Email

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary (M-W) prefers e-mail (with a hyphen, small e) as do the Associated Press Stylebook (AP), Gregg Reference Manual (Gregg), Wired Style (Wired), and the Microsoft Manual of Style (Microsoft). The Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) preferred E-mail in its last edition, but prefers the lower case e now.

Online

All six references now use online without a hyphen. So should you.

Internet and the World Wide Web

All six references also agree that you should capitalize Internet and the Web, because they are referring to a specific collection of servers (the Internet) and a subset of information on them (the World Wide Web). So, much like a place name, these terms should be capitalized, even when abbreviated as the Net and the Web.

Website

Merriam-Webster prefers Web site (two words, capital W), as do AP, Gregg, Wired, and Microsoft. The Chicago Manual of Style does too, but the editors there also believe website is acceptable for informal writing and predict that they will eventually accept website for formal writing as well.

So, Is Writing911 Wrong?

Given the consensus among the experts, why does Writing911 use email and website? We believe that in the not too distant future, even these respected guides will recognize these spellings as perfectly acceptable. That's the way new words evolve in English: They start as two words (electronic mail), then become hyphenated (e-mail), then one word (email). That's what happened with online, and email and website will surely follow. Consider these search statistics gathered in April 2005:

Number of pages Google returned with website: 1.30 billion
Number of pages Google returned with Web site: 942 million

Number of pages Google returned with email: 1.37 billion
Number of pages Google returned with e-mail: 1.02 billion

The Bottom Line

As with many writing style decisions, consistency is more important than the spelling you prefer. Decide what you like and stick to it.

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