The New Yorker Modernizes a Few Words in Its Style Guide

Andrew Boynton, head of copy at The New Yorker:

Keen-eyed grammar fans may notice some changes in our pages — and in this newsletter. Last fall, David Remnick, the editor, suggested convening a group to talk about the magazine’s house style, to see if any rules might bear reëxamination. The group — comprising copy editors, current and former, and editors — met this past January and came up with a list of styles that might qualify for changes, and in a subsequent meeting the following month the director of copy and production and I came up with a limited list of proposals. It was decided that, while no one wanted to change some of the long-standing “quirky” styles (teen-ager, per cent, etc.), some of newer vintage could go. Along with a few other changes, “in-box” is now “inbox,” “Web site” is now “website,” “Internet” is now “internet,” and “cell phone” is now “cellphone” (though everyone acknowledges that the word “cell” in this context will soon disappear altogether).

Some of you may lament the changes as being radically modern, while others are likely to greet them as long overdue. Welcome to 1995, you may be thinking. (Italicized thoughts are new, too.) Regardless, it should be noted that the diaeresis (see that “reëxamination,” above) has overwhelming support at the magazine, and will remain.

I’m in favor of all these changes except for lowercasing “Internet”. I actually started lowercasing it years ago — I think right around when the AP changed its style — but I was chatting post-Dithering with Ben Thompson a week or two ago and he offhandedly mentioned that lowercasing “internet” is a pet stylistic peeve of his, because there’s only one Internet. He said that and I was like, Yeah! — But so why did I start lowercasing it? The Internet is a lot like the Earth. It’s everywhere. It is our universe, in a sense, from the human-scale perspective. But it’s a unique and distinct thing, thus deserving to be treated as a proper noun. (The universe doesn’t get capitalized because while it’s a one-off, it’s not a name. We speak of the universe like we speak of the planet, which is lowercase.) It’s almost disrespectful to lowercase it, and the Internet is one of the great achievements in the history of mankind.

★ Tuesday, 11 March 2025