Hi folks,
OK - enough. The results are in of this unscientific research. In the
spirit of Shaw and Webster, the simpler spelling is rapidly gaining
acceptance, but it doesn't look like we are quite there yet. More people
liked email, but the folks who voted for e-mail cited some heavy-hitting
authorities.
Pro email: 15
Pro e-mail: 12
Ambivalent or situational: 2 (and the other 10,000+ LM_Net members).
Specific justifications for points of view are given below. This has
changed my view of the matter somewhat. While I will continue to use
email in informal communications, I will revert to e-mail in more formal
writing when I wish to fool people into thinking I may actually know
something.
Thanks to everyone who responded and all the very best,
Doug
************
Doug Johnson
Director of Media and Technology
I.S.D. 77, Mankato Public Schools
Box 8713, Mankato MN 56002-8713
Voice: 507-387-7698, Fax: 507-387-2496
E-mail: dougj@doug-johnson.com
Web: www.doug-johnson.com
"The fates guide those who go willingly; those who do not, they drag."
Seneca
"The fates guide those who go willingly; those who do not, they drag."
Seneca
Pro email
Six responses that said, "Email is easier to type!" or something
similar).
Copyeditors fight over this too. I use email. Whereas early on the dash
might have been useful - after all, it began as a short version of
electronic mail - now I prefer eliminating the dash. It's shorter to
write, it's clearer to my mind, and sometimes dashes do weird things in
html and so on. Also, email is the French word for enamel, and that
cross-linguistic image I find deeply pleasing in an odd sort of way.
I have strong feelings that "email" is appropriate. The hyphen was
necessary when the term was new, but now that it is widespread, I prefer
to eliminate the hyphen.
Simplify. And reduce use of bandwidth. email. Why we are still spelling
this greater utility carrying our email (is the plural emails?) with an
upper case I (Internet)? When will we begin treating this word like
telegraph, telephone, facsimile, etc.?
My preference is email. As the language has changed over the years, the
hyphen has been dropped in most cases. I remember co-operation and
semi-annual, to name a few. I also have a problem with the use of
emails. When I get snail mail, I don't say snail mails. Just a
thought.
I use email - I think it started with a hyphen but the medium is such an
accepted part of our lives now that the word has just slipped into
common usage without the hyphen. But other terms like e-learning and
e-commerce (neither of which I like) have retained the hyphen still. Or
at least here in Oz!
I used to type e-mail, but now type email, just as I used to type cd-rom
and now type cdrom. It's easier + that's the way language works isn't
it? Words tend to become shorter if possible. I think that the longer we
have a technology, the less we think about what the word to describe it
means. Do you think e is for electronic when you say email? Probably not
I remember reading about a year ago that the "email" is now the accepted
spelling....I've started using email instead of e-mail
I prefer email. I think it is easily understood and simpler to write.
Why complicate things? Life is complex enough!
I use "email" even though I see it spelled "e-mail" in sources that
carry more weight than my emails BECAUSE I don't like to use the hyphen
when I type. It is a simple matter of expediency and convenience. Who
needs another complication in life, like an unneeded hyphen?
Pro e-mail
I vote for e-mail since email should actually be pronounced "uh-mail"
and is considered an "abomination" by Bill Walsh, the copy desk editor
for the Washington Post. His book, _Lapsing into a Comma: A Curmudgeon's
Guide to the Many Things that can go Wrong in Print--and how to avoid
Them_, is a fun read for purists or people who want an expert's opinion.
he has a sense of humor. I keep it nest to Strunk & White on my desk.
I am of the STRONG opinion that whenever you don't have to use a hyphen,
you don't. Unfortunately, the American Heritage HS dictionary of 1997
notes it with a hyphen, as does the more current online Merriam Webster.
I've always used e-mail; since it's an abbreviation for "electronic
mail" there should be a separation.
It's e-mail, short for electronic mail. Besides, email looks like one
word. And it's not pronounced as one word.
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary E-mail - that's what Webster says!
MS Word takes either so they must be as "conflicted" as the rest of us!
Most of the time I use the hyphenated form.
Definitely e-mail. "E" is an abbreviation of electronic and thus is
correctly separated by the hyphen.
It's actually electronic mail, so perhaps e mail would be correct;
however, that's a little goofy, so I strongly think e-mail is right
because of pronunciation and because it was once two words.
I prefer e-mail - electronic mail.
Since e-mail stands for 'electronic mail' (which is two words) it should
be hyphenated or the origin would be electronicmail, which doesn't look
right.
Since e is short for electronic mail, you need to use the dash to
replace the
missing letters. I think it's e-mail.
My vote: e-mail, but I use email because it's less to type
Ambivalent, situational, or from people who just like to make trouble...
I am partial to e-mail as that is how I remember seeing the term spelled
for the first time. I'm guessing that as the term became ubiquitous,
people knew that the pronunciation was < EE mail> rather than <em AIL>
or some other variation, and the hyphen became unnecessary. If I'm
writing something formal, I use e-mail. If I'm writing something
informal, I use email. Its just a bit less "fussy". TechDictionary lists
both terms and does not differentiate as far as I can tell:
http://www.techdictionary.com/ PCWebopedia acknowledges only e-mail
http://www.pcwebopaedia.com/ or http://www.webopedia.com/ Hope you'll
share your results. Its actually a very interesting question as we're
seeing a word evolve in a relatively short period of time.
some people use Edashmail
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