

Internet != internet

[ooloorie]

There are many possible "internets", networks of interlinked networks. The "Internet" is one of them, by far the largest. That is, "Internet" is a proper noun, in the same way that "Bill", "Associated Press", and "Monica" are.

Re:Internet != internet

[chispito]

There are many possible "internets", networks of interlinked networks. The "Internet" is one of them, by far the largest. That is, "Internet" is a proper noun, in the same way that "Bill", "Associated Press", and "Monica" are.

Not anymore, not in common usage, and that is why the AP are changing their guide.

Re:Internet != internet

[mwvdlee]

Should we keep capitalizing "Web" to avoid people from fearing a giant spider that can weave one as wide as the world?

Re:Internet != internet

[Dr. Evil]

Although "internet" is not common, I strongly disagree that the common use is not as a proper noun. The Internet is a place, much like Europe, Mars, Rome, or whatever.

When speaking of multiple linked networks, I speak of intranets or private networks, but if something is on the Internet, it's addressable in one, clear, named, identifiable space, and that space is called the Internet.

Re:Internet != internet

[sheetsda]

I don't disagree that what you say is what the rule currently is but taking a step back for a moment, language can be expressed in two forms: written and spoken. When speaking, there is no difference an upper and lower case letter. It's rare to hear anyone complain that the spoken form of some sentence is more ambiguous or otherwise problematic than the written equivalent. In this particular case, you'd say "the internet" or "an internet" to distinguish the two meanings. The letter case is unnecessary. This leads me to a question for any linguists out there:

Why we still use capital letters?

They seem like an unnecessary relic (another example: the difference between ',' and ';') that we should be working to simplify out of the written form of our language. The linguistic equivalent of (x + 0) or (x * 1).

In the past when I have posed this question people have replied with lists of rules surrounding the circumstances when they are applied. To head those people off - such a list is not a relevant answer, read the question again.

Re: Internet != internet

[fruviad]

It is common to see people inappropriately use "to" when they mean "too".

It is common to see people inappropriately use "it's" when they mean "its".

Common != Correct

Re: Internet != internet

[Tomahawk]

In this case, no. Common usage is incorrect. The 2 terms "internet" and "Internet" have specific meanings. In this case, the majority are not aware of the differences as they are technical in nature. Hence the "common usage". If AP did their research and talked to a few people in the field, they would then know the reasons they shouldn't change. "Common usage" is not always correct, is just common. It means most people are wrong. Instead of following them, they should try to educate them, or we'll end up with more "literally" face-palms in the language. Educate. Steer the language. Don't just follow common usage because teenage girls use "literally" in an ironic sense without knowing (or without knowing what ironic means).

Re:Internet != internet

[AthanasiusKircher]

When speaking, there is no difference an upper and lower case letter. It's rare to hear anyone complain that the spoken form of some sentence is more ambiguous or otherwise problematic than the written equivalent.

Writing lacks all sorts of expressive capabilities that can be conveyed through speech. Cues like subtle rises and falls around words, highlighting a word through volume or pitch, etc. can all help us parse where a sentence begins/ends or to know that a specific word is referring to a person rather than a common noun with the same sound. We don't have those cues in writing.

Why we still use capital letters?

I'm not really a linguist, but you might as well ask why we still use punctuation, or why we put spaces between words, or why we spell things in the ridiculous mess that is English-language spelling. They are conventions. Language is about communication, and effective communication requires common understanding -- which relies on convention. We learn to parse patterns based on those conventions. When those conventions change suddenly, it's more difficult for people familiar with them to parse things, and the communication is less effective.

That's the very broad general answer for all such things.

For the specific notion of capital letters, they are used (and have been used for over a millennium) as cues for parsing language. They occur at the beginning of sentences, which is a signal to parse a new phrase. They occur for proper names (people, countries, specific places, etc.), which is a cue to differentiate a word from any "common noun" associations. They therefore provide a shade of meaning that is different in many contexts. Often such meanings could be determined from context too, but the capital letter is a shortcut that immediately identifies the word as a "proper" noun, which means it generally falls into a few specific categories. In cases of ambiguity, someone parsing a sentence can immediately know that the word is a person, or a specific place, or whatever.

Some other languages have other conventions for capitals that make this parsing role exceptionally clear -- see German, for example, where ALL nouns are capitalized. Is it "necessary"? Obviously other languages do without it. But for Germans, that is a grammatical cue to the function of the word in a sentence. In English, capitals also provide such cues, just for specific types of nouns, rather than all of them. But the meaning is still helpful in many contexts.

