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Internet, Web Enjoy One Final Day As Proper Nouns (go.com)
An anonymous reader writes: The Internet and Web will be downgraded to "internet" and "web" tomorrow with the new edition of the AP Stylebook. Therefore, today marks their last day as proper nouns. The AP Stylebook is a manual that many journalists follow, offering a comprehensive guide to the usage of words, style, spelling and punctuation. "The argument for lowercasing Internet is that is has become wholly generic, like electricity and the telephone. It never was trademarked and is not based on any proper noun," writes Tom Kent, AP Standards Editor. "The best reason for capitalizing it in the past may have been that the term was new. At one point, we understand, 'Phonograph' was capitalized." The two names will join the likes of website (formerly Web site) and email (formerly e-mail).
"The best reason for capitalizing it in the past may have been that the term was new."
Wonderful research this guy has done here, couldn't he even bother to read Wikipedia before opening his slap trap? Wikipedia would have told him clearly:
The words internetwork and internet is simply a contraction of the phrase interconnected network. However, when written with a capital "I," the Internet refers to the worldwide set of interconnected networks.
People who don't do basic research are the reason we get cynical demagogues for presidential candidates. There is no forgiveness for Tom Kent, may he burn in the deepest circle of hell with the morons.
Q: "Why are you in hell Tom?"
A: "I don't deserve it, I was the smartest man in the world, everything I knew about came from Facebook reposts."
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Nobody talks about any other internet when they say Internet. It's a proper place name just as much as Asia.
The Internet is the dominant globally routable network. An internet is a proposal for the Internet, an inferior network that uses IP, or anything other than the dominant IP network. Likewise, a web is something a spider weaves. I see no reason to change the current usage. I'll continue to capitalize these words when referring to them. Who are these people anyway?
Wouldn't there have to be more than one Internet for there to be an internet? Is Internet 2 another internet, or is it a research WAN?
What do I call this network I am on now? I tend to call it the Internet.
I usually call the planet I'm standing on "Earth" and not "earth". Although I can use the word "earth" for just about any pile of dirt.
I certainly recommend calling the start that Earth revolves around the Sun and not a sun. A lowercase "sun" is a useful generic term for the many suns of the universe. Sol is another name we like to use for the Sun, but "Sol" not necessarily the preferred name in English.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
There is only one Internet. That's what the capital is for. It is a proper noun indicating the network of all globally routable addresses. If the people at the AP are so clueless as to not know that, no wonder the news is so bad.
I don't tend to use anything else.
Originally (with lower-case initial): a computer network comprising or connecting a number of smaller networks, such as two or more local area networks connected by a shared communications protocol; an internetwork; spec. such a network (called ARPANET) operated by the United States Department of Defence. In later use (usually the Internet): the global network comprising a loose confederation of interconnected networks using standardized communication protocols...
This is far better researched than a style guide used by US journalists which seems to have made the change entirely for arbitrary reasons. It also makes sense to capitalize it since there is only one, well unless you get your language from George Bush but I'd hate to think they are using him as an inspiration.
Slashdot editors, however, will continue to ignore all rules of grammar, punctuation, and spelling, and continue their decades-long campaign to commit atrocities against the English language.
Looks like the Microsoft devs have a lot of free time on their hands again.
Honestly, you guys have a lot of bugs you need to fix, stop trolling slashdot and get back to work.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
This does not make sense to me. It's not just "a" Internet or "a" Web, they are "the" Internet and "the" Web. Unlike the Phonograph, there are not multiple vendors and multiple versions. It's all one very unique thing.
Bozos like this is why general press coverage of technical and scientific stories still sucks. Rather than ask someone who knows for their informed opinion, they think they already know everything so can make decisions without having to ask.
Lowercasing 'Internet' makes about as much sense as lowercasing Associated Press, because the AP used to be new, but now there are several other associations of press corps.
One letter at a time my friend. One letter at a time.
freeBSD
freebSD
and the last sad step before netcraft confirms the lower case...
freebsD
I can see why some people would put "internet" in the same category as utilities like cable, telephone, or telegraph, which are common nouns.
But you would think journalists of all people would take a little more pride in their use of language, and recognize a proper noun.
Then again, given the state of "journalism", I doubt if pride is in their vocabulary.
That phony word is so irritating. And while we're at it, a pox on the house of people who insist on trying to make a word out of an acronym. It's a GUI not a gooey.
So you're saying it should be spelled 'Facts' ?
