
AP Style alert: Don’t capitalize internet and web any more - aaronbrethorst
http://www.poynter.org/2016/ap-style-change-alert-dont-capitalize-internet-and-web-any-more/404664/
======
thinkpad20
I take a little issue with the article's quoted claim that "capital letters
are speed bumps for the eyes when reading. They should be eliminated where
possible." Says who? Capital letters appear all over, for a variety of
reasons, and it doesn't cause any issues. Not to mention languages like German
which capitalize way more than English.

~~~
jakub_h
> Not to mention languages like German which capitalize way more than English.

And as everyone knows, Germans drive like crazy on their Autobahns, so they're
clearly not the type of people who would willingly put speed bumps into their
sentences. Therefore, capital letters don't work like speed bumps at all. My
logic is bulletproof, case closed!

~~~
cm3
This myth may have been true 30 years ago, but if you go on any Autobahn
today, you will find there's at most 5km, if at all, of unrestricted sections.
Germany is famous for its forest of street signs and speed restrictions on
roads are very popular with the administration. There's often config like
UNRESTRICTED -> 100km/h -> 80km/h -> 60km/h -> 100km/h. Or the worst: 70km/h
-> 100km/h for maybe 150 meters -> 70km/h again. Arguably the 100km/h section
could be replaced with no signs aka still 70km/h. But, street signs are
popular in Germany and sometimes I have the impression somebody gains by the
number of signs posted. Yeah, so no unrestricted autobahns, really.

I've found it more relaxed to drive at a constant 120km/h in the Netherlands.
No braking and accelerating all the time.

~~~
rangibaby
Japan has a similar system. Thankfully, speed limits are rarely enforced on
highways, and hidden cameras aren't allowed.

~~~
cm3
I didn't know Japan had limitless highways.

~~~
masklinn
They don't, and most japanese roads (including highways) have ridiculously low
speed limits[0], but as rangibaby notes the speed limits are uncommonly
enforced, nobody respects them

[0] default 60km/h[1] for undivided inter-urban roads though it's common to
get a 50 or even 40km/h speed limits, the default highway speed limit is
100km/h[2] but it's commonly lower than that, and I've seen limits as low as
70km/h on highways, keep in mind that all highways are toll roads and they're
expensive as hell (entry fee of ~¥200 plus ~¥25/km[3], Hokkaido has a special
tourists rental ETC[4], Honshu does not)

[1] under 40mph

[2] 62mph

[3] ~¥40/mi

[4] from ¥1800/day for 2 days to ¥800/day for 2 weeks or more, unlimited
travel. With regular ETC, going from Sapporo to its airport (New Chitose) is
¥1400.

~~~
cm3
But I've heard very good things about Japan's bullet trains, so I'd guess
there's lees need for highways.

In Europe only France seems to have high speed train that actually goes at
high speeds. German ICE is chugging along in first gear all the time except
for short stretches but those are are very few and between.

I once took Cologne to Amsterdam with ICE and it took more than 3 hours, which
defeats the point of a fast train.

~~~
rangibaby
JR built Shinkansen-only tracks that have their own stations and no level
crossings, which means they are essentially going their full speed the entire
journey.

Driving is still popular here.

A) It's fun, there is a lot of beautiful scenery to admire and highway service
areas have restaurants where you can eat some local food or buy souvenirs from
that area.

B) It's cheaper to go by car once you have four people, even with highway fees
and gas (most journeys in Japan aren't that long in terms of actual distance
traveled, and normal cars are legally mandated to have very good fuel
efficiency).

TBH my favorite way to travel is by highway bus. They used to really suck, but
have gotten better in the last five years or so because they have a lot of
competition from high-speed rail and cheap airfares. You can travel
comfortably in a big seat with free wifi and power outlets very cheaply,
usually less than half of the equivalent Shinkansen ticket, in exchange for
the journey taking a few hours more.

------
ddddddddq
Why the hell not? It's a proper noun, and we capitalize them. The proper noun
"Internet" refers to a specific instance of an "internet", a common noun.