Could we do without capital letters? Of course. Ancient languages often did, and various scripts around the world don't really have an equivalent. But again, it's kind of like asking why we put spaces between words. Youcanreadasentencewithoutthem,andit'softenstraightforwardtoparseasentence. But the spaces make it quicker in some circumstances with less cognitive load for those familiar with the convention.

They seem like an unnecessary relic (another example: the difference between ',' and ';') that we should be working to simplify out of the written form of our language.

Commas and semicolons are completely different punctuation marks, and they imply completely different relationships about the words or phrases around them. (The one case of similar usage is in lists that are subdivided, but this isn't a particularly common use case. Even there, the point is that the semicolon helps delineate between comma-delineated lists of items.)

Could we eliminate semicolons? Of course, but then we'd lose some subtle meaning and parsing possibilities. We could eliminate punctuation altogether too, but it would be even worse.

We might as well ask why we have dozens of words for different shades of "blue." Why not just call them all "blue"? Well, in some contexts it helps to clarify things, and sometimes that lack of ambiguity can assist in parsing what someone else means (e.g., when trying to locate an item on

Re:Internet != internet

[msauve]

That would be odd, since the distinction was made as early as 1982, in RFC 823:

This document explains the design of the Internet gateway used in the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency (DARPA) Internet program... The gateway's primary purpose is to route internet datagrams to their destination networks.

Re: Internet != internet

[thegarbz]

"Common usage" is not always correct, is just common. It means most people are wrong.

Which begs the question, if most people agree on a common definition for a certain term or phrase doesn't that make it ultimately the right definition? I mean what good is your knowledge of a language if you are unable to communicate with the people who speak it?

This is a problem in any uncontrolled language like English.

Now are you going to point out the incorrect use of begs the question even though the vast majority (dare I say everyone) completely and totally understood the exact meaning I was conveying despite use of the phrase being "wrong"?

AP, of course they're wrong

[KiloByte]

Uhm no, there is a distinction. "A internet" (lowercase) is a bunch of interconnected networks, "the Internet" (capitalized) is the currently biggest one.

Because of the growth of the latter, the former meaning is far less common, but it still exists.

Re:AP, of course they're wrong

[Hognoxious]

"A internet"

I don't think there's any point in reading the rest, is there?

I'm good with this.

[ScentCone]

It never made sense, to me, to capitalize "web" or "internet," so this is just finally getting it right. I do find "website" to be silly, though. It makes no more sense than "constructionsite" or "landingsite" or "accidentsite."

And why is "illegal immigrant" incorrect? Yes, the act of immigrating illegally is illegal. It puts the person who commits that crime into the condition of being an illegal immigrant. If someone is squatting in a house where they don't have permission to live, they are illegally residing in that house - they are illegal residents of that house. It's not like there's any semantic confusion on the subject. We talk very reasonably about people being legal residents, visa-holding travelers, etc. A phrase which defines their nature and status is perfectly reasonable. Someone either is, or is not an immigrant, and either is or is not such in keeping with immigration law. Immigration is a process 100% defined by law. One is either doing it legally, or not. Their status after doing it is within the provisions of the law, or outside it. They are legally residing in the country, or they are doing so illegally.

Re:I'm good with this.

[kenai_alpenglow]

Are you a citizen? If not, you are an alien. (I'm ignoring the category of US Persons, who can be either a citizen or not--this is irrelevant to the discussion.) That's neither good nor bad, just a fact. Are you here legally? If not, you are here illegally. That's a fact, neither good nor bad. If you a non-citizen (alien) who is here illegally, that makes you an illegal alien. That's a fact, neither good nor bad. I've been in a situation where I could have been considered to have crossed the border illegally (in a military jet, no less); that maked me an illegal alien during that time frame--doesn't bother me. If you take offense at it (and it's true, of course), that's the same as taking offense at being called a thief when you're caught with your hand in the cookie jar (or holding the diamond necklace as you're caught fleeing the jewelry store). It's a fact, neither good nor bad. GET OVER THIS PC NONSENSE!

Re:I'm good with this.

[Imrik]

I like the German practice of capitalizing all nouns, can we adopt it as the standard instead of this movement away from capitalizing proper nouns?

Re:I'm good with this.

