RE: Web site or website

[Christi Carew <ccarew -at- rangestar -dot- com>]

> From: Donna Horowitz [mailto:horowit -at- en -dot- com]
> Subject: Web site or website
> 
> What's the preferred use for this among our tech whirlers:
> 
> Web site

Here's what I posted in May of last year (with a bit added)...

First, Web site.

As Dick M. put it: " World Wide Web is a proper noun. So we write about our
Web-enabled application, Web-powered technology, etc., using Web as
shorthand for World Wide Web."

I am a recent convert to the hyphenated style. I used to be part of the
"email" camp. Here are some excerpts of the arguments that convinced me.

>From Bill Walsh's at "The Curmudgeon's Style Book" at The Slot
<http://www.theslot.com/>: No initial-based term in the history of the
English language has ever evolved to form a solid word -- a few are split,
and the rest are hyphenated. Look at C-rations, D-Day, , G-string, H-bomb,
J-school, T-bill, U-joint, X-ray, Y-chromosome, and dozens of other such
compounds.

email is the French word for enamel (with some accent that I don't know off
the top of my head). On this one, it's not really all that convincing. I
think that you'd probably get it pretty easily from the context.

But this, for me, was the strongest reasoning:

If "email" is acceptable, then "ecommerce" and "etrade" and others are sure
to follow, which is certain to cause confusion every time a word appears
that starts with the letter "e." The reader might pause and wonder if it's
some new "e" coinage instead of the ordinary word. Do we want readers to
see "equip" and wonder, even for an instant, if it refers to an on-line
joke? There are many words where this could happen (elapse, emerge,
emotion, epaulette, epic, election, elude, etc.). Your imagination can
provide possible "e" meanings for these words.
-Drew Bryan

I have since then (recently, in fact) come across instances where things
would have been much clearer had the writer used a hyphen in e-something. I
think it is always clearer than without. It's kinda like the serial comma
(in my opinion). You don't _have_ to use it, but it always more clear than
not using it.

Christi Carew
ccarew -at- rangestar -dot- com

RangeStar Wireless
www.rangestar.com

All communication contained in this e-mail is entirely my own and is not
necessarily endorsed by my co-workers or employer.

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