So wtf… is it “Internet” or “internet”?
I’m one of those people who those people who can’t let the little red and green squiggles trail behind my cursor.
Well it turns out that Microsoft Word is right to go into convulsions when you fail to capitalize Internet. According to the Chicago Manual of Style, this is still the party line. The capital “I” Internet is still a specific term used to refer to an expansive concept. It requires capitalization to avoid confusion with other possible intertwined networks that could be called internets.
Back in 2004, the editors at Wired boldly announced that Internet would be internet, Net would be net, and Web would be web. While their argument seems reasonable enough to me, it doesn’t account for the justification given by Chicago:
Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was…
… in the case of internet, web and net, a change in our house style was necessary to put into perspective what the internet is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television.
In other words, the editors at Wired argue that the Internet no longer refers to a grandiose concept, although I don’t buy their argument that we conceive the Internet the same way we conceive television. Wired also refers to “websites” instead of “Web sites,” which Chicago doesn’t agree with either. Nearly five years later Wired‘s usage might be common, but it hasn’t caught on with the formal writing crowd…. I suppose that’s the price of being cutting edge isn’t it?