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The Proper Format

Recently I was asked; “What is the correction format for the shorted term for ‘electronic mail’.

When asked I have to admit I didn’t know. I have seen it displayed as email, e-mail, E-Mail and E-mail, as well as others. Many times I myself have used eMail and at times E-mail.

I began a search and discovered that there isn’t a documented agreed upon format.

Many dictionaries seem to use the form E-Mail, with their reasoning coming from other such as X-ray and T-shirt.

In 2006 the ‘email experience council’ issued a statement that they were establishing ‘the official spelling for electronic mail as email’. And that the word should follow standard spelling rules such as using Email, when it’s the first word of the sentence.

The email experience council or the eec is an organization that “… email marketing arm of the Direct Marketing Association, is a global professional organization that strives to enhance the image of email marketing and communications …”. One of their first orders of business when forming in 2006 was to develop this standard for the word email.

Even though there isn’t an agreed upon standard, other than that of the eec, I have decided to use from now on email as the proper format, that is until an official format is determined. It seems to be heading in this direction.

This leads to the question about some of the other technical words.

Should it be Website, Web Site or something else? This seems to have a standard. Since Web is short for World Wide Web, a proper noun, it should be written as Web site. A page on the site is a Web page.

It would lead to that it is Internet for the same reason.

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