Ramblings

Bloviating: to you, from me. Chide me if you will. algot@runeman.org

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Thu, 03 Jun 2010

Web Site - Website

AP Stylebook has "gone with the flow" and now recommends the usage of "website" instead of "Web site" which was the former recommendation.

If nothing else, it very clearly shows that the Internet, as modified by Tim Berners-Lee, has really entered our consciousness. It was only 1991, just 19 years ago that the main use of "web" was spider webs. Sir Tim's first server went online (formerly: "on-line" and "on line") in August of 1991. The World Wide Web protocol has changed that, obviously, but unlike many technology ideas, this one isn't the province of just geeks. It isn't a term stuck in some server room or in use by just role playing gamers.

The Web is a basic element of our speech and writing. We are comfortable with it, enough so that print dictionaries which "just" recently added the Berners-Lee Web to their pages are already out of date. The tendency we have to contract and compact our language has taken a mere linguistic blink of the eye to process and accept website as the proper style. We didn't even need to bother with the intermediate step of making it "Web-site" or some such.

Associated Press Press Release: Link
Huffington Post Article: Link
Wikipedia Berners-Lee Article: Link