[Ginger Unicorn]

As it said in the summary, referring to illegal immigration rather than illegal immigrants is an effort to avoid labeling people. While it is a technically correct description, there is more to language that technical specificity and precision. When discussing politically and emotionally charged subjects, labeling people as "a something or other", especially when referring to a group of people serves to subconsciously dehumanise them in the minds of the reader. Labelling people enables a cognitive shortcut that prunes any human attributes outside those implied by the label, and transforms them from "a human like me with complex motivitations and someone whom i could empathise with" to "outsiders that aren't like me and could be a threat and doesn't deserve any empathy, because all they are is [whatever label]".

It's important to careful avoid promoting lazy stereotyping, even on as seemingly innocuous a level as carefully avoiding some terminology because we are all chimps with buggy reasoning software installed, and we need to work around the bugs as much as possible.

Re:I'm good with this.

[NotInHere]

If you have immigrated illegally to a country, you lead your life in that country as far from the state as possible. You don't pay any taxes directly, you don't have a bank account under your name and address, you don't have a house registered to your name. Your whole life is illegal. If somebody steals from you or threatens you, you can't get the police, because the police would then send you back to where you came from. If your employer doesn't give you a minimal wage, you can't protest. If there is an accident which is the employer's fault, you can't sue them. If you immigrate illegally, your whole life becomes illegal, for as long as you reside in the country.

Saying that the whole immigrant is illegal when their whole life is as far from the law as possible is justified in my opinion.

Re:I'm good with this.

[ScentCone]

Yeah, we don't want to label people. Words like "citizen" dehumanize, right? Or "taxpayer." That's awful. It it just makes the half of the country's population that does pay income taxes sounds like mere beasts of burden for the half that pay no income taxes.

Or maybe, just possibly, the point is that we use such labels when they are contextually useful? When we're talking about choices of haircut, immigration status isn't particularly meaningful. When we're talking about whether or not someone is benefiting from their presence in the US without doing the things that other law-abiding people did in order to get those benefits, mentioning the fact that they are in the country illegally is completely appropriate.

Why SHOULD someone who's decided to skip the line and avoid the legal requirements of proper immigration get empathy from those they're cheating? What's lazy and stereotyping about calling someone what they actually are, when the context of the discussion directly relates to their lawbreaking and what they get out of their choice to be such ... and what other people who choose to follow the law must do, in contrast?

You've got your laziness label aimed at the wrong problem. The laziness comes from confusing race with culture, or confusing culture with personal choices to act. Those who use a label to describe the legal circumstances that someone deliberately chose to put themselves in aren't talking race, or culture, or gender or any of the other lights-progressives'-hair-on-fire PC third-rail topics. They're talking about a CHOICE people have made to break the law. Just like when they choose to hold up a liquor store or steal a car or profit from inside trading. That doesn't make them "other" in any sense other than what the phrase explicitly addresses: their choice to obey the law, or not. Have you chosen to break federal immigration law? No? Then you are in one category, and the people who HAVE chosen to break those laws are in another.

The real intellectual laziness and moral cowardice comes from trying to blur that distinction in order to avoid the personal discomfort of actually identifying someone's decision to break the law for what it is. The real question is: why does someone become uncomfortable identifying someone's actions for what they demonstrably are? Usually, it's because they're too craven to come out and say what they really want: open borders and a generous welfare state for anyone who shows up. Those who want that in the US are several years too slow watching how those policies have been turning out elsewhere.

Re:I'm good with this.

[Oligonicella]

First, check your pomposity. Second, they placed themselves into that category. Don't want to be called a bank robber? Don't rob a bank.

Re:I'm good with this.

[Solandri]

Internet and Web are capitalized because they refer to one specific internet or web, thus making them proper nouns. The best non-technical example is "mother". If you're talking about mothers in general, it's not capitalized: "A mother's job is never done." If you're talking about one specific mother, it's a proper noun and thus capitalized. "I wanted to have chocolate, but Mother said it would spoil my dinner." (Referring specifically to your mother.)

And "illegal immigrant" is correct. The press has collectively decided to use "undocumented immigrant" to try to legitimize their status (because such immigrants would overwhelmingly vote for the party they favor if granted citizenship). I'm wondering when they will begin to refer to murderers as "unlicensed executioners" and bank robbery as "unauthorized withdrawals."

Modish but foolish

[Archtech]

I can see how this decision fits in with modern fashion. The whole idea of a proper noun seems to grate - perhaps it clashes with the pervasive inverted snobbery of our culture. Many people's forum handles lower-case ordinary names, subtly suggesting that they are more sophisticated than old-fashioned upper-cased names.

