internets

Apart from the US senator who is afraid of the internet, the following references to online activity don’t make sense to me. And yes, I’ve seen and/or heard them.

1. internets – how many was that?
2. interweb – I guess it makes as much sense as intraweb, but I don’t like it. Having said that, it reminds me of:
3. WWW page – it’s just a webpage now, brother.

Equally, when someone is giving a web address, things can get weird:

them: Alright, you ready? It’s H-T-T-P-colon-forward slash… are you okay?

me: What? Oh, yes, I’m just weeping for humanity. Please, continue.

All of that gibberish, and the idea for this post, came while writing my assignment for Mass Media in MS-Word. Microsoft says the correct spelling is capital “I”, Internet, as does the World Book Dictionary. To me, that’s on a par with the above-mentioned instances of unfamiliarity. What say you, dear reader?

technorati tags:noun, internet-language, language, internet