Blog on the Lillypad
Friday, May 28, 2004
Web site, web site, or website? That is the question!
The American Heritage Dictionary was our standard for spelling and usage when I taught English at Greenville Technical College. For American English, the AHD is (or at least was) considered a suitable academic reference. The editors offer this comment on using newly coined "techno" words appropriately in professional or academic correspondence:
The rules usually move towards simplification. So if you can avoid hyphens, do so. If you can avoid capitalizing, do so (but never break the established rules of capitalization!)
The American Heritage Dictionary was our standard for spelling and usage when I taught English at Greenville Technical College. For American English, the AHD is (or at least was) considered a suitable academic reference. The editors offer this comment on using newly coined "techno" words appropriately in professional or academic correspondence:
The transition from "World Wide Web site" to "Web site" to "website" seems to have progressed as rapidly as the technology itself. The development of website as a single uncapitalized word mirrors the development of other technological expressions which have tended to evolve into unhyphenated forms as they become more familiar. Thus "email" has recently been gaining ground over the forms "E-mail" and "e-mail", especially in texts that are more technologically oriented. Similarly, there has been an increasing preference for closed forms like "homepage", "online", and "printout".
The rules usually move towards simplification. So if you can avoid hyphens, do so. If you can avoid capitalizing, do so (but never break the established rules of capitalization!)
