Should the words internet, net and web start with capitals?
This kind of issue crops up from time to time. What happens is an invention, political opinion, concept or such like grows from being a rare and new thing (and therefore having all the properties of a proper noun) to becoming more mundane. Writers who persist in capitalising such words can end up looking rather ill at ease with modernity and that is no good thing when you're trying to communicate current ideas to a mass audience.
The argument for web capitalisation is simple: there is only one Internet, just like there is only one Moscow. Sure, it's made up of millions of elements but so is the Great Barrier Reef. Therefore Internet is a proper noun and must have a capital.
Until quite recently, this opinion held, partly because of its inarguable correctness. But good English isn't necessarily about correctness – usage plays an important role.
To people who have grown up with the internet (and let's face it, that's anyone born after about 1985), the internet is as ubiquitous as the phone and the radio, and probably doesn't seem worthy of special treatment. As Michael Quinion puts it in this article on the Internet, the word is showing signs of "maturing", and in a much more detailed explanation than is possible here, gives a full explanation.
The irony is that the internet itself (especially email) has been partly responsible for the overuse of lower-case lettering in almost all design contexts. People who capitalise their initials in their email address just look weird!
Need more info? Discuss words, phrases, spelling and punctuation at the gpuss forum ...