I was trying to think of an analogy to use to make the point to the idiots at AP and it occurs the me that the Internet is the most widely known specific internet in the same way the Moon is the most widely know specific moon. If you wanted to be pedantic you could refer to the Moon as the moon in orbit around the Earth (or should that be the earth now?). If you call the Internet just internet how do you specify which internet you want to refer too? What about Internet2, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..., is that now internet2?
Apparently AP think it is the moon and some people are not happy about that, http://www.airspacemag.com/dai...
I prefer Infomercial Superhypeway.
Consider 'the world.' Or 'the sky.' There's only one of each (synecdoche and other planets notwithstanding) but we don't really regard them as proper nouns. In fact, you have to go back pretty far to find a language where one of these vast media are encoded in a way that's even ambiguously a true proper noun in what is still decidedly poetic writing. I confess I initially resisted the idea of this too, but... it's not really a bad thing, in the end. The dream of the ARPANET, NSFnet, and other early nets was always to create a network medium that was invisible and omnipresent. This is just another step on that journey.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
If you made a list of internets, it would be a short list. Hard to claim that "internets" have become generic when there's only the one.
More correctly internet (small 'i') has always referred to any network, such as your local LAN or maybe a multi-site network. Small 'i' internets are countless. The Internet (capital 'I') refers to all of the interconnected internets.
The following sentence shows the appropriate capitalization.
The internetworking protocol of the Internet is the internet.
so, i don't care!
shift is for noobs
And you SHALL use it in such a manner as PLEASES US or you SHALL be subject to the CONSEQUENCES fitting an irreverent deviant who would take liberties with such great art that he hardly has the right to behold from afar!
The time for organic language has passed! By divine mandate we have been granted the power to engineer language and in turn engineer minds! Your instincts are irrelevant and must be put down!
Don't forget, censorship is the bane of humanity and you should recognize it in all of its forms.
Since they're just now changing their style guide, apparently everyone who wrote for the AP from the mid 90s until today?
As noted by many others above, an internet is a set of interconnected networks. The Internet is a specific global grouping of interconnected networks, which happens to also be by far the largest one, in terms of number of distinct networks and nodes.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
How many of these words need capitals?
Internet,
Web
Enjoy
One
Final
Day
As
Proper
Nouns
...omphaloskepsis often...
"The argument for lowercasing Internet is that is has become wholly generic[...]"
I don't think that's the case. Everyone still refers to it as "the" Internet, since there are lots of networks, but there's only one Internet. It's not like there are lots of internets out there (like one of the bad examples, "telephone"), and it's alo not a natural phenomenon like the other bad example, "electricity". It's the one, and I can't see why it couldn't be kept capitalized. I don't much care if it's lower case of not, but I can't agree with the argument here. Also, "the two names for the great global network" is just wrong - their meaning might have merged for the general public, but they are not the same thing.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I thought "web" reached EOL a decade ago.
The AP Stylebook is an American product, written by and for American journalists. Saying that the Internet should henceforth be 'internet' is a parochial decision without global authority.
In Britain the standard is set by the Oxford University Press, which has a rather longer and more illustrious history than the AP Stylebook. When the OUP and the Oxford English Dictionary declare that the word should not be capitalised, I shall accept their authority. Until then, it's the Internet for me.
A better example is the electric grid. Or the highway network.
Yes, it's true that for many years, there has been an common explanation for why "the Internet" should be capitalized, but I think what people here need to realize that one logical deduction does not make language. These things are much weirder.
I can see why you're annoyed. In Danish, the same decision was made years ago. I think for people don't give a damn about networks the capital "I" just looks plain weird.
Whatever happened to Internet 2?
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
More correctly internet (small 'i') has always referred to any network, such as your local LAN or maybe a multi-site network. Small 'i' internets are countless. The Internet (capital 'I') refers to all of the interconnected internets.
Even more correctly, an 'internet' is a set of connected networks, so a simple LAN is not an internet, but if 2 LANs are connected via a router (not a bridge) then they form an 'internet'.
The decision demonstrates considerable ignorance on a number of levels. "Phonograph" is a common noun, but more to the point there are more phonographs than one. In common parlance, the term "Internet" refers to the one and only Internet. True, you can have separate internets and lowercase them if you wish (and it even seems desirable to distinguish them from the Internet). In the term "Internet Protocol(s)", the capital letters are also fully justified by the fact that IP(s) are proper names.
As for the Web, it is obviously and even more emphatically one and unique. Otherwise Tim Berners-Lee would not have chosen to call it "the World Wide Web". Since he also chose to give it away free, rather than sucking vast profits from it, I think we can afford to honour his decision - the more so as it is eminently logical and sensible. If anyone has not read TBL's own explanation, see https://www.w3.org/People/Bern...
