{"id":17111,"date":"2016-04-13T16:27:24","date_gmt":"2016-04-13T21:27:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/owdt.wpengine.com\/?p=17111"},"modified":"2026-02-06T16:03:38","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T22:03:38","slug":"standard-internet-terms-have-changed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/news\/standard-internet-terms-have-changed\/","title":{"rendered":"Standard Internet Terms Have Changed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wpb-content-wrapper\"><p>[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]<\/p>\n<h4>Languages change radically over time.<\/h4>\n<p>Listen to an online audio podcast of <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Proto-Indo-European_language\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"&quot;noopener noopener\">Proto-Indo-European<\/a> and you&#8217;ll see what I mean.<\/p>\n<p>Die-hard types inevitably resist changes to their native tongues. However, new <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apstylebook.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Associated Press Stylebook guidelines<\/a> are asking traditional tech writers to update their English internet language as follows&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Internet, as of January 2015 is &#8220;internet,&#8221; lower case. Long overdue, in my opinion! Of course, not all publishers\/writers are onboard with this and other recommended changes.<\/li>\n<li>Also, it&#8217;s &#8220;web&#8221; (lower case) not &#8220;Web&#8221; or any other variant thereof.<\/li>\n<li>One term now seldom used is &#8220;cyberspace.&#8221; Have you noticed the shift? Web searches for that word have declined steadily over the past 10 years.<\/li>\n<li>By contrast, phrases like \u201ccyber attack\u201d and \u201ccybercrime\u201d are now common. In effect, the term &#8220;cyber&#8221; has taken on the tonality of things dark and dangerous.<\/li>\n<li>People now routinely use the word &#8220;online,&#8221; as in &#8220;I&#8217;m online six hours a day.&#8221; This simple term is increasingly favored over &#8220;internet.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>People now often say, &#8220;I\u2019ll look on my phone&#8221; instead of &#8220;I&#8217;ll go online.&#8221; Makes sense, right? &#8211;Our phone is what we see in front of us.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Google&#8221; has gained use as a verb replacing the conventional &#8220;search. It&#8217;s also gained acceptance as a generic noun as in &#8220;Let me check Google&#8221;&#8211;regardless of what search engine a person may be using.<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;Verbing&#8221; nouns isn&#8217;t new. That&#8217;s how Xerox (the company) became &#8220;please xerox this for me.&#8221; Similarly, you hear people say things like &#8220;I\u2019ll Facebook you\u201d to indicate they\u2019ll send a message.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, as language gets simpler, e-mail is now just email. Many terms have followed an evolution from compound to hyphenated to single.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>In short, over time we tend to prefer language that isn&#8217;t technical or abstract in favor of terms that refer to the tangible. Most people resonate with terminology that is concrete, not abstract. Apps like <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.apple.com\/ios\/siri\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Siri<\/a> and <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/landing\/now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Google Now<\/a> reinforce this preference by encouraging us to ask questions as we would in natural speech.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Internet Slang<\/h3>\n<p>A completely different dynamic characterizes the development of internet slang. Teenagers, for example, love to adopt distinct, often coded terms within their peer groups. They&#8217;re constantly innovating linguistically, especially on new mediums like Snapchat, Instagram and Kik.<\/p>\n<p>So, is the internet accelerating language change? Perhaps. But seeing so many transient changes in print (online) also makes us more sensitive to changes, even those that are ephemeral.<\/p>\n<p>One thing is for sure&#8211;the informality of everyday speech is now permeating the written word thanks to the web.<\/p>\n<p>[\/vc_column_text][\/vc_column][\/vc_row]<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Languages change radically over time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":27232,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[365],"class_list":["post-17111","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-support-maintenance-news"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17111","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17111"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17111\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27232"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17111"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17111"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/owdt.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17111"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}