As others have pointed out, there is in practice only one Internet: so it should be "the Internet". There are of course many intranets, and you can talk about different partial internets; but if they are not part of the Internet, the usage is merely confusing; and if they are part of the Internet, why use the same name for the whole and a part of it?

As for the Web, it was invented and freely given to the world by Tim Berners-Lee and his colleagues at CERN. Sir Tim has always emphasized that it should be both unique and world-wide, hence the proper name "the World Wide Web".

Here is his authoritative explanation:

Q: How in fact do you spell World Wide Web?

A: It should be spelled as three separate words, so that its acronym is three separate "W"s. There are no hyphens. Yes, I know that it has in some places been spelled with a hyphen but the official way is without. Yes, I know that "worldwide" is a word in the dictionary, but World Wide Web is three words.

I use "Web" with a capital W to indicate that it is an abbreviation for "World Wide Web". Hence, "What a tangled web he wove on his Web site!".

Often, WWW is written and read as W3, which is quicker to say. In particular, the World Wide Web consortium is W3C, never WWWC.

Q: Why did you call it WWW?

A: Looking for a name for a global hypertext system, an essential element I wanted to stress was its decentralized form allowing anything to link to anything. This form is mathematically a graph, or web. It was designed to be global of course. (I had noticed that projects find it useful to have a signature letter, as the Zebra project at CERN which started all its variables with "Z". In fact by the time I had decided on WWW, I had written enough code using global variables starting with "HT" for hypertext that W wasn't used for that.). Alternatives I considered were "Mine of information" ("Moi", c'est un peu egoiste) and "The Information Mine ("Tim", even more egocentric!), and "Information Mesh" (too like "Mess" though its ability to describe a mess was a requirement!). Karen Sollins at MIT now has a Mesh project.

https://www.w3.org/People/Bern...

Re: Modish but foolish

[hackwrench]

Not more sophisticated, but more convenient. At least that's why I do it.

Or Headline Words !

[swell]

Doesn't that look stupid. Why would those words have capitals? They are not names of anything that require a capital, they are just ordinary words. Why can't Slashdot get in step with the majority of publishers in this century who eschew excess capitalization in headlines? Such headlines can be very confusing, but worse- they smack of the hype that publishers in the 19th century thought necessary.

Re: fascists

[Tomahawk]

Agreed. They should stick to what is correct in order to at least demonstrate correctness. But what they are saying is that because people abuse the language, they should too, because the abuse becomes "common usage". There is a reason why dictionaries look at only certain types of publications for their weird lists, usages, and definitions. I guess AP will no longer be one of those publications, if indeed if ever was.

Re: fascists

[hackwrench]

And that would be because certain types of publications are a better indicator of what the common usage of a word is. Dictionaries are written to be descriptive, not prescriptive.

Re: fascists

[Xenx]

All language is just a collection of common usage. It follows its own evolutionary process. What was correct in the past or present will not, and should not, necessarily be correct in the future. The point of language is to attempt clear communication between people. Correct/incorrect usage should be derived from how it's used by the populace, not forced upon the populace.

Re: fascists

[PopeRatzo]

Agreed. They should stick to what is correct in order to at least demonstrate correctness. But what they are saying is that because people abuse the language, they should too, because the abuse becomes "common usage".

It's not about correctness. It's about meaning. The internet isn't a proper noun any more. You wouldn't capitalize the "Phone System", would you? It just isn't a formal name. You wouldn't capitalize the "Interstate Highway System".

And the "Web" is rarely used any more at all. When something becomes that ubiquitous, it doesn't need formality.

Turn the tables on the ap

[Sloppy]

The associated press deserves the style that gets hacked upon them.

Probably because most people didn't realize they s

[thepacketmaster]

Back in the 90's it was made very clear in all the technical literature that an internet was a generic network that anyone could create for the purpose of networking, whereas the Internet was the name for the common public Internet that we all know and use today. Much like the term "hacker" (as opposed to "cracker", the technical people that knew about the definitions understood its proper meaning. The problems came when the media couldn't seem to grasp the concepts, and wanted to keep in simple for ordinary people to understand. Much like hacker, the media used the term incorrectly and thus we have a trend towards lowercase being used for the Internet. #KeepInternetCapitalized

Proper nouns

[OrangeTide]

There is only one Internet right now, just like there is only one Earth and one Universe.