~~~
smitherfield
But in real-world usage the word "internet" always refers to _the_ internet.
You would never refer to "an internet"—more likely terminology would be
"intranet," "LAN" or "corporate network," or, in a historical context,
something along the lines of "internet precursor."

~~~
TeMPOraL
That's exactly why you capitalize it - because you refer to a _specific_
thing. The Internet, God, the United States, etc.

~~~
IshKebab
"the moon", "the sun", "the planet"

~~~
TeMPOraL
Last time I checked it was "the Moon", "the Sun", and "the planet Earth".

~~~
dmurray
Is that really the AP style? If so I agree it's strange not to keep "the
Internet".

~~~
fasteddie
As of 2009, it was "moon" and "sun."

[http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/moon-vs-moon-a-
study...](http://www.airspacemag.com/daily-planet/moon-vs-moon-a-study-in-
arrant-pedantry-152666843/)

------
Ankaios
Internet Style alert: Don't capitalize associated press any more.

~~~
TazeTSchnitzel
After all, clearly it is just one of many associated presses.

------
skywhopper
I have to agree with others here that the particular reasons given in the
article for why AP will no longer be capitalizing "Internet" don't really make
sense. I'm pretty sure I always capitalize it, except perhaps in IM/chat when
I capitalize very little.

I don't know if I've ever capitalized "web". Certainly I remember how the
NYT's insistence on spelling "weblogs" "Web logs" drove me nuts for years
(this was way back in 1999 and the early 2000s before "blog", kids). The
reasoning and usage of the people who coined and actually use a new word
surely should have some influence on how it is spelled when the word is
reported on.

Which brings me back to "Internet"\--same argument from me: the style should
follow that of the people to whom the word is most relevant, unless they are
just ludicrously out of step with common usage.

So I'm curious if they actually did research on how people spell "Internet" in
non-casual settings, or if they are just trying to set a precedent and truly
believe that capital letters are "speed bumps" (that's true in a sense: our
brain pauses on them precisely because we've trained ourselves to understand
that they are used for Important Things like names).

------
goodcanadian
Wow, reading the comments is fascinating. It is amazing how strong people's
opinions can be on something that is ultimately inconsequential. Well, here's
my two cents:

I've never thought internet should be capitalized. I was always under the
impression that was the majority view of tech people though from reading the
comments here, I may be mistaken. It seems even that what is or is not a
proper noun is not self evident. I do not consider internet or moon or sun
(other common examples in these comments) to be proper nouns. Those are not
their names. Just because we generally consider them singular and unique does
not make them proper nouns anymore than "the car" is when I talk to my wife.
We only have one car. It is singular and unique, but "Car" is not it's name.

However, follow whatever rule you want. Most people are terrible at following
the rules anyway, even when they know them. We just have to accept a certain
amount of variability in these things. Just know that it will always look
strange to me to see internet, sun, or moon capitalized.

~~~
rayiner
The Moon and the Sun are the names for those things and are proper nouns. See:
[http://itsnameisthemoon.com](http://itsnameisthemoon.com),
[http://itsnameisthesun.com](http://itsnameisthesun.com).

~~~
goodcanadian
I understand that is the opinion of many people. It is not, however, my
opinion. In my opinion, those are descriptive and are not in fact names. If I
were forced to name them, I might call them Luna and Sol.

~~~
tptacek
Click through to the article; you've literally restated one of the FAQs.

------
rsync
Internet should be capitalized when referring to the single, proper Internet
that most of us use.

However, one can create other internets, and those are not capitalized.

~~~
gaur
Seems like identical reasoning can be applied to many other nouns which are
definitely not capitalized:

> Atmosphere should be capitalized when referring to the single, proper
> Atmosphere that most of us breathe.

