Guidelines for using "e" in front of terms?

["Hart, Geoff" <Geoff-H -at- MTL -dot- FERIC -dot- CA>]

Wade Courtney wonders: <<Are there any websites for this? [Guidelines for
using "e" in front of terms]>>

My advice: e-void the whole darn issue. Seems like e-verything these days
has an e-prefix e-ppended to the word. E-xtremely annoying for those of us
who be-lieve that E-nglish has e-nough words to communicate e-ffectively
without coining new ones for no purpose.

<<For instance is it, e business, e-business, or business?>>

The preferred term seems to be e-commerce nowadays; I believe "e-business"
is an IBM service mark (see http://www-3.ibm.com/e-business/index.jsp for
instance). I'm with the group of editors who feels that "e-" (as in e-mail)
is the preferred form until the unhyphenated form becomes standard in
popular usage; that's admittedly a judgment call, but at least it follows
the historical practice in English of starting compounds words as hyphenated
compounds, then gradually setting the words solid as a single word after
several years of widespread use.

--Geoff Hart, FERIC, Pointe-Claire, Quebec
geoff-h -at- mtl -dot- feric -dot- ca
"User's advocate" online monthly at
www.raycomm.com/techwhirl/usersadvocate.html

"When ideas fail, words come in very handy."--Goethe

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