The classification system is too arbitary

[Karmashock]

you can't just say something is capitalized or not based on how commonly used it is otherwise we're always going to be dealing with confusion. In certain segments a given term is going to be used a lot and in others it won't. So would it be reasonable for one to capitalize and the other to not? Who takes priority? And what are you telling someone when you do or don't capitalize? Are you signaling familiarity or are you signaling ignorance of what should or shouldn't be capitalized?

The whole premise is bad.

Look. The confusion happened because people didn't understand that saying "the internet" is like saying "the ocean" or "the forest". Now if you specify a given service like "Slashdot" then that's supposed to be capitalized as a proper noun. However "the web" doesn't get capitalized for the same reason you don't capitalize "the mountains". Cite a specific mountain or mountain range... you know... use a proper noun and you have something you can capitalize. However, the internet and the web were never proper nouns.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Now you could say that the global internet is a distinct network and thus citing it for a proper noun designation is appropriate. However, there is only one internet just as there is only one ocean (All oceans on Earth are contiguous bodies of water. There is no ocean that I cannot sail to from any other ocean.).

Part of the mistake might have been citing the internet as only being one place. Perhaps it would help the classification people to understand that the internet while perceived as a single network is actually a compilation of many systems across every inhabited continent in the world. Collectively it is a singular but so are all the oceans collectively "the ocean".

Upper case never made sense

[virve]

In my humble opinion, upper-case Internet never made sense. It never were a proper name. I have treated it on par with the telephone network or the electrical grid.

In both these cases, a similar distinction to the one between intranets and the internet is possible.

--
virve

Re: fascists

[AthanasiusKircher]

You wouldn't capitalize the "Phone System", would you? It just isn't a formal name.

Not usually, except if it were actually a proper name for a particular system.

You wouldn't capitalize the "Interstate Highway System"

Actually, yes you would, if you were referring to the specific Interstate Highway System that is recognized by the federal government as such. If you say "interstate highway system," you create an ambiguity: are you referring to the Eisenhower System, or are you potentially referring to the network of all highways that cross state borders (like U.S. Route 1, which goes all the way from Maine to Florida, and is thus an interstate highway, but it is not an Interstate Highway).

Now, I'll grant you that the standard use of the phrase "interstate highway" these days tends to refer specifically to the Eisenhower System, so there's an argument that capitalization is unnecessary. On the other hand, by doing so you eliminate a possible distinction between (1) all highways that are commonly numbered across state borders (i.e., "interstate" highways, which include both the Eisenhower System and the U.S. Routes) and (2) state numbered highways, which do not often maintain numbering across borders.

That particular distinction is probably not that useful in common language, so most people can abandon the capital for the Eisenhower Interstate System without losing anything important.

But there is a meaning distinction there, which differentiates the common use of "interstate" in all contexts vs. a specific system. The question is whether "internet" would justify a similar distinction in modern usage or not.

stylebookz

[bugs2squash]

I thought all modern words were supposed to end in z now, shouldn't it be internetz and webz.

Re: fascists

[PopeRatzo]

f you say "interstate highway system," you create an ambiguity: are you referring to the Eisenhower System, or are you potentially referring to the network of all highways that cross state borders

And that, my friend, is why we call the "Internet", the internet.

Because most people are not referring to the original network of research universities, defense department functionaries and contractors. Most people are referring to the thing you use for twittter and email and cat pictures and porn and playing Counter Strike.

Re: fascists

[TechyImmigrant]

"You are welcome on my lawn".

Very kind. Does that extend to my tanks? (I have 5,000 of them).

You must store a lot of liquid.

Re: fascists

[St.Creed]

So.. art thou still using the book-of-words thy ealdefæder left thee?

Re: fascists

[KGIII]

> You wouldn't capitalize the "Interstate Highway System".

Yes I would. In fact, given the odds, I bet you can go through my posts and find them referred to as Interstate and National Highway System (of which the Interstate is a part).

They are proper titles.

I do say "Internet." However, I often call it the "'net." I also do not capitalize "web" as that's not the formal name. If I am calling it the World Wide Web then I'll capitalize it.

However, it should be noted that you've a Ph.D. in English Literature and not in English. I think that speaks for itself. ;-)

STYLE ALERT

[fyngyrz]

Don't capitalize "associated press" any longer. As this organization has been around for some time now and it is common to see these words associated with non-news items, we have now lost interest in them and they are no longer to be considered proper nouns.

Thank you for your attention to this matter, denizens of the Internet. If you'd like to learn more, you are welcome to visit my Web site.

CAPSLOCK IS CRUISE CONTROL FOR COOL!

[Thud457]

but always capitalmatize TEH INTARWEBZ!!!1!!