[Air-l] login/logon -- add 1

[Scott A. Golder]

Barry Wellman wrote:
> It could be said that "login" is the act of connecting while "logon" is
> the state of being connected. Yet, I belive the 2 words are often used
> interchangeably, as in "Is Nancy logged in?"

To add to Barry's data:

log in		39.3M	75.1%
log on		13.0M

log into	3.7M	75.5%
log onto	1.2M

login to	16.8M	95.5%
logon to	0.8M

logging in	5.0M	79.4%
logging on	1.3M

The "in" variety wins by a huge margin in each case.  This is really 
interesting, since "on the internet" and "going online" are universal 
("going inline" gets ~ 200 ghits.  perhaps a typo).  Perhaps this usage 
is analogizing from "on television" and "on the radio."

My question for you, Barry, is standardize _for whom_?  The research 
literature?  The descriptivist in me would argue for the "in" varieties, 
given their overwhelming popularity in usage.  I can't think of a reason 
to standardize on anything else.

An interesting related topic:  Wired no longer capitalizes "Internet", 
as of last August.
http://www.wired.com/news/culture/0,1284,64596,00.html

Scott

-----
Scott A. Golder
golder at media.mit.edu
http://www.media.mit.edu/~golder
617.877.9230