Email vs. E-mail at Wired

[Grant Barrett]

On lundi 23 octobre 2000 23:01, Gareth Branwyn
<garethb2 at EARTHLINK.NET> wrote:
>That is NOT Wired, that is Wired News, a completely separate
entity.

Yes, my apologies.

My personal opinion is that this, like so many issues, is a
matter of personal opinion. Um. I prefer email. Here are *my* trumped
up, amateur, reasons:

1. I hate reaching with the pinkie. (Somebody else said this
first).

2. There is a precedent for some English speakers of using the
long e sound at the beginning of a word when followed immediately
by a consonant. The hyphen is not necessary to indicate the
sound. English, eradicate, Enus, evil, Eyore. (You can give me Eyore.
It's Eyore. You *have* to accept that one.)

3. I like it that the word turns up correct in both my English
and French spell checkers, particularly if one follows the new
rule that says capitalized, accented E's do not have to show the
accent: Email instead of Émail, assuming, of course, it's at the
beginning of a sentence. Not that I write about enamel that often.

4. I've always thought there was perfect utility in the word
email, a unique word that separated it from the other kind of mail
perfectly. The rise of e-commerce and e-tailer and all the other
poseur, prefab and puerile neologistic attempts has devalued it.
Email is better without the hyphen: it's a superior word.

5. Hyphens are usually a mistake. When people ought to be using
commas, conjunctions, colons, semi-colons, n-dashes or m-dashes,
they always seem to use a hyphen instead. The editor and writer
in me flags a hyphen every time I read one. They force a mental
pause for that quick is-it-right judgment and thus slows me down.

No hyphen, please.