Internet capitalization conventions
Encyclopedia
Internet capitalization conventions are the practices of various publishers regarding the capitalization of "Internet" or "internet", when referring to the Internet
/internet, as distinct from generic internet
s (or internetworks).
Since the widespread deployment of the Internet Protocol Suite
in the early 1980s, the Internet standards-setting bodies and technical infrastructure organizations, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force
(IETF), the Internet Society
, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the World Wide Web Consortium
, and others, have consistently spelled the name of the world-wide network, the Internet, with an initial capital letter and treated it as a proper noun
in the English language. Before the transformation of the ARPANET
into the modern Internet, the term internet in its lower case spelling was a common short form of the term internetwork, and this spelling and use may still be found in discussions of networking.
Many publications today disregard the historical development and use the term in its common noun spelling, arguing that it has become a generic medium of communication.
and an internet
(or internetwork), the first being treated as a proper noun
with a capital letter, and the latter as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any internetwork or inter-connected Internet Protocol
networks. The distinction is evident in a large number of the Request for Comments
documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET to the Internet was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity.
Another example is IBM's TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview (ISBN 0-7384-2165-0) from 1989, which stated that:
The Internet/internet distinction fell out of common use after the Internet Protocol Suite was widely deployed in commercial networks in the 1990s.
The term originated as an adjective
, and is mostly used in this way in RFCs, the documentation for the evolving Internet Protocol
(IP) standards for internetworking between ARPANET and other computer networks in the 1970s. As the impetus behind IP grew, it became more common to regard the results of internetworking as entities of their own, and internet became a noun, used both in a generic sense (any collection of computer networks connected through internetworking) and in a specific sense (the collection of computer networks that internetworked with ARPANET, and later NSFNET, using the IP standards, and that grew into the connectivity service we know today).
In its generic sense, internet is a common noun, a synonym for internetwork; therefore, it has a plural form (first appearing in the RFC series in RFC 870, RFC 871, and RFC 872), and is not capitalized.
In its specific sense, it is a proper noun, and therefore, without a plural form and traditionally capitalized.
argue that other things that are unique yet distributed, such as "the power grid", "the telephone network", and even "the sky", are not considered proper nouns, and are thus not capitalized. Since at least 2002 it has been theorized that Internet has been changing from a proper noun to a generic term. Words for new technologies, such as Phonograph in the 19th century, are sometimes capitalized at first, later becoming uncapitalized. It was suggested as early as 1999 that Internet might, like some other commonly used proper nouns, lose its capital letter.
Capitalization of the word as an adjective also varies. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized as a noun but not capitalized as an adjective, e.g., "internet resources".
, the Associated Press
, Time
, and The Times of India
. In addition, many peer-review
ed journals and professional publications such as Communications of the ACM
capitalize "Internet", and this style guideline is also specified by the American Psychological Association
in its electronic media spelling guide.
More recently, a significant number of publications have switched to not capitalizing the noun "internet." Among them are The Economist
, the Financial Times
, The Times
, the Guardian
, the Observer
and the Sydney Morning Herald
. As of 2011, most publications using "internet" appear to be located outside of North America
, but the gap is closing. Wired News
, an American news source, adopted the lower-case spelling in 2004. Around April 2010, CNN
shifted its house style to adopt the lowercase spelling.
As Internet connectivity has expanded, it has started to be seen as a service similar to television, radio, and telephone, and the word has come to be used in this way (e.g. "I have the internet at home" and "I saw it on (the) internet"). For this type of use, English spelling and grammar do not prescribe whether the article or capitalization are to be used, which explains the inconsistency that exists in practice.
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
/internet, as distinct from generic internet
Internetworking
Internetworking is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets between the networks...
s (or internetworks).
Since the widespread deployment of the Internet Protocol Suite
Internet protocol suite
The Internet protocol suite is the set of communications protocols used for the Internet and other similar networks. It is commonly known as TCP/IP from its most important protocols: Transmission Control Protocol and Internet Protocol , which were the first networking protocols defined in this...
in the early 1980s, the Internet standards-setting bodies and technical infrastructure organizations, such as the Internet Engineering Task Force
Internet Engineering Task Force
The Internet Engineering Task Force develops and promotes Internet standards, cooperating closely with the W3C and ISO/IEC standards bodies and dealing in particular with standards of the TCP/IP and Internet protocol suite...
(IETF), the Internet Society
Internet Society
The Internet Society or ISOC is an international, nonprofit organization founded during 1992 to provide direction in Internet related standards, education, and policy...
, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the World Wide Web Consortium
World Wide Web Consortium
The World Wide Web Consortium is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web .Founded and headed by Tim Berners-Lee, the consortium is made up of member organizations which maintain full-time staff for the purpose of working together in the development of standards for the...
, and others, have consistently spelled the name of the world-wide network, the Internet, with an initial capital letter and treated it as a proper noun
Proper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
in the English language. Before the transformation of the ARPANET
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network , was the world's first operational packet switching network and the core network of a set that came to compose the global Internet...
into the modern Internet, the term internet in its lower case spelling was a common short form of the term internetwork, and this spelling and use may still be found in discussions of networking.
Many publications today disregard the historical development and use the term in its common noun spelling, arguing that it has become a generic medium of communication.
The name Internet versus generic internets
The Internet standards community has historically differentiated between the InternetInternet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
and an internet
Internetworking
Internetworking is the practice of connecting a computer network with other networks through the use of gateways that provide a common method of routing information packets between the networks...
