Big changes to the Internet are arriving in less than two months, and the global community is once again going to be polarized.
While change is good, there are some things that are sacred, that are best left alone.
After almost 25 years in active use of the Internet, its users will have to adjust; once again unable to react, and having to comply with the tide of times.
If you’re wondering what it is all about: Capitalization.
In a shocking announcement yesterday, AP Stylebook announced that on June 1st, the capitalization of the word “Internet” will be abolished, reverting to a lower case writing: internet.
Why do we care?
The AP Stylebook is a writing style guide for journalists by the Associated Press, published and updated annually to reflect changes in writing style and to incorporate new guidelines.
If you’re not a journalist, or if you would care less about grammatical formalities, you’re probably already writing “internet,” being too lazy to hit the Caps key at the beginning of the word.
AP Stylebook’s announcement via Twitter was met with a strong, mostly negative reaction.
There are several reasons why the simplification of the Internet into “internet” strikes a chord.
Visually, it turns the Internet into a basic commodity reference such as power, water, phone or cable TV. It reduces a global medium into a word that can be confused for any local network, intranet or wide area related. Just ask any network engineer about “the internets.”
Thus, “internet” is a vulgar reference that lacks the qualities of the Internet. When a word is globally accepted as is, why change it?
Say it isn’t so! Please, not while the industry is still writhing in pain over the loss of DomainingAMA. This may be the blow from which we can’t recover!
Last day of the Internet today … 🙁