I would prefer to not have to do it, but each time I try to submit a course paper without it capitalized, I get the paper back marked up by the professors, telling me it is capital I- internet. So I'm resigned, for now, to leaving it as a proper noun. Tamara -----Original Message----- From: Tama Leaver [mailto:tamaleaver@gmail.com] Sent: March 28, 2007 9:11 PM To: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ? Hi All, Regarding the capitalisation (or not), in 2004, Wired ran a column declaring: It's Just the 'internet' Now http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/08/64596 I recall it provoked a lot of discussion at the time; I've not capitalised internet for a while, but are others still Internetting? - Tama On 3/29/07, James Whyte <whyte.james@yahoo.com> wrote:
The capitaliztion is because it is treated as a proper noun - "a specific person, place or thing." Harbrace College Handbook
Joseph Reagle <reagle@mit.edu> wrote: On Wednesday 28 March 2007, Tamara Paradis wrote:
Been poking around trying to find what organization or individual coined the term "Internet" and also trying to find out why the term is always capitalized. I keep coming up with a lot of information on the origin stories of the network and technology (i.e. ARPAnet) but nothing that pinpoints the dawn of the umbrella term "Internet".
Not sure if this is what you were after, but Vint Cerf is fond of talking about how the merging of ARPANET, PRNET, and SATNET were known as the "'inter-net' problem" [1]. However, I've not found much documentation of that.
[1] http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/cyberia-l/msg27462.html
What I have found is that the terms international, internet, and internetwork were used rather throughout the 1970s, they (Cerf) couldn't even settle on what to call it, or what ITP stood for:
Vinton Cerf + ~ A partial specification of an International Transmission Protocol o y=1973 o Specifies a International Transmission Protocol (ITP) implemented via TCP Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, Carl Sunshine + ~ Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program o n=RFC 675, NIC 2 INWG 72 m=December y=1974 Vinton Cerf + ~ IEN #5: Specification of Internet Transmission Control Program: TCP (Version 2) o m=March y=1977 o Uses the term Internet, but otherwise speaks about Internetwork Vinton G. Cerf, Jonathan B. Postel + ~ Specification of Internetwork Transmission Control Program: TCP, Version 3 o m=January y=1978 o Version 3 simplifies TCP by breaking out IP into a separate spec, goes back to using Internetwork
In version 3 (1978) because IP was split out of TCP, and was unambiguously referred to as Internet Protocol, I think that's when the term began to stick. However, there's more ambiguity on the details and versioning of these specs [2], so it's not as easy as that!
[2] http://www.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2006-October/000644.h tml
My theory as to why Internet remains capitalized whereas the Web doesn't is: language usage evolves in odd ways, and Internet seems more like an acronym which perhaps innoculates it from change. _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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-- Dr Tama Leaver Associate Lecturer (Higher Education Development) Centre for the Advancement of Teaching and Learning (M400) University of Western Australia 35 Stirling Highway Crawley WA 6009 Australia Ph: (+61 8) 6488 1502 Fax: (+61 8) 6488 1156 www: http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au www: http://www.tamaleaver.net edublog: http://tama.edublogs.org