On capitalizing the internet

[andrewducker]

I don't capitalise the radio.  I don't capitalise the television.  I'm not capitalising the internet.

Wired agrees with me.

Comments

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

Yeah, because Wired is known as a bastion of technical accuracy and precise language. This article gives no sign that the author understands the reasoning behind capitalizing "Internet", so it provides no argument for not doing so.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

to clarify: The reason for capitalizing "Internet" has nothing to do with the reasons for not capitalizing "radio" or "television", so the article makes about as much sense as saying "We're not going to capitalize 'internet' because fire engines are red."

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

Nyeh ni nyeh nyeh, I'll capitalise it for you :-)

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

I agree. I worked as a network geek until last year and it's been years since I heard anyone use 'internet' to mean anything other than the global network. Anything else is generally called a network or a LAN.

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

I actually capitalize Internet simply because, working with global private networks as I do, internet means an internetwork: a wide area network interconnecting remote sites typically for a particular organisation. i.e. a private interconnecting network not for transporting traffic from other organisations. The public Internet, on the other hand is a shared homogenous infrastructure managed and maintained by hundreds of organisations over which public transport from many organisations is freely routed.

It can be very important in my role to make this distinction because we frequently provide private internet services between sites (note the small 'i' there) over the Internet using IPsec tunnelling or similar. So in support or correspondence regarding this type of connection it is absolutely fundamental that the distinction between 'internet' and 'Internet' is made as unambiguous as possible.

Insisting on relabelling Internet with a small 'i' purely for reasons of style is, IMHO, utterly idiotic. In fact, I think I start calling Tony Long 'mr pointless uneducated peasant'. Purely for stylistic reasons of course and it seems he's been around long enough for that name to spelt with no capitals.

[andrewducker]

So what's the difference between an internet and a WAN?

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

But that sort of service is more usefully called an extranet or VPN (depending on how it is set up). Calling it a small i internet just confuses things.

[green-amber.livejournal.com]

My experience is the Internet; multiple intranets and extranets. makes sense to me..

[dalglir.livejournal.com]

Not a lot. But its important to be aware that some individuals in some organisations will still insist on calling a their private WAN an internet which can lead to some confusion in spoken exchanges. It can be confusing and I prefer to use 'VPN' or 'WAN' to avoid the ambiguity but, it is still acceptable to use the word 'internet' if people want to.

Maybe the issue is not so much whether we should be spelling Internet with a capital 'I' but whether it is now more appropriate to use different terminology to say 'internet' and avoid the confusion altogether.

[stillcarl.livejournal.com]

Well argued. (By you, not Wired.)

But what about Net/net? I think it should be Net for the internet. "It's on the net." meaning look around the room to see what fishing/hair/whatever/net it's on, while "It's on the Net." means it's on the internet.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

But it's still THE radio, THE television, and THE internet, huh? :P

It's radio, television and internet!

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

Depends on whether you consider the Internet to be an example of a proper noun. Some do, some don't.

I regard the Internet as a proper noun (like any entity usually referred to as "the", like the Royal Family) so I capitalise it.

But what are we to make of this gem from Wired:

Web will continue to be capitalized when part of the more official entity, World Wide Web.

So, the World Wide Web merits proper noun status, and the Internet don't? World Wide Web is more "official" than the Internet? Says who? Says Wired. OK, that's their house style, their choice, and it doesn't have to be consistent or logical. *shrugs*

[red-cloud.livejournal.com]

There's more than one radio ("radio" refers to a class of objects), there's more than one television ("television" refers to a class of objects), but there's only one Internet!

[wolflady26.livejournal.com]

The Internet is obviously much more cool and important than television or radio. It should be capitalized to show its superiority.

[avatar.livejournal.com]

Good point.