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Texas ISD School Guide
Texas ISD School Guide







Internet Tips

Internet Terms and Spellings
By:Patsy Bellah

As suggested in the song, "Let’s Call the Whole Thing off," tomato (tomayto and tomahto) or potato (potayto and potahto) can be spelled differently. Well, not really. We know that was only for purposes of the song. But in today's confusing world of new Internet words, it can get even more confusing.

Is it Ezine, e-zine, or eZine. Look it up on Google and you can see it spelled any one of those three ways and perhaps even more.

Wikipedia suggests either Ezine or e-zine. The Chicago Manual of Style and NetLingo lists it as e-zine. Alexandria Brown calls herself the E-zine Queen, yet Google refers to her as Ezine Queen, even eZine Queen. Other gurus prefer that it be written eZine. If you have an earlier version of Word, it will probably tell you that it’s not a word in their dictionary.

Ebook, e-book eBook can be just as confusing. Email or e-mail, website or Web site, copy write or copywrite? And on and on it goes.

Web page is written as two words, but Web site can be two words or one word.

Of course we know this can be as confusing as more traditional English language: every one or everyone, everybody or every body. We’ve established rules of usage to determine which is correct in these cases.

The word Internet is one that really confuses me. I know that it is capitalized, but I haven’t accepted it in my mind. After all we don’t capitalize newspaper or magazine, and aren’t they the same thing as the internet, excuse me, Internet?

You can go to Google, always capitalized, but if you Google anything it is not capitalized. You can find voice mail (never abbreviated) in the Associated press Stylebook 2006, but voicemail or VM in NetLlingo.

Since I have a transcription service for Internet marketing gurus and writers, these words come up constantly. So I sought out a consistent source to which I could refer. The only thing I found is that there really aren’t any consistent sources. When searching online dictionaries, I couldn’t find these words in some of them, and in others there were inconsistencies. Even on Web pages using these words, there were inconsistencies.

So I went to my friend, Lynette Smith, who is a copy editor extraordinaire, and she did some research. You’ll find the results of her research on her Web site. She consulted three sources: The Associated Press Stylebook 2006; The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th Edition; and NetLingo, The Internet Dictionary.

Lynette suggests that, "Whenever you encounter multiple forms of a word or term, use the version that conforms most closely to the writing style or style manual you already use in your writing. If no manual is specified, choose the style you like best and use it consistently."

If you are using a transcription service to transcribe any of your audios, and you have a preferred way to spell certain words in order to be consistent with the rest of your work, I suggest that you pass that list of spellings on to your transcription service. If you don’t have a list of preferred spellings, request that your transcription service be consistent.

Ask them if they have a manual of their preferred spellings and you can check it out to see if that is what you would like to be used.

So Tomayto or tomahto, jpeg or jpg? Let’s not call the whole thing off.

Patsy Bellah is the owner of Great Transcriptions, where the spoken word becomes the written word. Check us out at http://www.greattranscriptions.com

For more information about recording your information products, read "How to Get Your Info-Product to Market With Lightning Speed!" at http://www.lightningfastinfoproducts.com

For a discussion on the differences between proofreading, copy editing, and much more, go to http://lightningfastinfoproducts.com the bonuses alone are worth the price of the product.






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