> However, there are other atmospheres (e.g., on other planets), and those are
> not capitalized.

~~~
moefh
On the other hand:

> Sun should be capitalized when referring to the star at the center of our
> solar system, as opposed to other suns -- the stars at the center of other
> planetary systems.

~~~
jen729w
Bad example, I'm afraid. The Sun is, specifically, our star. Other stars
aren't suns, they're stars with other names.

~~~
moefh
It's common usage to call other stars at the center of planetary system
"suns". For example:

> As we came to understand that the stars in the sky are other suns [...]

\- [http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-
areas/exoplanet-e...](http://science.nasa.gov/astrophysics/focus-
areas/exoplanet-exploration/)

See also the 2nd definition at [http://www.merriam-
webster.com/dictionary/sun](http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/sun) :

> : any star that has planets which move around it

------
gaur
When in doubt, I usually check Wikipedia's style guide [0] rather than
anything else. Some of it is Wikipedia-specific (e.g., markup syntax), but
there is also good general-purpose advice. It also has the major advantage of
being free.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style)

~~~
sjy
I agree, Wikipedia's style guide is great! I think it strikes a good balance
between prescription and flexibility, eg. being able to use local date formats
and spellings in articles that relate to that locality.

------
shirro
I don't agree with this. The Internet is clearly a proper noun like America,
Jesus or Associated Press. It is somewhere between a place and an idea which
might confuse the AP people but it is THE big thing between a place and idea
of our time and it deserves proper noun status.

I take less issue with web being written lowercase. It is a shortening of
World Wide Web anyway.

------
applecore
It's interesting to see both terms genericized. It was Alan Kay who said:

 _> The Internet was done so well that most people think of it as a natural
resource like the Pacific Ocean, rather than something that was man-made. . .
. The Web, in comparison, is a joke. The Web was done by amateurs._

[http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-
wit...](http://www.drdobbs.com/architecture-and-design/interview-with-alan-
kay/240003442)

~~~
_asummers
Alan Kay has so many amazing quotes. One of my favorite funny ones is from an
OOPSLA lecture where he says "arrogance in computer science is measured in
nano-Dijkstras".

------
narag
Do proper names in English use article, really? I had the exact opposite idea
(as in my own language). Actually I believed that "the" Internet was a weird
exception, not the rule.

Is there a specific rule? I ask because I haven't seen "The Michael" or "The
Germany". I did see "The Netherlands", but that seems like an exception.

~~~
munificent
> Is there a specific rule?

There isn't a systematic rule as far as I know. Some proper names get a
definite article, some don't. Sometimes "the" is part of the name and
capitalized, and sometimes it's not:

Germany, Washington, New York, Jesus, Dolph Lundgren, Apollo, Godzilla,
JavaScript, Madonna, Microsoft.

Uncapitalized: the Netherlands, the South, the President of the US, the
Everglades, the Pleiades, the Rolling Stones.

Capitalized: The Hague, The Rock.

English is weird.

~~~
narag
Thank you for the clarification.

It seems strange that "the President" is a proper name.

In Spanish we used to say e.g. "el papa" (pope) when not mentioned near the
proper name "el Papa Francisco".

Nowadays even if they're still common names, a lot of public positions and
institutions are capitalized by media, probably to show that they're more
important than us, common mortals :-)

I remember being annoyed writing documents for the job that insisted in taking
this fad to an extreme and capitalizing everything that was even vaguely
related to the authority positions.

There's a special level at hell for language reformers.

~~~
munificent
> It seems strange that "the President" is a proper name.

I believe you say "the president" (lowercase), but "the President of the
United States". It's only capitalized when part of the full title, I think.

------
stevewilhelm
I wonder where the AP weighs in regarding the use of Wi-Fi?

Wi-Fi is a registered trademark [1], with a standard implementation, but I
could easily see the sentence, "My phone is using wifi to access the
internet." being acceptable.

[1] [http://www.wi-fi.org/](http://www.wi-fi.org/)

------
mark_l_watson
My wife is my copy editor and she has me capitalize Internet and not
capitalize web - and that also seems right to me.

