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IDProjectCategoryView StatusDate SubmittedLast Update
0004141Composrcorepublic2020-02-22 04:152020-02-22 17:05
ReporterChris GrahamAssigned To 
SeverityFeature-request 
Status non-assignedResolutionopen 
Product Version 
Fixed in Version 
Summary0004141: Email vs E-mail
DescriptionWe use 'E-mail', not 'Email'.

However:
 - Email is now the preferred term for IETF RFCs
 - Email is preferred on Wikipedia
 - Thunderbird says Email, Outlook says Email, and probably all other popular e-mail clients
 - Most style guides for mainstream publications recommend Email, including Associated Press
 - Searching for "E-mail" has dropped off a lot in recent years https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&geo=US&q=email,e-mail
 - My wife recently told me she never heard of it being spelled 'E-mail'

E-mail is still preferred by more of the formal publications, is more common in edited writing (see corpus data @ https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1925/email-or-e-mail), and there's good argument that it makes for consistency ('e-commerce' etc), and email it is a Dutch word with a different meaning.

History is trending toward email (see graphs on https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/1925/email-or-e-mail).

Perhaps we shouldn't be so stuffy and just switch to where things have been headed for a long time now.
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Adam Edington

2020-02-22 15:11

administrator   ~0006428

Last edited: 2020-02-22 15:27

View 1 revisions

 Even Ecommerce seems more common than E-Commerce nowadays. That said, I would stick with the hyphenated spellings and remain stuffy (and correct) because it's not fair on the Dutch and it's something the end user could easily change if they wish to be trendy. It seems the main reason people tend to miss out the hyphen is laziness or poor keyboard navigational skills ;) As Composr facilitates the publishing of content it seems logical to #KeepTheHyphen

https://www.grammarly.com/blog/spelling-e-mail-email/
https://magenticians.com/ecommerce-or-e-commerce-which-is-it/

Adam Edington

2020-02-22 15:47

administrator   ~0006429

There's also an argument about whether it's E-Mail, E-mail or e-Mail depending on usage. Perhaps losing the hyphen simplifies things in that regard. When a nonce word becomes a regularly used word it loses the hyphen, according to Donald Knuth. I still think we should keep the hyphen but if it makes sense to discard it, so be it :)

Chris Graham

2020-02-22 15:56

administrator   ~0006430

I think for now I think it's good to just have the discussion here on the tracker. Maybe in 5 years people will see this and laugh and say "of course it should be email". Or maybe not.

Adam Edington

2020-02-22 16:02

administrator   ~0006431

Last edited: 2020-02-22 17:05

View 1 revisions

 No doubt in my mind that it's E-mail, and indeed T-shirt. With or without works but I think Email is just easier to type (especially without a proper keyboard) hence the trend. Amirite? It would be interesting to find out what the various spell checkers consider to be correct. According to that 2nd article Microsoft Word and Google Docs correct ecommerce by putting a space between e and commerce (which is a bit weird). Google also replace the hyphen with a space in the search results for H-bomb. Maybe it's E mail and everyone (excluding Microsoft and Google) is wrong!

Issue History

Date Modified Username Field Change
2020-02-22 04:15 Chris Graham New Issue
2020-02-22 15:11 Adam Edington Note Added: 0006428
2020-02-22 15:16 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006428
2020-02-22 15:17 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6428: 0002820
2020-02-22 15:17 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006428
2020-02-22 15:18 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6428: 0002821
2020-02-22 15:27 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006428 View Revisions
2020-02-22 15:32 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6428: 0002822
2020-02-22 15:47 Adam Edington Note Added: 0006429
2020-02-22 15:56 Chris Graham Note Added: 0006430
2020-02-22 16:02 Adam Edington Note Added: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:09 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:10 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:10 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002824
2020-02-22 16:36 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:37 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002825
2020-02-22 16:39 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:39 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002827
2020-02-22 16:48 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:48 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002826
2020-02-22 16:48 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002828
2020-02-22 16:50 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431
2020-02-22 16:50 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002829
2020-02-22 17:05 Adam Edington Note Edited: 0006431 View Revisions
2020-02-22 17:05 Adam Edington Note Revision Dropped: 6431: 0002830