Internet - Wednesday, July 13, 2011 11:48 - 21 Comments

Lowercase internet

Lady Gaga unlike "internet" should be capitalized

Is it time to start lowercasing the ”internet?” Yes!

Newspaper life has a glorious past in Hollywood movies, from “It Happened One Night” in 1934 to “His Girl Friday” and “Citizen Kane” in the early 1940s. And don’t forget “Ace in the Hole” and “Sweet Smell of Success” in the 1950s. But do we capitalize the word ”Newspaper” or do we lowercase it now as “newspaper”? You know the answer.

So does Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, er, I mean, Dustin Hoffman and Robert Redford in “All the President’s Men.”

So what about this Internet/internet conundrum? Do you capitalize the word or lowercase it? America still caps it, but our friends across the Pond in the UK lowercase it.

So why can’t America lead the way –we invented the Internet?

The New York Times was correct way back in 2002 when it reported that there was some virtue in the theory that the internet was becoming a generic term, and that it would not be surprising to see lowercase usage eclipse uppercase usage within a few years. Maybe before 2011 is over?

I recently asked Phil Corbett, a top editor at the New York Times who decides these matters, what the Times policy is on lowercasing or capitalizing words, especially the word internet, or as the Times (and the Los Angeles Times) still writes it, Internet. He replied in Internet time, saying:

“Our current style is to keep the uppercase ”I” for Internet. I agree that the trend is toward lowercase, and I suspect that at some point we will review our style. But our preference is to follow established usage, not to lead the way. So I can’t predict when the change might
be made.”

So the August New York Times does not want to lead the way? Then who will lead us? The Associated Press style book, which still insists on capitalizing the word? Are there no brave new editors out there?

Listen to me: there are three very good and profound reasons America should start lowercasing the word “internet” right now, by which I mean “as soon as possible.”

1. The way we spell the word should reflect the profound shift in the way we now think about online world, and I am sure futurist Paul Saffo in San Francisco would agree with me.

2. The internet isn’t a brand like Kleenex or Xerox or Styrofoam or Lady Gaga.

3. Folks, the Digital Revolution is over. The internet has won.

According to the Pew Research Center’s Internet and American Life project (and the center does not capitalize the word internet, by the way), 79 percent of American adults use the internet. So isn’t time to get with it, and join the Brits and put the internet in its proper place?

This post was submitted by Dan Bloom.

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