I cannot help feeling that the rush to lowercase these terms reflects little more than fashion. There is a trend to lowercase words and phrases that obviously should be capitalized, including proper names. We should not allow that modish trend to lead us astray, as we are more interested in the true meaning of words than in their superficial appearance.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
Internet, Web Enjoy One Final Day As Proper Nouns
Meanwhile Slashdot is making up for it by capitalising words whether they are proper nouns or not.
Title case is ridiculous.
And it is okay to use the word "and". This is the Internet (or the internet). You're not paying by the byte for bandwidth and there's no physical space restriction so there's no need to replace it with a comma.
Why are the "new media" so intent on hanging on to the pointless traditions of the past?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The Internet (capital 'I') refers to all of the interconnected internets.
...You mean the one Al Gore invented... ...whoa...I think I just had a flashback...that's really trippy...
The Earth is capitalised, so world isn't a particularly good example. There are others, such as god, where capitalisation is used to differentiate between a god and the specific God. Similarly, there are many internets (any network of networks is an internet), but only one Internet.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Thank you... that's the thing, when referring to "The Internet" it is to a very specific thing. When you are from New York, you don't refer to "Manhattan"... you refer to "The City". If you move to Tokyo, you still know "The City" is Manhattan.
Internets which is an abbreviation for inter-network of course has always been a generic. As another poster clearly defines, inter-network communication takes the term network which (annoyingly enough) refers to the bounds of a layer-2 broadcast domain... this is also known as a LAN or local area network. Upon connecting these two LANs or networks together using a routing device (surprisingly generally referred to as a router) that performs forwarding at based on layer-3 addressing (not necessarily using routing tables), inter-network communication is accomplished. This previously was referred to as internet communication. Though we no longer commonly use the term as it is easily confused with Internet communication which is absolutely not the same thing as internet communication.
Internet (with an upper-case "I") communication refers specifically to "The Internet" which there is and can only ever be one of.
internet (with a lower-case "I") simply requires two connected LANs via a router. This topology definition can be called internet but instead should be called inter-network communication.
The AP obviously lacks on-staff technical expertise, researchers or fact checkers, otherwise they would have caught this sooner.
There are governing authorities of specific standards and technologies to ensure that there is ONE Internet and that everyone on it can communicate.
Or should ICANN and IANA change their names? What do they govern now?
The problem with your analogy is that it is possible to have an internet (one or more connected, yet autonomous, networks that are not connected to the Internet (a global connection of connected, yet automomous, networks taken as a unit). It's more like a clump of dirt is earth, but Earth is a planet.
I want all of the power and none of the responsibility.
Because there is one and only one Internet.
There are many Telephones and many Phonographs, but only one Internet.
The Internet is the network of networks....
Internet is kind of like the word Universe, or "The Big Bang Theory"
Theoretically more than one could exist, BUT new ones will not be called Internet.
For example: An experimental network of networks has been called the Internet2
New network of networks will not be called Internet. The Internet is only one specific global arrangement of networks.
Seriously, fuck 'em. As with so many others here, I shall mock them if they don't understand why it's got a capital.
I do not care what the AP says. I will still use the words Internet and Web in caps, just as I use the term e-mail, just as use the word 'hacker' for a clever programmer and 'cracker' for losers who break into computers. Only a bourgeois loser takes journalists seriously anyway.
--- Andy West http://andywest.org
In common usage, the Internet is a place. "My wife and I met on the Internet" is no different than "My wife and I met on Earth".
When it's not being used as a place, by all means down-case it, "I had a hard time getting internet access at my hotel" versus "I had a hard time getting onto the Internet from my hotel".
www.sjbaker.org
In general, there is no sole arbiter of what words, grammar or syntax is English. English is largely defined by common usage.
The Oxford English Dictionary, and other popular dictionaries or encyclopedia may well be used as supporting evidence for how we use English, but I certainly don't look to the Associated Press, as reported by ABC News, as a strong basis for what I should be doing with my speech and writing.
Actually it is rocket science...
Tom Kent falsely claims that, "The argument for lowercasing Internet is that is has become wholly generic, like electricity and the telephone." Here's a thought experiment: I'll create a few disconnected networks, interconnect them, but *not* to the Internet. By definition, any set of interconnected networks is an internet (but not *the* Internet). Then I'll sell a service that lets people access my internet... which lacks Google, Wikipedia, and many other things. I bet he'll suddenly find that "the Internet" is *NOT* generic - it is a *specific* set of interconnected networks, which has a proper name. Governments still routinely create interconnected networks that use TCP/IP, but do *NOT* connect to the Internet - especially when security is critical. AP may be unaware of this, but it's still true. Upper/lower casing in the end isn't THAT critical. The REAL problem is that too many reporters do not understand what they're reporting about, nor do they check their sources to find out. The difference between "Internet" and "internet" have been documented for decades. Failure to understand, and failure to check sources, is the REAL problem here.
