Comments on: Email Does Not Stand For Electronic Mail

By: Nicholas Roussos

Nicholas Roussos — Mon, 24 Sep 2007 04:20:51 +0000

I probably am a really boring person, BUT I did get you to take the time to read it, Harvey. Does it matter no? But really what does matter. I love this post.

By: Harvey

Harvey — Fri, 04 May 2007 18:46:00 +0000

lol, i agree with Kara. does it matter? and also if you have enough time to write somthing like this, then you must be a really boring person, lol

By: Kara

Kara — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 22:57:00 +0000

Does it matter?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 22:38:00 +0000

Your e-mail vs. t-shirt argument is a bit weak. The ‘e’ in e-mail is a vowel and it would be more appropriate to use the hyphen to avoid making a ‘new’ word… And yes sorry to inform you, e-mail does stand for electronic mail. Those of you who were around before the “late 90’s internet” nonsense started know better.
What gets me is people who use e-mail like this: “I have to check my e-mails.” You don’t say “I have to check the mailbox on the street for my mails.” Lose the ’s’ people. The same goes for “send me an e-mail.” Send you a mail? Huh?? And don’t let me catch you saying “I’ll shoot you an e-mail!” cause that’s just wrong!
P.S. Everytime I “check my e-mail,” it’s still there, right where I left it. I don’t know what people are so concerned about. I do ‘check my e-mail box’ or ‘check for messages’ sometimes…

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:14:00 +0000

Actually, yes, people make grammar rules–people who write grammar books. No split infinitives? Don’t end a sentence with a preposition? These were one man’s opinion–he was trying to make English more like Latin. Bishop Lowth (the guy with a grudge against sentence-final prepositions) actually took negative examples from Shakespeare, the KJV, Donne, Milton, Swift &c. Check it out:

University of Oregon
Wikipedia (Bishop Lowth)

This site gives a difference between those type of grammar books and how most linguists (including me) are trained today:Rutgers.

And a final note of interest: the Email Experience Council, self-appointed regulatory agency of “email” marketing, announced that the spelling of the word is, officially, “email.” But most of the columnists on the council are forced to use “e-mail” in their columns because their publishers adhere to the AP Stylebook. It’s not a grammar guide–it’s just to make sure you don’t see email, e-mail, eMail and electronic mail all in the same article.

In other languages (French especially and Spanish to a lesser extent) there are regulatory committees that say whether or not a word is “French.” Personally, while that is a nice excuse, I’m glad we don’t have one in English.

Oh, and I prefer e-mail and website, oddly enough. Totally agree on the quotation marks–but technically speaking the last period belongs inside the quotation marks .