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

[Sean K. Finn]

The reason for capital I is to differentiate "an internet" of which there are many, to "The Internet" of which we are the caretakers, crafters and custodians.

I have several internets, only some of which are linked to Internet.

I personally don't mind if everyone else wants to use capitals or not, heck, this is Australia, we are diverse in our religious beliefs.

S

-----Original Message-----
From: ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net [mailto:ausnog-bounces at lists.ausnog.net] On Behalf Of 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_conventions
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]
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