[Editors] website on the web site

[James Wolken]

Susan,

At the risk of appearing argumentative, I would say the trend is NOT 
heading toward "website."  Certainly more and more editors now recognized 
Web as a proper noun.  The MIT home page is not a reliable lexicon as it 
obviously uses lower case for design purposes, as even the "massachusetts 
institute of technology" is in lower case there.

Because the nascent Web world was built around speed, the early 
practitioners had little time for grammar (hey, who does these days?)  and 
a great many bad habits were developed in the name of expediency.  But as 
editors and people who swear by language, I would hold us to a higher 
standard.  We are the last line of defense between clarity and chaos; 
hence, we should hold the line on proper nouns as we have a duty to king, 
country, and Strunk & White.

Jim

At 04:32 PM 9/22/2003 -0400, Susan Curran wrote:
>Thanks to Gayle for raising the question, and everyone who weighed in.
>
>It seems that "website" is the way things are heading, and the homepage 
>tends to be informal in tone (for example, all lowercase) so I think we 
>will continue to use it as one word. I did change the initial cap to 
>lowercase to remove the ambiguity.
>
>thanks!
>
>Susan
>
>
>At 02:24 PM 9/22/03 -0400, you wrote:
>>Greetings, editors,
>>I have a question about "web site":  it has been typed as two words in 
>>the NYTImes, WSJ, etc., but I see on today's MIT home page, in the News 
>>section, that one word does it all.  Is this just MIT being trendy?  I'm 
>>wondering if the pub I'm working on should include website or web site 
>>information, and appreciate your insights.  Thanks.
>>         -Gayle
>>
>>_______________________________________________
>>Editors mailing list
>>Editors at mit.edu
>>http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/editors
>
>---
>Susan Curran
>MIT Web Content Editor
>(617) 253-2548
>scurran at mit.edu
>
>_______________________________________________
>Editors mailing list
>Editors at mit.edu
>http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/editors