[Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ?

Sun Apr 1 19:51:16 PDT 2007

Ah -

We had this dicussion on the 'small-i' internet quite
a few years ago on this same list.

Tamara - Speaking here as a tutor, professors often
will not accept terminology without an appropriate
citation to back up the new usage.

The citation I use is the following:
Schwartz, J. (2002). Case sensitive crusader, who owns
the internet? You and i do. The New York Times. New
York: p. 3.

The passage I refer to - I don't have the full
citation here, but no less than our founding
President, Steve Jones said words to the effect: it is
time to de-capitalize the internet to normalize its
use in modern day society similarly to the phonograph
and the telephone.

There's more support for the small-i internet
elsewhere in the article.

Cheers, Denise

--- Tamara Paradis <sashay at gmail.com> wrote:

> I would prefer to not have to do it, but each time I
> try to submit a course
> paper without it capitalized, I get the paper back
> marked up by the
> professors, telling me it is capital I- internet. 
> 
> So I'm resigned, for now, to leaving it as a proper
> noun. 
> 
> Tamara 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Tama Leaver [mailto:tamaleaver at gmail.com] 
> Sent: March 28, 2007 9:11 PM
> To: air-l at listserv.aoir.org
> Subject: Re: [Air-l] Origin of the term "Internet" ?
> 
> Hi All,
> 
> Regarding the capitalisation (or not), in 2004,
> Wired ran a column
> declaring: It's Just the 'internet' Now
>
http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/2004/08/64596
> 
> I recall it provoked a lot of discussion at the
> time; I've not capitalised
> internet for a while, but are others still
> Internetting?
> 
> - Tama
> 
> 
> On 3/29/07, James Whyte <whyte.james at yahoo.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > The capitaliztion is because it is treated as a
> proper noun - "a 
> > specific person, place or thing." Harbrace College
> Handbook
> >
> > Joseph Reagle <reagle at mit.edu> wrote:  On
> Wednesday 28 March 2007, 
> > Tamara Paradis wrote:
> > > Been poking around trying to find what
> organization or individual 
> > > coined
> > the
> > > term "Internet" and also trying to find out why
> the term is always 
> > > capitalized. I keep coming up with a lot of
> information on the 
> > > origin stories of the network and technology
> (i.e. ARPAnet) but 
> > > nothing that pinpoints the dawn of the umbrella
> term "Internet".
> >
> > Not sure if this is what you were after, but Vint
> Cerf is fond of 
> > talking about how the merging of ARPANET, PRNET,
> and SATNET were known 
> > as the "'inter-net' problem" [1]. However, I've
> not found much 
> > documentation of that.
> >
> > [1]
>
http://legalminds.lp.findlaw.com/list/cyberia-l/msg27462.html
> >
> > What I have found is that the terms international,
> internet, and 
> > internetwork were used rather throughout the
> 1970s, they (Cerf) 
> > couldn't even settle on what to call it, or what
> ITP stood for:
> >
> > Vinton Cerf
> > + ~ A partial specification of an International
> Transmission
> > Protocol
> > o y=1973
> > o Specifies a International Transmission Protocol
> (ITP) implemented 
> > via TCP Vinton Cerf, Yogen Dalal, Carl Sunshine
> > + ~ Specification of Internet Transmission Control
> Program
> > o n=RFC 675, NIC 2 INWG 72 m=December y=1974
> Vinton Cerf
> > + ~ IEN #5: Specification of Internet Transmission
> Control
> > Program: TCP (Version 2)
> > o m=March y=1977
> > o Uses the term Internet, but otherwise speaks
> about Internetwork 
> > Vinton G. Cerf, Jonathan B. Postel
> > + ~ Specification of Internetwork Transmission
> Control Program:
> > TCP, Version 3
> > o m=January y=1978
> > o Version 3 simplifies TCP by breaking out IP into
> a separate spec, 
> > goes back to using Internetwork
> >
> > In version 3 (1978) because IP was split out of
> TCP, and was 
> > unambiguously referred to as Internet Protocol, I
> think that's when 
> > the term began to stick. However, there's more
> ambiguity on the 
> > details and versioning of these specs [2], so it's
> not as easy as that!
> >
> > [2]
> >
>
http://www.postel.org/pipermail/internet-history/2006-October/000644.h
> > tml
> >
> > My theory as to why Internet remains capitalized
> whereas the Web 
> > doesn't
> > is:
> > language usage evolves in odd ways, and Internet
> seems more like an 
> > acronym which perhaps innoculates it from change.
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> >
> >
> >
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> 
> 
> 
> --
> Dr Tama Leaver
> Associate Lecturer (Higher Education Development)
> Centre for the Advancement
> of Teaching and Learning (M400) University of
> Western Australia
> 35 Stirling Highway
> Crawley WA 6009 Australia
> Ph: (+61 8) 6488 1502
> Fax: (+61 8) 6488 1156
> 
> www: http://www.catl.uwa.edu.au
> www: http://www.tamaleaver.net
> edublog: http://tama.edublogs.org
> 
> 
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> 

Denise N. Rall, PhD thesis, "Locating four pathways to 
internet scholarship" School of Env. Science, Southern Cross University, Lismore NSW 2480 AUSTRALIA 
Tues: Room T2.17, +61 (0)2 6620 3577 Mobile 0438 233 344 
http://www.scu.edu.au/schools/rsm/staff/pages/drall/
Virtual member, Cybermetrics Group, University of Wolverhampton, UK
http://cybermetrics.wlv.ac.uk/index.html

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