Talk:Capitalization of Internet/Archive 1

Future
How will the world be writing (I/internet) in the future? Say the year 2020? Any lexographers would help. I know in the UK internet now predominates, while in the US Internet still predominates on most publications although some influences have caused lower case internet to appear in some lesser-known news publications, even besides Wired News. How would globalization affect this trend?


 * That's speculation and Wikipedia doesn't do speculation because that's original research in violation of official policy. See No official research. Also see What Wikipedia is not (Wikipedia is not a crystal ball or a blog). --Coolcaesar 21:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

Rules section
I removed this section. I would liked to have just trimmed it, but it was completely unsourced, and some of it was in direct conflict with the rest of the article (like "Internet" vs "internet"). Some of it was POV, like "Jobs'ing", "once-popular layman's foray to the Internet through the company America Online". It seems like such a section could fit if well-sourced (at least based on the title of this article), though right now the rest of the article mainly talks about the capitalization of the word INTERNET itself. Afiler 19:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Future of the article
This article reads more like an extract from a Manual of Style than an encyclopedia article, IMHO. I see it is marked as not being based on cited sources. Should it be moved out of the main namespace - perhaps into Wiktionary or merged into WP:STYLE? --Nigelj 21:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I don't see what "Common capitalization conventions" has to do with the main thrust of the article; I think it's a late addition. The main body (documenting the history of capitalization conventions for the word "Internet") fits nicely on Wikipedia, IMO. --Alvestrand 21:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it doesn't merit its own article; my vote for merging anything of value here into the relevant section in the Internet article, why I rewrote by the way. Some of the things stated here are incorrect anyway, e.g. internet service has always been written both with and without capital, not only since 2000.  Rp (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)


 * It ranks high on Google search results for whether or not to capitalize "Internet," that is, it is of use to the population at large, not just those wondering weather or not capitalize it when writing for Wikipedia. --AlanH (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

..and what about "wireless internet connection"?
I came to this page because my spellchecker was insisting that the word "internet" should be capitalized, and I was glad to see that there was some discussion going on about it. I can see some of the argument that it should be capitalized when it is used as a proper noun, but there are also uses that should be mentioned. For example, "wireless internet connection". I believe, in this case, "internet" is an adjective. Also, when I'm talking about the word "internet", I am not referring to the Internet itself.

There is a precedent to this sort of distinction: the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth are capitalized when they are referred to as the names of said bodies. But we don't capitalize for the terms midnight sun, sun dogs, sun worship, moon landing, full moon, etc. So it stands to reason that when we discuss the entity known as the Internet, capitalization makes some sense.

Until, of course, you go and read that WIRED article. It sure would be nice to have some official consensus, eh? :) --Qrystal (talk) 13:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

It's perfectly reasonable not to capitalize "the sun", "the moon" or "the earth"; see e.g.. The Wired article is wrong in claiming that there never was a good reason for capitalizing "Internet", but that reason is linguistically debatable for various reasons, and therefore, the article is perfectly correct in choosing to ignore it. Rp (talk) 15:51, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Trademark status
I've read that the proper noun "Internet" is an officially registered trademark. I don't know who owns it (U.S. Department of Commerce?). Maybe this article should mention that. Tooptoo 21:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of this article in [Internet] is not justified IMHo. insignificant grammar issues like this don't belong at Etymology either. Capitalization is subjective matter(Internet is a neologism,if you think of it. it can mean a class of [Network], global net ,etc )


 * It was a topic on the Internet page long before this page was created. Since people want information about it, I think it belongs in the Wiktionary - and unless it's linked from [Internet], people will have a hard time finding it. To some degree, the fact that there is disagreement deserves documentation. (remember the four tildes....) --Alvestrand 16:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

"In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized."
 * This logic, though commonly cited, is not so cut-and-dry. We don't capitalize "the power grid", or "the telphone network", or, for that matter, "the sky". Given that, it doesn't seem that it is necessarily the case that "the internet" needs capitalizing, either. Nohat 02:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * No, it's not cut and dried. Note that it makes sense to talk of "the Norwegian power grid" or "the DoD telephone network". But in current usage, "the North Korean Internet" sounds odd - what's not connected to the global Internet loses some of its essential Internet-ness. That said, I've watched kids trying to learn when to capitalize..... anyone who thinks the rule for proper nouns is simple needs to do that. I piped the word "proper noun" to the relevant part of the article on "nouns" for more discussion. --Alvestrand 05:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)


