Breaking News Repeat

Word has gotten out that The New York Times is changing its spelling of “Internet” to “internet.” They’re following Associated Press’ lead, which I mentioned recently. Here’s the main passage:

The Internet is going the way of the Weblog, the Electronic Message and the World Wide Web.

The New York Times announced on Tuesday that it would join The Associated Press in lowercasing the name of the global network that lives in our pockets and in front of our faces, keeping us pinned to various feeds like caged mice pressing the button that summons another hit of sugar water.

The changes will take effect at both news outlets on June 1 (which explains the incongruity of “Internet” being capitalized throughout this article).

It’s about time, I say.

Aside: An interesting linguistic feature of the second paragraph is that they made the noun “lowercase” into a verb. They do it again farther down in the article. A lot of purists deplore this, but it’s been part of English for centuries.

Since the change takes affect today, June 1, 2016, I thought I’d mention it. Here’s the whole article if you want to read it.