Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

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Proofreading Service - Pain in the English
Proofreading Service - Pain in the English

Your Pain Is Our Pleasure

24-Hour Proofreading Service—We proofread your Google Docs or Microsoft Word files. We hate grammatical errors with a passion. Learn More

Accepted spellings, punctuation, and capitalization of email

We’re arguing in the office. Help us get this straight once and for all.

You could boil the question down to this: how would you write this title?

“email Is Destroying Our Children”

email or e-mail?

Do you capitalize the E if it’s at the beginning of a sentence or part of a title?

Do you capitalize the M if it’s at the beginning of a sentence or part of a title? If so, do you only do this when it’s hyphenated?

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Comments

"e-mail" was how the word started, because it was a short for electronic-mail. But I think we evolved further now, and "email" is more common. If you are not hyphenating it, it makes more sense to capitalize the e. Email. That's what I do personally. But I don't think there is a definitive answer for this. It will be settled in about 10 years, I would guess.

Also, I would imagine that some of the manuals of style would have this in them.

Dyske Oct-14-2010

2 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

In formal writing, I still use "e-mail". "E-mail" at the beginning of a sentence.

bubbha Oct-14-2010

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Both are acceptable; however, Chicago style prefers e-mail. And E-mail at the start of a sentence. Never capitalize the "m."

sbhall52 Oct-14-2010

8 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

I use "email". On those occasions where this word starts a sentence, I write "Email".

JJMBallantyne Oct-14-2010

4 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

And, as everyone neglected to mention, since it's in a title, the "E" would be capitalized in your example even if it weren't at the start of the sentence.

porsche Oct-15-2010

5 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

AP style also prefers e-mail

lindalouiseelliott Oct-15-2010

4 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

I have long written "email" un-hyphenated, but the website Future Perfect makes a strong argument for the hyphenated form:

"Remember, if your organisation has ‘chosen’ to use a certain spelling, without looking at the derivation, and ‘decided’ on no hyphen, then you are going to run into trouble when trying to write ‘eeconomy’; ‘eenvironment’."

The full article can be found here:

http://www.future-perfect.co.uk/grammartips/grammar-tip-e-mail.asp

douglas.bryant Oct-17-2010

7 votes   Permalink   Report Abuse

The Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications suggests using "e-mail."

As others have said, only capitalize the "e" at the start of a sentence.

Robert2 Oct-26-2010

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The rule I follow is to use capital letters and hyphens (and a lot of other things too) as little as possible. Therefore, "email." This is style choice rather than grammar--keep it simple.

fmerton Nov-05-2010

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The form you use for writing email/e-mail depends on what your company has chosen to use. It's important to be consistent within your organization, regardless of which form you choose.

Laura2 Jan-06-2011

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According to this website, "email" without capitalization or hyphenation is a type of dark ink:

http://phrontistery.info/e.html

Although no one would ever use the word with that particular meaning, it could potentially be confused with electronic mail.

I still use email instead of e-mail. It looks better to me.

Claudia1 Feb-19-2011

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See below for the new development on this topic:

http://painintheenglish.com/case/4547

Dyske Mar-18-2011

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this site http://pogo-american.tripod.com mail is mail and email is email means the same

Bill_Brown Apr-13-2011

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and hyphens (and a lot of other things too) as little as possible. Therefore, "email." This is style choi supra shoes http://www.hisuprashoes.com

supra shoes Dec-14-2011

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