Usage of the word e-mail vs email

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Discussion of general topics related to the new release and its place in the world. Don't discuss new features, report bugs, ask for support, et cetera. Don't use this to spam for other boards or attack those boards!
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Highway of Life
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Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by Highway of Life »

Why change email to e-mail??

Most of the technical world uses "email" not "e-mail".
From the wikipidea, According to the Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications Version 3.0:
Okay to use to refer to an electronic mail program, as in "check your e-mail for messages," but use e-mail messages, or just messages or notes, to refer to pieces of e-mail. Do not use e-mails.

In formal communications, avoid use as a verb, as in "e-mail the file." Instead use "send" or "send an e-mail".


Spelling of this term is disputed, and varies by field. While "e-mail" (with a hyphen) is used in journalism (such as by the CNN, BBC and New York Times), the computer industry primarily uses the spelling "email" (no hyphen). In particular, the original spelling is "email" (no hyphen), based on the technical roots of the term, as seen in the RFC documents for SMTP, POP and IMAP, which use "mail" or "email".

While some businesses, including Microsoft, use "e-mail", the non-hyphenated spelling "email" is more common in the computer industry. For example, Google, Yahoo, eBay and Apple use "email".

"Email" without a hyphen is preferred by 4 to 1 among people who work with email technically, as can be seen by comparing the Google search results for "email headers" and "e-mail headers".

When attempting to search Google using keyword phrases containing: "e-mail" it attempts to correct your spelling 8O
As of Feb, 06, these are the search results from the most popular search engines for email versus e-mail:
  • Yahoo: 'email' = 3,430,000,000 / 'e-mail' = 2,410,000,000
  • Altavista: 'email' = 3,440,000,000 / 'e-mail' = 2,410,000,000
  • Google: 'email' = 2,260,000,000 / 'e-mail' = 1,870,000,000
  • MSN: 'email' = 596,699,110 / 'e-mail' = 474,126,191
  • Lycos: 'email' = 518,620,000 / 'e-mail' = 276,720,000
So just as a generic question... why use "e-mail" when "email" is more common?
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SamG
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Re: Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by SamG »

Given the fluidity of usage, how can anybody really say why? If I say, "Well, 'e-mail' appears still to be preferred lexically" (hence the usage in journalism), everybody will say, "So what?" If I say that "email" is ambiguous because it has other defintions besides "electronic mail," everybody will say, "So what?" If I say that I use "e-mail" by long habit, everybody will say…well, you get the idea.

In other words, I dunno.
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marosell
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Re: Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by marosell »

Highway merely asked "why use e-mail" to be less straight forward and not sound pretentious. He's just a nice guy like that :D

Let me translate:
Highway of Life wrote: phpBB should use "email" instead of "e-mail" because it's more common.

SamG
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Re: Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by SamG »

Well, in that case, I say, "So what?"

:mrgreen:
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Kevin Clark
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Re: Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by Kevin Clark »

The reason he's posting the question is that yesterday all the language references to email were changed to e-mail.
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Re: Usage of the word e-mail vs email

Post by SHS` »

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