Posted 1:29 PM

It's just "wired" Now

The pretentious gits at Wired magazine have decided that, henceforth, they will no longer capitalize the word "internet" (or "web" or "net"). In making this momentous decision, they ask (rhetorically, most likely) "Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was." But, as the originators of Wired (or is that "wired") will tell you, the Internet was originally capitalized to differentiate it from an internet, a collection of networks joined together. That's one of the reasons we capitalize some nouns - to differentiate them from the generic, non-capitalized form.

Still, I've used both capitalizations over the years and I don't think there was ever confusion as to which (the specific Internet or a collection of nets) I was referring to. So I'll keep doing that. You, of course, can do as you like. My publisher will follow whichever style manual is currently their choice. But, in the end, the important thing is that the reader understand what you're trying to say. That's something I frequently have trouble with in reading Wired (or "wired", as the case may be).