 * It is a proper noun. An "internet" (common) would just be any set of interconnected networks.  The Internet (proper) is the largest such effort.  There are others, such as Internet2 (which no one would deny a proper noun, would they?). For the same reason, writers may refer to kleenex (common) when the brand is not importand and Kleenex (proper) when it is.  --AlanH (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Proper nouns can become common nouns, losing their capitalization; e.g. this tends to happen with genericized trademarks. Rp (talk) 15:23, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

The article currently reads: "proper nouns are often capitalized". I assumed this was changed given the above comment. This, however, is absurd. All proper nounds in English are capitalized without exception. The debate is whether or not "Internet" is a proper noun, not whether or not one capitalizes proper nouns in the English language. I also added another link from The Chicago Manual Style, a more authoritative source than Wired magazine. Timocrates 16:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)
 * Indeed. Today, "the internet" is a medium just like "the radio" or "TV" and it's not so easy to prove that it's a proper noun. We also say "I heard it on the radio", or "I saw it on TV", and in neither case we refer to the particular radio or TV receiver that we were using - still this doesn't make "radio" or "TV" proper nouns.   (Of course we can "prove" that the Internet is a proper noun by saying that it's capitalized - but that would be circular.) Rp (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Just my two cents. The proper name of the public worldwide internet using TCP/IP (where internet means "interconnected network") is the Internet, but since in many cases this is the only internet people are familiar with, they simply call it "the internet", even if "the Internet" would be more precise. In the same way, the proper name of Earth's only moon (where moon means "natural satellite") is the Moon, but since in many cases this is the only moon people are familiar with, they simply call it "the moon", even if "the Moon" would be more precise. And one of the proper names of our galaxy is the Galaxy (the other one being the Milky Way) ... I think you get the point. Is this correct? --A r m y 1 9 8 7 ! ! ! 09:52, 24 September 2008 (UTC)
 * Yes, I think it is correct, and a good justification for writing "the internet" without a capital. Meanwhile it is often argued that it is flat out wrong to write "the Internet" with a capital in th first place, but that, I think, is a mistake. Rp (talk) 23:13, 30 December 2008 (UTC)

New material from internet article
I noticed today that a significant discussion re the capital 'i' had grown again in the first section of the internet article. That is a main or overview article, therefore we cannot fully discuss every aspect of the internet in detail there. Sub-articles are referenced, and in this case the relevent one is given as this one, so I moved the detailed discussion here. There may now be some duplication in this article, and you may be able to think of a better name for the new section that I created. I hope that those who tend and maintain this article can find some useful stuff in the new material (it means I had to create you a new 'References' section, which should be useful in itself ;-) and can merge it in nicely. Thanks. --Nigelj (talk) 15:35, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

Oppose merging to "Internet" article

 * See also Talk:Internet

The Internet article is already 54 kilobytes long. We should be looking for ways to take things out of it, not put things into it. This is a specialized subject with a long history both of differing usage and arguments in favour of one or the other. It should be its own article.

I took the liberty of removing the merge tags. --Alvestrand (talk) 15:25, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Yeah, and all that we need to cover this topic to the full encyclopedic extent is a very short section, so a merge would not be a big deal. If you are opposed to a merge, the proper response is to discuss it and establish a consensus, not to remove the merge tag to try to prevent discussion. DreamGuy (talk) 19:15, 25 March 2009 (UTC)


 * Happy to discuss, and if you can find a supporter for the merge, and no more support for non-merge emerges, I'm happy to see the tags go back on. But I don't think Talk:Internet is the best place to have the discussion, and that's where the merge tags pointed. --Alvestrand (talk) 00:47, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * The tag is what's supposed to generate the discussion, not the other way around. And the discussion is SUPPOSED to go on the article where the article is merged to, that's why the tag does that automatically. You don't get to remove the tag and stop discussion and then insist tha the tag can't go there until the discussion already has happened. DreamGuy (talk) 13:48, 26 March 2009 (UTC)
 * OK. Do you have a pointer to a policy stating how many days the tag has to stay up until I remove it again? --Alvestrand (talk) 01:59, 28 March 2009 (UTC)


 * oppose - I do not think this article can be distilled down to something short enough to put into the internet article. I agree with User:alvestrand that the internet article is already too long and this is a good sub-article.


