[Editors] website on the web site

[William Litant]

While I must admit I enjoy a debate such as this on style and grammar 
issues, it brings to mind the editor's age-old quandary, is 
anal-retentive hyphenated?

Bill Litant





At 15:11 -0400 9/23/03, James Wolken wrote:
>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
>

-- 
William T.G. Litant
Director of Collaborator Development, International CDIO Initiative
Communications Director, Aeronautics and Astronautics Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts  Ave. 37-395
Cambridge, MA 02139
wlitant at mit.edu
(617) 253-1564