Standardize e-mail, email text

[niallkennedy]

WordPress uses "e-mail" and "email" pretty interchangeably for site text, comments, and mail messages. In some cases both forms of the electronic-mail term are used on the same error message!

This patch replaces all instances of "email" in WordPress text with "e-mail" instead. The electronic-mail abbreviation of "e-mail" is the current ​AP Stylebook recommendation. Electronic-mail translates well.

[niallkennedy]

Replace email with e-mail

[nacin]

The AP only went from "Web site" to "website" this year. Many assumed they would also drop the hyphen but they didn't, at least this round.

This might be overly pedantic, but I think I'd prefer sans hyphen and I think most technology companies/sites/blogs would agree. It's more progressive and it is certainly the direction it is gravitating to. That said, if we do have a proper spelling buried in the canon somewhere, I think Jane would know.

[filosofo]

The AP stylebook is probably being too conservative, if that's what it recommends. My observation has been that tech-savvy people overwhelmingly use "email" instead of "e-mail," and to confirm it, just compare the number search results for "email" against "e-mail." Or compare the following searches:

'site:[URL of a site you respect] "e-mail"

against

'site:[URL of a site you respect] "email"

[filosofo]

Also,

​Google Trends

​This blog post says that the OED allows "email," and who can argue against the OED?

[demetris]

The latest edition of the Shorter OED (which is not really short if you have seen it, just a shorter version of the 20-volume full version) dropped hyphens by the thousands because “people are not confident about using hyphens anymore, they’re not really sure what they are for”:

​http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSHAR15384620070921

Now, coming to the proposed patch, I am opposed to changing strings just to unify hyphenated and unhyphenated spellings. It breaks translated strings (too many in this case), adding extra work for translators without any compelling reason.

But we should certainly standardize on a spelling, not only for email but for other words too, so that we can increase consistency as time goes by.

(I’ve started drafting a style guide that deals with cases like that, among other things, and I believe I will have something ready by the time 3.1 development starts.)

[scribu]

It breaks translated strings (too many in this case), adding extra work for translators without any compelling reason.

You have the concept of fuzzy strings, so translations won't be broken. Translators can fix them over time.

[zeo]

I raised this issue a while back in wp-polyglots.

WP Codex should have something like ​http://library.gnome.org/devel/gdp-style-guide/nightly/gnome-glossary-generic-terms.html.en

[demetris]

@scribu

It is not like that.

First, a translation breaks even if a single space changes in the original: Fuzzily translated strings are not compiled into the MO file.

Second, in cases like this Translation Memory and fuzzy translations do not help very much: The interface has no diff to tell you that the only thing changed was a hyphen, so you have to look carefully at both the original string and the fuzzy translation to make certain that the fuzzy translation can be accepted.

@zeo

This and the GNOME HIG are among the things I am looking at for the styleguide.

[johnbillion]

FWIW, the AP style guide has recently changed from e-mail to email.

[coffee2code]

Closed #20749 as a dupe (a vote for "email" over "e-mail").

[SergeyBiryukov]

#26156 has recent patches.