The Rhizome style guide calls for the word "internet" to be written in lower case, but I have been continuing my normal practice of capitalizing it, maverick that I am.
To not capitalize it is more post-internet and cool. It suggests that the internet is not monolithic, but is many things; it suggests that it is an institution (like cinema or television) rather than a technical infrastructure. Heather is convinced that we should continue to not capitalize it.
I feel like capitalizing Internet is more techie and old-school, because in the 1980s there were other proposed "internets" that didn't really take off. So the Internet we use is a proper noun, referring to one possible network of many.
More context: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalization_of_%22Internet%22
Thoughts…?
Should we be capitalizing Internet?
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Type: discussion
Comments
I guess it would depend on how we use the word "internet" in writing. If it is the beginning of your sentence then it should be capitalized except if it is used in fragment sentence as what I learned in English class many years ago.
"You can take the 'internet' out of technology, but you can't take the technology out of-"…oh, fuck it. You should capitalize this.
Also, yer link isn't parsing those double quotes all too well, actually at all… o.O
Style guides will not save the Internet as we know it, but I suppose that doesn't mean we shouldn't take language seriously. Although the destruction of proper usage is one of the tenets of the thing…in which case semantically misusing and abusing it is a case for embodying the present scenario.
I'm no researcher, but I don't want to give up on other networked technologies, do you?
Thanks! I meant, should we consider it a proper noun or a common noun. But this is also useful information.
In other news, Rhizome.org is in talks with Yahoo! Answers about a possible merger.
My vote is to not capitalize!