Kelly-Anne Kidston
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But the lower-case spelling has been gaining ground. “Internet” was twice as frequent as “internet” between 2000 and 2012, according to the Oxford English Corpus (a huge database that includes everything from academic papers to internet comment sections), yet “Internet” has outpaced “internet” by only a slim margin since 2012; by late 2015, that margin may have disappeared 👍 CNN and CBS News Online have adopted the lower-case spelling, as have many overseas news sources 🙈 And many internet-native publications, those that have never seen a print edition, use the lower case 😁 It’s really only a matter of time before all but the most conservative US publications adopt “internet” as the standard spelling. [1]
It’s a grand debate: Whether or not to capitalize the word– ‘internet’ (small ‘I’) or ‘Internet’ (capital ‘I’): Capitalization, to some, suggests– ‘internet exceptionalism’… where exceptionalism is the perception that it’s something very special, exceptional (I.e., unusual or extraordinary) in some way… According to Tim Wu; what is it about the Internet that makes it exceptional? Is the internet any different from say; computers, or smartphones, or electricity, or automobiles… The debate may appear trivial but there are many prominent– media, institutions, businesses… not to mention millions of private individuals who are in the habit of capitalizing or not capitalizing the word ‘internet’, and see no reason to change… (modified by Zachary Myers from Zhuji, China on February 10, 2021) [2]
As per the experts at specialties.bayt.com, internet with a capital “I” refers to the entire Internet (meaning the biggest collection of networks on the planet) . Internet with a lowercase “I” refers to any group of networks that are connected together. Intranet refers to a single inter-connected network within one organisation that uses HTTP/Web technologies for the sharing of information internally. In other words you could string together intranets to make your own private internet. You could then conceivably connect your internet to the Internet. BTW: The WWW is not the same thing as the Internet. WWW only refers to servers running the HTTP/HTTPS service on the Internet. [3]
According to Terrica McGregor from thebettereditor.wordpress.com, look, I’ve got much more vested in this than most people. I’m making my living with words, and some of that includes paying meticulous attention to the little quirks of style: the selection and ordering of words for best effect; concern for sentence length and rhythm for readability; the placement of every jot and tittle in an academic reference citation. But let’s be honest: these things are matters of convention, or standard practise, or customer preference (which are all often arbitrary). It’s safe to say that none of this will ever be a matter of life and death. It isn’t even the kind of thing that rates large scale coverage. When it comes to a change in style being “big news,” it’s definitely a matter of perspective. In our culture, though, with news coverage broken down into specialized categories, an item can take on out-sized importance if your mix of news sources overlap. Since I follow a lot of language and grammar news, that happened with AP’s announcement. I’m must having seen it as the top news item in at least four different places. [4]