I have a few pet peeves about writing. Taking into consideration that no one is perfect, it’d be super boring if we were, there is one particular thing I just feel I need to vent about.

E-mail. As I write and optimize hoardes of web content and articles for clients, I repeatedly find email this and email that. The problem with this is that email is NOT a word. Sigh.

Many people don’t know this, and I certainly don’t know all the details, but every year there are a group of literary geniuses that gather together and discuss new and old words and other literary things. Old words that are just so antiquated or irrelevant are tossed out of Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary, which is the official source for writers, editors, and everyone who deals with words, including the stylebook gurus.

New words and compound words that have become commonplace are entered in for consideration. The ones that are serving a new purpose and are doing new work (among other criteria, but those are the big ones) are given the green signal into our accepted language.

Now, e-mail is a shortened version of electronic mail, as is e-commerce, e-bill, and e-zine, which is short for electronic magazine. Another one is cell phone, which is short for cellular phone. Cell phone also appears all too frequently as cellphone. Yes, some of the other dictionary sources say that email and cellphone is acceptable. Why? I haven’t a clue, because technically they are remiss in their duties as a reliable source.

So, I can’t positively predict what the literary gurus will do, but I doubt very highly that they will ever allow e-mail to become email, or eanything simply because the “e” stands for an actual word. Cell phone might pass muster, but I think the same reason will apply.

If they do change the rule, then that’s great and I can stop cringing every time I see email and not e-mail. Plus, it will be easier to type. Do I think my humble little blog will change the spell-stricken error wave? Probably not, but I just had to say something, because I’m disillusioned by the plethora of them and hearing that it’s not a big deal.

Not a big deal? ok lets all just forgit alls the rulz & rite what ever the hell-o we wan. i’s sure its gonna help. don u?