I do a lot of writing for documentation, proposals, and Web content and for five years, I have consulted numerous style guides about the spelling of all things Internet. How do you spell “Web,: for instance? Is it like “TV” or is it like “radio”? I’m pretty particular about spelling and grammar and scouring the Web, I’ve found little consistency or advice.
For my birthday this week, a friend gave me The Web Content Style Guide: An Essential Reference for Online Writers, Editors and Managers, a product of the reputable Financial Times. Here are the definitive spellings:
– “Web” is the abbreviation of “World Wide Web”; a.k.a. “the Web”
– a “Web browser” is a program that views a “Webpage”
– a “website” is a publication that is “online”
– a “homepage” is the first page of a “website design”
– the “Internet” or “Net” is the so-called networks of networks
– however, an “intranet” is an organization’s internal online publication
– one uses an “email address” to send “email”
So, in sum: no more “E-mail,” “e-mail,” “Email,” “web,” “internet,” “web page,” “Web page,” or “Home page.” Whew. Have a good weekend.