[AusNOG] SMH: "No room at the internet"

[Bevan Slattery]

Actually.  I did jump off half-cocked.  After reading the article
(rather than just your post) she was perhaps intending it to be a proper
noun (like a hotel name), so I'll take one for the team here.  However,
if it wasn't used in the manner intended, then the rest would be fine.
Sorry Scott.

Ordinarily it's a pet peeve of mine when people correct me for not using
capital "i".  At least I got to inject a clip of a couple of great shows
being The IT Crowd or South Park :)

Cheers

[b] 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bevan Slattery 
> Sent: Wednesday, 19 May 2010 9:56 AM
> To: Scott Howard; ausnog at ausnog.net
> Subject: RE: [AusNOG] SMH: "No room at the internet"
> 
> 
> 
> > All up, it's enough to make you cringe (starting with the lack of a 
> > capital I in the subject, it goes downhill from there), but 
> there are 
> > some good quotes from Geoff Huston...
> 
> Sheesh.  The thing that makes me cringe a bit is people who 
> still insist that internet should start with a capital "I".  
> As the Wikipedia entry found here 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_capitalization_conventio
> ns acknowledges 
> 
> "Critics of the usage as a proper noun argue that other 
> things that are unique yet distributed, such as "the power 
> grid", "the telephone network", and even "the sky", are not 
> considered proper nouns, and are thus not capitalized. Since 
> at least 2002 it has been theorized that Internet has been 
> changing from a proper noun to a generic term.[4] Words for 
> new technologies, such as Phonograph in the 19th century, are 
> sometimes capitalized at first, later becoming 
> uncapitalized.[4] It was suggested as early as 1999 that 
> Internet might, like some other commonly used proper nouns, 
> lose its capital letter."
> 
> You will note that the SMH along with the Economist, 
> Financial Times and the Guardian also use the non-capitalised version.
> 
> IMHO to raise the 'internet' as proper noun fails to 
> acknowledge the work and investment by this exact industry to 
> make it generic or ubiquitous.  For me the same applies to 
> [E]ethernet.  If you want to use capitals, then go ahead.  If 
> you don't, don't.  But don't pick people up for using lower 
> case "i", because you'll be in the the same category as Jen 
> from the IT Crowd http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTBsm0LzSP0 
> or those who doubted Kyle on South Park 
> http://www.southparkstudios.com/clips/166192 :)
> 
> Cheers
> 
> [b]