Full Circle Guidelines

[Band B]

I know this has been discussed on different sites (wikipedia doesn't seem to agree with wiktionary). But as a non-native English speaker, I like to make a little remark on the fact that the style guide says you have to use 'email' instead of 'e-mail'.

I think it should be the other way around:

E-mail is more readable for non-natives (email is already a word in French/German/Dutch)
Since it comes from electronic mail, the normal evolution is electronic mail => e-mail => email. But in the other guidlines they don't take the last (discussed step). Look at CD and cd, MP3 and mp3, PC and pc, ...

So the logical way should be using e-mail. Or to use pc, cd and mp3.

With kind regards,
B&B

[ronniet]

E-mail is more readable for non-natives (email is already a word in French/German/Dutch)
Since it comes from electronic mail, the normal evolution is electronic mail => e-mail => email. But in the other guidlines they don't take the last (discussed step). Look at CD and cd, MP3 and mp3, PC and pc ...
B&B

I'm no genius with the English language myself (hence why we have proof-readers! :D ) but you can't compare email (e-mail) with pc and cd. PC and CD are initials, Personal Computer and Compact Disc. Email is a shortening and, as you said above, there's no hyphen in 'electronic mail' so really i suppose it should be 'e mail' (with a space) but since that'd effectively make the 'e' one word it becomes email.

Either way... if someone has e-mail in an article and we forget to change it to email it's hardly the end of the world! :D But thanks for the critique anyway! :)

[ncappel1]

When I was writing the style guide, I thought for a good amount of time about wether to lean one way or the other on several rules. should it be email, or e-mail? this or that? one or the other? I took some ideas by looking at the syle guides of big publications like the New York TImes, The Economist, and other computer related magazines (as well as the ubuntu site).

since there is no agreed-upon standard, the most important thing is something that makes sense, and consistancy in how we do it. There's no problem in changing our conventions, but unless it is a really good reason, the status quo is probably the best policy.

If anyone feels really strongly about changing things in the style guide, we could bring it up in the monthly meetings (or send someone an email to bring it up for you if you can't be there).