TechWhirl (TECHWR-L) is a resource for technical writing and technical communications professionals of all experience levels and in all industries to share their experiences and acquire information.
For two decades, technical communicators have turned to TechWhirl to ask and answer questions about the always-changing world of technical communications, such as tools, skills, career paths, methodologies, and emerging industries. The TechWhirl Archives and magazine, created for, by and about technical writers, offer a wealth of knowledge to everyone with an interest in any aspect of technical communications.
Re: Dumb question: is it "email", "Email", "e-mail", or "E-mail"
Subject:Re: Dumb question: is it "email", "Email", "e-mail", or "E-mail" From:"Charles Fisher" <Charles_Fisher -at- datatel -dot- com> To:techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com Date:Fri, 9 Jan 2009 07:52:39 -0500
When I saw this thread, I had to laugh - a nervous, frantic sort of laugh -
and my eye started twitching. Years ago we decided here to use "e-mail" as
our standard for technical documents. As the manager at the time my thought
was, "the differences are not critical and no one is likely to get confused
if we select one over the other - so let's pick one and be consistent in
our usage." However, our marketing folks decided to use "email" as their
standard, and that started a small war over who gets to decide such things,
and whether we need to be consistent between content/usage in marketing
materials and product documentation. We also did the google wars with the
counts of each variation. All of this back and forth required me to type
the words "e-mail" and "email" many many times, and after that experience I
was thoroughly convinced that "email" was the way to go: you can just type
the letters, with no dashes or caps. [Yes it's true: I have been working as
a tech writer for 99,000 years and I never learned to type properly.]
Given that new words tend to streamline themselves as they get entrenched
into our vocabulary, we probably should have settled on "email" from the
start, and we now choose to look forward and choose streamlined variations
for terms that are still on the bubble.
Of course, audience needs always come into play with this decision, as
others have noted. One of the first responders to this thread said
something like, "pick one and be consistent." All good advice. And if there
is a need to change, there's always the global search and replace
option.....
Charles
Charles D. Fisher, M.S., Technology Management
Lead Documentation Specialist
Datatel, Inc.
How higher education does business.
Roanoke, VA Phone: 540-345-1947 (system speed 174)
Roanoke, VA FAX: 540-345-1947 (call first)
Datatel Voicemail: x4603
E-Mail: cdf -at- datatel -dot- com
www.datatel.com
Disclaimer: This message is intended only for the personal and confidential use of the designated recipient(s) named above. If you are not the intended recipient of this message you are hereby notified that any review, dissemination, distribution or copying of this message is strictly prohibited. In addition, if you have received this message in error, please advise the sender by reply e-mail and delete the message.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
ComponentOne Doc-To-Help 2009 is your all-in-one authoring and publishing
solution. Author in Doc-To-Help's XML-based editor, Microsoft Word or
HTML and publish to the Web, Help systems or printed manuals. http://www.doctohelp.com
Help & Manual 5: The complete help authoring tool for individual
authors and teams. Professional power, intuitive interface. Write
once, publish to 8 formats. Multi-user authoring and version control! http://www.helpandmanual.com/
---
You are currently subscribed to TECHWR-L as archive -at- web -dot- techwr-l -dot- com -dot-
