Journal: News & Comment

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Should it be E-mail, e-mail, email, or eMail?

Wired News, which long ago pioneered the use of the word "email" as a single word, without a hyphen, recently changed their minds. I've always preferred the "e-mail" spelling they now use, and it's especially useful now that there are so many other "e-" (and "m-" etc.) words to go with it.

It may seem trivial, but Wired News's change is actually rather unusual. In English, words tend to go from separate ("electronic mail") to hyphenated ("e-mail") to one word ("email") -- almost never the other way. No one is likely to start using "to-night" again, for instance.

No standard has yet appeared in English for "e-mail" (and "e-commerce," and "e-business," and "m-commerce"...). In our language, nobody's in charge, so it will simply take some time for a canonical spelling to coalesce. I'm hoping for "e-mail," but if I had to bet money, I'd expect "email" will eventually be the way to go. All the other weird variants, such as "E-mail" with an always-capital E, and "eMail," will simply disappear along with the hyphenated one.

How long will it take for the change to be final? Maybe by the time "tonite" and "thru" are the official spellings of those words. Maybe sooner.

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