 * I noted that the discussion was still open, and with a reasonably clear consensus. I closed it as "no merge". --Alvestrand (talk) 19:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Basis for "adjective" claim?
The article currently claims: The term originated as an adjective,[citation needed] and is mostly used in this way in RFCs, the documentation for the evolving Internet Protocol (IP) standards for internetworking between ARPANET and other computer networks in the 1970s. When I scan through the RFC series, apart from RFCs 60 and 95, where I think the mention is spurious, first mention is RFC 604 (always in the form "the Internetworking protocol"), and RFC 675 (the first "TCP/IP" specification), which uses the word "internet" approximately twice (once in the title of the document); the rest all being "Internetwork".

I think an appropriate reference might be Vint Cerf's IEN 48, "THE CATENET MODEL FOR INTERNETWORKING" (July 1978), which more or less started off the Internet craze in the Arpanet, and uses the term frequently - a linguist will have to say whether it's really as an "adjective".

The first time it's clearly used in the RFC series as a noun (the first I've been able to find) is in RFC 759, August 1980: The mailbox provides for many types of address information. The MPMs in the ARPA internet can most effectively use the internet address [2]. The use of other address information is not yet very clear. Some thoughts on addressing issues may be found in the references [33,34,35]. So the "adjective only" period lasted, at most, 2 years.

Comments? --Alvestrand (talk) 07:11, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * If in "internet address", "internet" is not an adjective, please tell me what it is. Certainly not a noun. Rp (talk) 16:51, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "the ARPA internet" is definitely a noun. Or I've forgotten all my grammar. The other occurence looks like an adjective. --Alvestrand (talk) 19:10, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * "internet address" seems like "dog collar" or "computer screen" - does that mean that "dog" and "computer" are often used as adjectives? --Nigelj (talk) 20:05, 27 May 2009 (UTC)


 * Yikes, I completely missed "the ARPA internet", in which it is clearly a noun; which means there really is no basis for calling it an adjective in the other case. (Nigelj is right.)  Maybe my impression that use of "internet X" preceded the use of "internet" as an independent noun is wrong.  (Although it is certainly predominant in RFCs.) Rp (talk) 22:02, 1 June 2009 (UTC)
 * In "Internet address", "Internet" is NOT an adjective. Think about the sentence "paint was applied to the Millennium Wheel bolts."  In that sentence, I don't think that you could argue that "Millennium Wheel" is an adjective, and the same applies in this case. 86.7.21.237 (talk) 22:20, 10 November 2009 (UTC)

World map
Would it be possible to find out which convention predominates in which country and to make the world map of the usage? Even if information for some countries could not be found, those countries could be left gray on the map, indicating that there is currently no data for them. --93.139.176.22 (talk) 09:43, 3 June 2012 (UTC)

title change
Shouldn't this be titled "Internet" capitalization conventions? I saw the current title and expected an article describing how no one bothers to use upper case when writing on the internet. if you know what i mean. Riggr Mortis (talk) 02:10, 2 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I personally like the current title better, but it should have the word "Internet" in lower case. You can't capitalize "Internet". It's already capitalized. Janus Savimbi (talk) 21:34, 7 February 2013 (UTC)

Web site, World Wide Web
Although I know it's technically incorrect, the fact is most people see the Internet and the World Wide Web as the exact same thin, and thus use the terms interchangeably. The capitalization of "Web", therefore, has gone through similar evolution what is described for Internet/internet. Not that long ago, common standard was for "Web site" or "Website" to be capitalized. Now, it's almost always lower case "website". And "the web" is seen just as much as "the Web" used to be. Adding further confusion is the rise in use of the term "interweb" which illustrates the melding of the two concepts in public consciousness. Perhaps a discussion of this (with sources, of course) could be added. 68.146.70.124 (talk) 15:48, 25 October 2013 (UTC)

The generic sense of the word
The present article says : The spelling "internet" has become commonly used, as the word virtually always refers to the global network; the generic sense of the word has become rare.

This is a gross understatement. Since I joined the Internet in 1991, I have never ever seen or heard a single case of this "generic sense". I believe it is a fabrication. It would be nice to have some actual quotes from documents that do use the term in this generic sense. (What does occur in early RFCs is the term internetworking.) Rp (talk) 08:46, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

To quote sources is good but to come up with a recommendation is better
We are constantly taught in Europe that the Chicago Manual of Style is the ultimate source for how to write American English. But here: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/about16_rules.html it says "capitalize World Wide Web and Internet". And this looks somewhat outdated. So,wouldn't it be a good idea for Wikipedia to come up with a clear recommendation on the top of this article that world wide web and internet should definitely be written as normal nouns in 2014? Örümcekadam (talk) 05:11, 8 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Wikipedia describes. It does not prescribe; that's not the business of an encyclopedia. --Alvestrand (talk) 21:44, 2 July 2015 (UTC)

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