Talk:Internet capitalization conventions

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I've read that the proper noun "Internet" is an officially registered trademark. I don't know who owns it (U.S. Department of Commerce?). Maybe this article should mention that. Tooptoo 21:01, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Inclusion of this article in [Internet] is not justified IMHo. insignificant grammar issues like this don't belong at Etymology either. Capitalization is subjective matter(Internet is a neologism,if you think of it. it can mean a class of [Network], global net ,etc )

It was a topic on the Internet page long before this page was created. Since people want information about it, I think it belongs in the Wiktionary - and unless it's linked from [Internet], people will have a hard time finding it. To some degree, the fact that there is disagreement deserves documentation. (remember the four tildes....) --Alvestrand 16:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)

"In English grammar, proper nouns are capitalized."

This logic, though commonly cited, is not so cut-and-dry. We don't capitalize "the power grid", or "the telphone network", or, for that matter, "the sky". Given that, it doesn't seem that it is necessarily the case that "the internet" needs capitalizing, either. Nohat 02:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
No, it's not cut and dried. Note that it makes sense to talk of "the Norwegian power grid" or "the DoD telephone network". But in current usage, "the North Korean Internet" sounds odd - what's not connected to the global Internet loses some of its essential Internet-ness. That said, I've watched kids trying to learn when to capitalize..... anyone who thinks the rule for proper nouns is simple needs to do that. I piped the word "proper noun" to the relevant part of the article on "nouns" for more discussion. --Alvestrand 05:57, 27 April 2006 (UTC)
It is a proper noun. An "internet" (common) would just be any set of interconnected networks. The Internet (proper) is the largest such effort. There are others, such as Internet2 (which no one would deny a proper noun, would they?). For the same reason, writers may refer to kleenex (common) when the brand is not importand and Kleenex (proper) when it is. --AlanH (talk) 18:55, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

The article currently reads: "proper nouns are often capitalized". I assumed this was changed given the above comment. This, however, is absurd. All proper nounds in English are capitalized without exception. The debate is whether or not "Internet" is a proper noun, not whether or not one capitalizes proper nouns in the English language. I also added another link from The Chicago Manual Style, a more authoritative source than Wired magazine. Timocrates 16:16, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Indeed. Today, "the internet" is a medium just like "the radio" or "TV" and it's not so easy to prove that it's a proper noun. We also say "I heard it on the radio", or "I saw it on TV", and in neither case we refer to the particular radio or TV receiver that we were using - still this doesn't make "radio" or "TV" proper nouns. (Of course we can "prove" that the Internet is a proper noun by saying that it's capitalized - but that would be circular.) Rp (talk) 12:42, 22 May 2008 (UTC)

Contents

[edit] Future

How will the world be writing (I/internet) in the future? Say the year 2020? Any lexographers would help. I know in the UK internet now predominates, while in the US Internet still predominates on most publications although some influences have caused lower case internet to appear in some lesser-known news publications, even besides Wired News. How would globalization affect this trend?

That's speculation and Wikipedia doesn't do speculation because that's original research in violation of official policy. See Wikipedia:No official research. Also see Wikipedia:What Wikipedia is not (Wikipedia is not a crystal ball or a blog). --Coolcaesar 21:31, 20 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Future of the article

This article reads more like an extract from a Manual of Style than an encyclopedia article, IMHO. I see it is marked as not being based on cited sources. Should it be moved out of the main namespace - perhaps into Wkitionary or merged into WP:STYLE? --Nigelj 21:10, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

I don't see what "Common capitalization conventions" has to do with the main thrust of the article; I think it's a late addition. The main body (documenting the history of capitalization conventions for the word "Internet") fits nicely on Wikipedia, IMO. --Alvestrand 21:22, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
It ranks high on Google search results for whether or not to capitalize "Internet," that is, it is of use to the population at large, not just those wondering weather or not capitalize it when writing for Wikipedia. --AlanH (talk) 19:00, 11 March 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Rules section

I removed this section. I would liked to have just trimmed it, but it was completely unsourced, and some of it was in direct conflict with the rest of the article (like "Internet" vs "internet"). Some of it was POV, like "Jobs'ing", "once-popular layman's foray to the Internet through the company America Online". It seems like such a section could fit if well-sourced (at least based on the title of this article), though right now the rest of the article mainly talks about the capitalization of the word INTERNET itself. Afiler 19:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] ..and what about "wireless internet connection"?

I came to this page because my spellchecker was insisting that the word "internet" should be capitalized, and I was glad to see that there was some discussion going on about it. I can see some of the argument that it should be capitalized when it is used as a proper noun, but there are also uses that should be mentioned. For example, "wireless internet connection". I believe, in this case, "internet" is an adjective. Also, when I'm talking about the word "internet", I am not referring to the Internet itself.

There is a precedent to this sort of distinction: the Sun, the Moon, and the Earth are capitalized when they are referred to as the names of said bodies. But we don't capitalize for the terms midnight sun, sun dogs, sun worship, moon landing, full moon, etc. So it stands to reason that when we discuss the entity known as the Internet, capitalization makes some sense.

Until, of course, you go and read that WIRED article. It sure would be nice to have some official consensus, eh? :) --Qrystal (talk) 13:17, 15 February 2008 (UTC)