------
daxfohl
What about the Information Superhighway?

~~~
labster
The highway's jammed with broken startups on a last chance power drive.

~~~
justinlardinois
Underrated comment.

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dredmorbius
Someone tell the associated press we're totally down with that.

Signed,

The Internet

------
empressplay
I can't help but think there's a political motive in here somewhere? Stripping
the Internet of its proper noun status could serve to help thwart attempts at
declaring ownership over it, and help arguments to have it declared more
globally as a common carrier.

------
ankushnarula
Next thing you know they'll tell us to stop capitalizing the Aristocracy.

~~~
f1hybrid
"The Aristocrats"

Best story ever.

------
neuromute
Not an April Fools' joke. Colour me surprised, as some of the quoted previous
AP changes are hilarious: 'more than' can replace 'over'... "More than my dead
body!"

------
nxzero
Historically speaking, there were many Internets, and even today there are
many Internets, it's a myth that there is an Internet, the Internet, etc.

For example, users in China have an Internet that is different than an
Internet in another country.

Personally, if their was to be a style change, it in my opinion would be to
stop saying "the Internet" since it is vague a leads to the public believing
it exists.

------
DonHopkins
I am looking forward to the day that AP starts replacing the missing
penultimate "e"'s in the poorly spelled names of companies that were too cheap
to buy the correct domain name, like Flickr and Flattr.

------
VonGuard
Fuck that. The Internet is a thing. The Web is a thing. Both are singular.
Both are proper nouns. There's only one, though it may be huge.

------
amelius
Can we also please put an end to the silly camelCaseNamingConvention, and use
the much more clear underscore_naming_convention instead?

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barney54
I always thought it did not make sense to capitalize Internet and web, so it's
nice to see the AP catch up.

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michaelbuddy
Interesting this made top voted story. People have strong views on the style
guide I suppose.

~~~
zorked
Just wait until Associated Press mandates tabs over spaces.

~~~
newjersey
They clearly won't because they've shown just now that they are incapable of
making the right decision.

Edit: they did make the right call with email though so there might be hope.

------
ChrisArchitect
was there a push for the AP to not even use "internet (lowercase)" anymore,
but go further, what the masses would call it - "Facebook"? (jury's out on
whether that needs a capital haha)

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JoshMnem
They are proper nouns. There is basically one Internet (in common speech) and
one WWW. Other internets are not the Internet. (My spell checker doesn't
recognize "internets".)

What's next: "you are" will formally become "u r" bc ppl r 2 lazy 2 type?

~~~
mc808
Next? No. Eventually? Maybe. We don't generally still say eow, þu, þe, ge,
etc.

~~~
JoshMnem
Languages evolve, but I don't think that misuses should be formalized as
correct. It's already hard enough for speakers of some languages to understand
English's capitalization system. I think that adding more exceptions makes
learning the language more difficult to learn.

People frequently spell "I" with a lowercase letter, so why formally approve
lowercase for "internet" but not for "i"?

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finin
wait, what?!?

------
kristopolous
"Internet" used to be used without an article prefacing it. Sentences were
structured like "you can get on internet with just a modem and a computer".

Example usage from 1993,
[https://youtu.be/KDxqfgIDvEY](https://youtu.be/KDxqfgIDvEY)

Also antiquated terms like "cyberspace" never adopted an article. "He's on
cyberspace" not "the cyberspace".

~~~
mwfunk
As an old-timer: that was the exception, not the rule. It was just as much
"the Internet" in 1993 as it is now. It just wasn't as widely known by the
mass public, so different usages were less likely to be caught by editors/etc.

~~~
kristopolous
The usage appeared even in books on the topic. In my personal library I have a
1993 book, "The Electronic Traveller: Exploring Alternative Online Systems".

You can see the lack of articles being used here:
[http://imgur.com/a4qbEuJ](http://imgur.com/a4qbEuJ)

Both styles were widespread. Briefly...