- David A. Wheeler (see my Secure Programming HOWTO)
See https://tools.ietf.org/html/rf... .
An internet is any computer network which is addressed by Internet Protocol.
The Internet is the large super-network of a bunch of interconnected internets.
RFC-1918 is the perfect example of these distinct uses. I firmly believe that since the second aforementioned use is a particular collection of internets, that the correct usage is as a proper noun. You can connect multiple private internets, but that would not constitute the Internet.
Why does the ap care whether or not I capitalize their acronym?
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
There is only one Internet
everything else is an intranet /discussion
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so
Actually, it's case preserving, which is a sort of half-assed compromise.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
"The argument for lowercasing 'Internet' is that is has become wholly generic, like electricity and the telephone."
Except that there's only one Internet, not dozens of different kinds or brands of the internet. It depends on how you're using the word. While you can use these words in a generic sense, if you're talking about the Internet, it is a proper noun. Same with the Web, short for the World Wide Web.
-- sudon't
Air-ride Equipped
"World" is a generic term. The world on which we live does have a name -- Earth. Which is capitalized. (Lowercase-e earth is also a word -- a synonym for 'dirt'.) "World" is like "person" in that sense. You don't capitalize "person", even if you're referring to someone specific, but you do capitalize their name if you use that.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
1 computer = 1 computer
many computers connected = 1 intranet (or 1 LAN)
many intranets connected = 1 internet (or 1 WAN)
many internets connected = 1 Internet
Internet is capitalized to distinguish between "internetwork" (interconnected-networks) and THE global internetwork using IP -- The Internet (caps).
Tom Kent's comments that "The BEST reason MAY HAVE BEEN" blah blah blah does a disservice to anyone who could either research this very simple thing, or ask someone who knows. It's not anything he says it is. Also there's no connection between a trademark (requiring an individual or company to register exclusive use in commerce) with the capitalization of a word!!! Truly this guy is a marvel in not knowing anything about words.
They can stop capitalizing it. The word internet and the word Internet will still be different, the former being any networks tied together, and the latter being The Internet.
E
Intended typo AC? I'm chuckling either way.
[UID-HeinzIntel]
APs failure to understand difference between the Internet and an internet is far from surprising. These failures have become so commonplace the definition of Journalism (US) effective tomorrow has officially changed to more accurately reflect present day usage.
journalism (ËjÉ(TM)r-na-ËOEli-zam)
Noun.
"Process of bumbling basic facts, hyperbole and trolling for profit"
Thanks, I thought I was the only one who would even think about saying that.
Whether or not the non-capitalization is accurate is beside the point. If one of the most laggard, lame, and clueless group of people - journalists - have decided that the internet or web is no longer new, and therefore no longer "cool", then the spirit of the media-manufactured "Strange New World of the Internet" from Time's July 25, 1994 cover is officially dead. There can be no more doubt that browsing the web has the same level of awe and sophistication as a meth-addled trailer parker watching Perry Mason reruns at two in the afternoon. This is more or less the death knell of any pretense that being on the web instead of the teevee is somehow better.
"Anonymous Coward" is for whistleblowers, not unpopular opinions.
Not so fast. When you stick "the" in front of "Earth" it becomes a common noun and loses its capitalization. I believe this is for the same reason that 'world' and 'sky' aren't capitalized; the usage descends from pre-Galileo, non-Heliocentric practices. It's a medium, in addition to referring to soil and a planet.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Not a problem. You can have more than one sky or ocean, too.
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
As I told Raven64, it's more complex than that for 'earth.' There are three uses of the word, two of which are uncapitalized. One of those does refer to the medium in a manner analogous to the 'sky' and 'world' usages I described, in a pre-Heliocentric way. When you say "the bird plummeted to the earth," you're referring to the ground as a whole, not the third planet of the Sol system, and not mere soil. Same for "every man, woman, and child on this earth."
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
It's compiling.
Finally I can use "internet" in Scrabble!
Tracy Johnson
Old fashioned text games hosted below:
http://empire.openmpe.com/
BT
No, actually, it is specifically titled Address Allocation for Private Internets.