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RSSStudents of language know that as new terms become accepted by the mainstream they evolve into shorter words, single words and shed their capitalization and hyphenation. Words like "on-line" and "Web log" have over time become "online" and "blog" as people became more comfortable with them. "Electronic mail" has followed a similar acceptance arc, becoming "E-mail" and then "e-mail."
It's now time for the word to take its final step and become simply "email," severing its antiquated 19th-century association with mail delivered by people in blue uniforms -- and signifying the ubiquity of this form of communication, which is now used by 97% of all consumers and 94% of marketers, according to Forrester Research. While e-mail was a very good word for describing the text-only ancestors of email, it's an entirely inappropriate way to describe today's interactive email experience. Emails have much more in common with Web sites than mail nowadays.
Now I'm sure some in the industry are taking their cue from their favorite dictionary. As a trained journalist, I know the importance of having a house dictionary to establish the consistent spelling of words. However, I also know that every publication has its own house style guide, which includes all the exceptions. What I'm proposing is that every email marketer, email software vendor and publication add "email" as the preferred spelling to their house style guide -- at least until the laggard dictionaries catch up.
The way dictionary publishers work is that they take their cue from publications, which in turn take their cue from their constituents. We're already seeing this in action. Plenty of marketers thankfully already spell the word "email," which has led publications like MediaPost to adopt the shorter, sans-hyphen spelling as its house style.
Marketers, you can aid this groundswell by changing the spelling in your email templates and making sure to spell the word correctly in your creatives. And vendors, you can help by changing the templates of your products so that "email" is spelled correctly without any action by your clients, and by spelling the word correctly in your press releases, blogs and white papers.
You can also show your support for email by signing the Email Experience Council's Hyphens Equal Disrespect petition. Just click here, let us know your name and the company you represent, and we'll add your name (just your name, not your email address) to our petition so that those in the industry and those outside it can see how we spell respect. As the number of signees grows, the EEC will use this list to demonstrate the will of the industry and to convince publishers to change their spelling of the word. Dictionaries will fall in line behind the publishers.
As marketers, you all know the power of words. Give this revolutionary communication tool the respect it deserves by pledging to drop the hyphen and spell it simply as "email."
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I've seen it without the dash in other publications, too.
No one would ever say, "I'm just going to get the mails from the mailbox, be right back."
But it seems everyone says, "I'm checking my emails", or "I get alot of junk emails", or "I have a few emails to send". How did this happen?
The only time email should have an "s" on the end of it is when it is being used as an active verb, such as "My mother emails me daily", but definitely not "My mother sends me a lot of emails".
"In practice, a new compound is normally written as two or more words (on line), becomes incresaingly hyphenated (on-line) and is then combined into a single word (online).
In North America, the tendency is to drop the hyphen as soon as a new compound becomes familiar."
I think we are all pretty familiar with email by now. :)
For example, you might see "web site" or "website".
Perhaps not coincidentally, we have a useful tool to determine such usage: search engines. In the above example, a Google search reveals: "web site" = 1.11 Bn "website" = 0.83 Bn
The common usage principle dictates that "web site" is the preferred use. However, if "website" exceeds "web site" then the former will be preferred. Unfortunately, the search engines do not distinguish between case (so "Web site" = "web site").
However, they can distinguish between hyphenated and non-hyphenated words. Therefore: "e-mail" = 1.96 Bn "email" = 2.01 Bn
It seems the tide has turned and, in support Chad's proposition, "email" should become the preferred, and correct, usage.
"Note that when the prefix 'e'is used it is normally followed by a dash, as in e-commerce. However, this is not absolute, as is exemplified by email being most commonly presented without a dash."
I have always used the dash-less variety of 'email', but similarly have always used e-commerce and e-marketing. I would hate for us to go down the route of losing the hyphen in all of these - ecommerce, emarketing, ebusiness etc. They just look like typos.