awful email gif

I need a new dicationary. The one I’ve got is pretty good, but I don’t like to have a dictionary that’s too old. Language moves on too quickly. I did take a look at one dictionary, Collins, which calls itself modern. However, whatever its virtues, I will not be able to purchase the volume. The reason is that it fails the email test. The entry for this word states e-mail (or email).

It is email. Not e-mail. Simple as.

How on earth did we start using e-mail in the first place? e, of course, is short for electronic. So e-mail is short for electronic-mail. But as electronic is a single adjective in front of the noun mail, the hyphen is inappropriate. e is a contraction of electronic, so email should have been written e’ mail. And like o’clock and can’t, the space can be removed to make e’mail. But either through ignorance, a desire to appear cool or modern, or technological limitations in implementing the apostrophe, we ended up with e-mail.

There might have been a case to include the hyphen if there was any kind of amiguity of the meaning of email. But there isn’t. If I write the word email out of context, are you in any doubt as to its meaning? Of course not. Now, is email a type of mail, or an entity in its own right? Compare with website, this is now a single unhyphenated entity and no longer a type of site, which would have made it a web-site. Email, too, has become an entity. Therefore, the correct spelling is email.

For anyone who claims that e-mail is the correct term, or eMail for that matter, I urge you to consider your grasp of grammar and your elements of style (do not be cool).

Do you agree that it is time to kill off e-mail, or is there a grammatical nuance which my argument has bypassed?

Are there any other words which require such clarification?

The Guardian style guide states email, which only goes to prove my point, since The Guardian is progressive and right. The Times style guide states e-mail, which only goes to prove my point, since The Times is archaic and wrong.