(or internetwork), the first being treated as a proper noun
Proper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
with a capital letter, and the latter as a common noun with lower-case first letter. An internet is any internetwork or inter-connected Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
networks. The distinction is evident in a large number of the Request for Comments
Request for Comments
In computer network engineering, a Request for Comments is a memorandum published by the Internet Engineering Task Force describing methods, behaviors, research, or innovations applicable to the working of the Internet and Internet-connected systems.Through the Internet Society, engineers and...
documents from the early 1980s, when the transition from the ARPANET to the Internet was in progress, although it was not applied with complete uniformity.
Another example is IBM's TCP/IP Tutorial and Technical Overview (ISBN 0-7384-2165-0) from 1989, which stated that:
The words internetwork and internet is [sic] simply a contraction of the phrase interconnected network. However, when written with a capital "I", the Internet refers to the worldwide set of interconnected networks. Hence, the Internet is an internet, but the reverse does not apply. The Internet is sometimes called the connected Internet.
The Internet/internet distinction fell out of common use after the Internet Protocol Suite was widely deployed in commercial networks in the 1990s.
The term originated as an adjective
Adjective
In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....
, and is mostly used in this way in RFCs, the documentation for the evolving Internet Protocol
Internet Protocol
The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...
(IP) standards for internetworking between ARPANET and other computer networks in the 1970s. As the impetus behind IP grew, it became more common to regard the results of internetworking as entities of their own, and internet became a noun, used both in a generic sense (any collection of computer networks connected through internetworking) and in a specific sense (the collection of computer networks that internetworked with ARPANET, and later NSFNET, using the IP standards, and that grew into the connectivity service we know today).
In its generic sense, internet is a common noun, a synonym for internetwork; therefore, it has a plural form (first appearing in the RFC series in RFC 870, RFC 871, and RFC 872), and is not capitalized.
In its specific sense, it is a proper noun, and therefore, without a plural form and traditionally capitalized.
The argument for common noun usage
Critics of the usage as a proper nounProper noun
A proper noun or proper name is a noun representing a unique entity , as distinguished from a common noun, which represents a class of entities —for example, city, planet, person or corporation)...
argue that other things that are unique yet distributed, such as "the power grid", "the telephone network", and even "the sky", are not considered proper nouns, and are thus not capitalized. Since at least 2002 it has been theorized that Internet has been changing from a proper noun to a generic term. Words for new technologies, such as Phonograph in the 19th century, are sometimes capitalized at first, later becoming uncapitalized. It was suggested as early as 1999 that Internet might, like some other commonly used proper nouns, lose its capital letter.
Capitalization of the word as an adjective also varies. Some guides specify that the word should be capitalized as a noun but not capitalized as an adjective, e.g., "internet resources".
Usage examples
Examples of media publications and news outlets that capitalize the term include The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
, the Associated Press
Associated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
, Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
, and The Times of India
The Times of India
The Times of India is an Indian English-language daily newspaper. TOI has the largest circulation among all English-language newspaper in the world, across all formats . It is owned and managed by Bennett, Coleman & Co. Ltd...
. In addition, many peer-review
Peer review
Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...
ed journals and professional publications such as Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM
Communications of the ACM is the flagship monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery . First published in 1957, CACM is sent to all ACM members, currently numbering about 80,000. The articles are intended for readers with backgrounds in all areas of computer science and information...
capitalize "Internet", and this style guideline is also specified by the American Psychological Association
American Psychological Association
The American Psychological Association is the largest scientific and professional organization of psychologists in the United States. It is the world's largest association of psychologists with around 154,000 members including scientists, educators, clinicians, consultants and students. The APA...
in its electronic media spelling guide.
More recently, a significant number of publications have switched to not capitalizing the noun "internet." Among them are The Economist
The Economist
The Economist is an English-language weekly news and international affairs publication owned by The Economist Newspaper Ltd. and edited in offices in the City of Westminster, London, England. Continuous publication began under founder James Wilson in September 1843...
, the Financial Times
Financial Times
The Financial Times is an international business newspaper. It is a morning daily newspaper published in London and printed in 24 cities around the world. Its primary rival is the Wall Street Journal, published in New York City....
, The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, the Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, the Observer
The Observer
The Observer is a British newspaper, published on Sundays. In the same place on the political spectrum as its daily sister paper The Guardian, which acquired it in 1993, it takes a liberal or social democratic line on most issues. It is the world's oldest Sunday newspaper.-Origins:The first issue,...
and the Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald
The Sydney Morning Herald is a daily broadsheet newspaper published by Fairfax Media in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1831 as the Sydney Herald, the SMH is the oldest continuously published newspaper in Australia. The newspaper is published six days a week. The newspaper's Sunday counterpart, The...
. As of 2011, most publications using "internet" appear to be located outside of North America
North America
North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
, but the gap is closing. Wired News
Wired News
Wired News is an online technology news website, formerly known as HotWired, that split off from Wired magazine when the magazine was purchased by Condé Nast Publishing in the 1990s. Wired News was owned by Lycos not long after the split, until Condé Nast purchased Wired News on July 11, 2006...
, an American news source, adopted the lower-case spelling in 2004. Around April 2010, CNN
CNN
Cable News Network is a U.S. cable news channel founded in 1980 by Ted Turner. Upon its launch, CNN was the first channel to provide 24-hour television news coverage, and the first all-news television channel in the United States...
shifted its house style to adopt the lowercase spelling.
As Internet connectivity has expanded, it has started to be seen as a service similar to television, radio, and telephone, and the word has come to be used in this way (e.g. "I have the internet at home" and "I saw it on (the) internet"). For this type of use, English spelling and grammar do not prescribe whether the article or capitalization are to be used, which explains the inconsistency that exists in practice.
External links
- Internet, Web, and Other Post-Watergate Concerns, The Chicago Manual of Style