[Air-l] login/logon

[Alexander Kuskis]

Barry,
I worked in the computer industry for a number of years and believe
that "log in" is used the most. It's also metaphorically
consistent with the dimensionality of cyberspace, if one accepts
Gibson's term. But, here's a hypothetical differentiator. Accessing the
Internet is a 2-stage process: first, firing up your PC, and then connecting
it to the Net. The first might be a "log on", which is consistent with the
old term of "booting up", a metaphor for pulling on boots by tugging
on the leather loop sometimes placed at the back for that purpose.
So, you log on to your computer, as you would pull on your boots.
Once on your computer, you connect to the Internet (unless you're
always connected) by logging in to your access system. Likewise,
accessing any password-protected website is a matter of getting
"in", as into a building. This difference has no basis in reality,
except in my imagination, but it makes sense to me....Alex Kuskis

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Barry Wellman" <wellman at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: "aoir list" <air-l at aoir.org>
Sent: Wednesday, March 02, 2005 11:54 AM
Subject: [Air-l] login/logon


> Which is the preferred usage: "login" or "logon". For my paper writing,
> I'd like to standardize on one.
>
> Google shows:
> "login": 218   Million hits
> "logon":   6.7 Million hits
>
> so there is a 30:1 preference for login vs. logon.
> But I'd love to hear some more debate.
>
> Barry
> _____________________________________________________________________
>
>  Barry Wellman         Professor of Sociology        NetLab Director
>  wellman at chass.utoronto.ca  http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/~wellman
>
>  Centre for Urban & Community Studies          University of Toronto
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