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Subject:Re: online or on-line From:Kent Newton <KentN -at- METRIX-INC -dot- COM> Date:Tue, 6 Feb 1996 18:14:00 PST
On Tuesday, February 06, 1996 3:20 PM, Joyce Flaherty wrote:
..snipped...
>Our Marketing department advertised and promoted the system,
> Xxxxxxx On-Line.
>When I protested, they said, "After we talked to you, we consulted a
>grammarian. The proper spelling is on-line." They did apologize to
>me. They did admit error in changing the name of our product. BUT,
>they implied that there is something very wrong with naming a system
>Xxxxxxx Online (one word, no hyphen). What do you think?
>joyce flaherty
I'm afraid your marketing department is right: the correct spelling is
"on-line." However, if you are using it in a product name, there is no
law that says it has to be spelled correctly. In fact, many companies
purposely misspell common words that are part of their product name
simply so they can acquire trademark status more easily.
Kent Newton
Senior Technical Writer
Metrix, Inc.
kentn -at- metrix-inc -dot- com