Subject: [xml2rfc] How to spell "electronic mail"

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 18:36:00 -0400

Hi.

This is the sort of thing about which most of our eyes glaze
over, resulting in our not noticing, especially when it is
buried in a section that no one typically reads.  But it has
just come to my attention, via an AUTH48 diff, that different
versions of xml2rfc are spelling the information that comes out
of the <email> element of <author> differently, with some
putting "Email:" into the Author's Address (or equivalent)
section and others generating "EMail:". 

Despite the observation that I haven't noticed this and have
therefore let the latter slip through into several RFCs with my
name on it and because we are now in a period of reviewing
formats, tags, and outputs, I find "EMail" really obnoxious.  I
can imagine absolutely no reason for the oddly-cased characters.
Perhaps it would be justified if we routinely wrote "Electronic
Mail"  or "electronic Mail" rather than "electronic mail", but
we don't.  Perhaps it would be justified if we wanted to
distinguish "our" email from claims by various people to have
invented "Email" a decade or more after many of us were using it
regularly, but I don't think we need to do that and it is too
subtle anyway.  It would certainly be justified if the core
Internet mail specifications represented by RFC 5322 and 5321
used the term normatively with that spelling, but 5321 doesn't
use the term at all except in the contact information and 5322
uses "email" in its Acknowledgments section, then switches (as
does 5321) to "EMail" in the contact information.  

That form might also be justified if it were intended to call
the reader's attention to some special or unusual form of
electronic mail, e.g,, if what was being written was 
    MegoCorpMail:
but that doesn't apply either, especially since the IETF's
implicit position for many years is that we define Internet mail
and this is it.

It may or may not be relevant that we have other references that
use much more simple forms.  For example, the "mailto:" URL just
uses "mailto", not "emailto", much less adopting a
conventionalized spelling of EMailTo or something like that.
Historically, as a last and lamented colleague was fond of
pointing out, we called it "net mail" for many years before
"electronic mail" took over.

Without at least one of the above justifications or something
equivalent to it, "EMail" is distracting, fussy, violates every
style manual entry for English capitalization I can find, and
makes authors and/or the RFC Editor look silly.   I can't speak
for the RFC Editor, but I usually prefer designations other than
"silly".

Can we make this thoroughly-contrived spelling go away when the
rendering systems are next opened?

best,
   john

---

From: Joe Abley <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 19:22:27 -0400

> rendering systems are next opened?

I think "EMail" is worse than "Email", which presumably would be
"email" when it's not starting a sentence or hanging out with its
friends in a title.

But to be honest, I don't like "email" either. My brain wants to read
it as "emmail", because when else is an e in a word sounded by name
rather than its sound? And if we're following the rules, such as they
are, wouldn't that make it "Eemail"? I generally keep quiet about
this, as I have learned to do when North Americans pronounce the name
Xavier. At least "EMail" makes you stop and prepare yourself
emotionally for something weird.

Probably I just have a confused and fussy view following early life in
too many, different, English-speaking countries, but to me it will
always be e-mail, easily defensible by comparison with x-ray.

Joe

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 18 Jun 2015 23:58:36 -0000

>always be e-mail, easily defensible by comparison with x-ray.

What he said, and my background is purely American.

R's,
John

---

From: Brian E Carpenter <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:38:46 +1200

> What he said, and my background is purely American.

Email is particularly confusing to francophones.

Definition of email

> (télécommunications) courrier électronique, envoyé via Internet

Definition of émail

> (technologie) substance vitreuse colorée au moyen d'oxydes métalliques que l'on applique à froid sur une pièce puis que l'on porte au four pour qu'elle se fixe et se solidifie

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 2015 22:17:31 -0400

--On Thursday, June 18, 2015 19:22 -0400 Joe Abley
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> equivalent to it, "EMail" is distracting, fussy, violates
>> every style manual entry for English capitalization I can
>> find, and makes authors and/or the RFC Editor look silly.   I
>> can't speak for the RFC Editor, but I usually prefer
>> designations other than "silly".
>> 
>> Can we make this thoroughly-contrived spelling go away when
>> the rendering systems are next opened?
> 
> I think "EMail" is worse than "Email", which presumably would
> be "email" when it's not starting a sentence or hanging out
> with its friends in a title.
> 
> But to be honest, I don't like "email" either. My brain wants
> to read it as "emmail", because when else is an e in a word
> sounded by name rather than its sound? And if we're following
> the rules, such as they are, wouldn't that make it "Eemail"? I
> generally keep quiet about this, as I have learned to do when
> North Americans pronounce the name Xavier. At least "EMail"
> makes you stop and prepare yourself emotionally for something
> weird.
> 
> Probably I just have a confused and fussy view following early
> life in too many, different, English-speaking countries, but
> to me it will always be e-mail, easily defensible by
> comparison with x-ray.

I have argued for "email" only because that spelling,
independent of case, seems to be prevalent in IETF documents.
But I'm at least equally fine with e-mail, if that is what the
community wants to use going forward (I'd be happy returning to
"net mail" too, if only because faxes are, if one feels literal
about it, ".electronic mail").   But I still find "EMail", which
is what some versions of xml2rfc are apparently producing,
offensive (and would find "e-Mail" or "E-Mail" no less so).

    john

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 19 Jun 2015 16:37:17 -0000

>Email is particularly confusing to francophones.

Ouais.

In French, what we call e-mail is called "courriel", a portmanteau of
courrier électronique.  What we call spam is in Québec called
pourriel, a pun on "pourri" meaning rotten.  That is too clever for
European francophones who call it "le spam".

R's,
John

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 10:59:51 -0700

> Hi.

hmm.  you didn't type "hi".  I guess captialization is ok, sometimes...

There are two different issues that ought to affect the choices.

One is the 'word' and the second is the effect of context.

"email" has become a formally accepted word.  Debating its legitimacy is
10-15 years past debate.

Context affects choosing mail vs. email.  The term 'mail' can be
ambiguous, given at least the choice between electronic and postal.
Using the term 'mail' without a qualifier makes sense only when the
context constrains the meaing.

Citing mailto doesn't help; it's an artificial, technical context that
defined its uses.  The lesson to learn from this case is that
self-contained contexts get to choose whatever the definers want.
Natural language contexts have their own rules and we should follow them.

So if this is a form -- I'm assuming the xml2rfc context is best thought
of as a form -- capitalize if that's what is being done.  Don't if it isn't.

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

---

From: Nico Williams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 13:57:07 -0500

> context constrains the meaing.

We could say "mail" for the electronic variant, and "pmail" for the pony
express variety.

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 15:27:58 -0400

--On Friday, June 19, 2015 10:59 -0700 Dave Crocker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

> "email" has become a formally accepted word.  Debating its
> legitimacy is 10-15 years past debate.

Indeed, and I didn't suggest that we do that.

> Context affects choosing mail vs. email.  The term 'mail' can
> be ambiguous, given at least the choice between electronic and
> postal. Using the term 'mail' without a qualifier makes sense
> only when the context constrains the meaing.

For the specific context of the question -- and I think I was
being quite specific that I was talking about the identifying
label created in output text in response to an <email> element
subsidiary to an <author> element in xml2rfc -- the context is,
I think, very clear.   Presumably the number of postal addresses
in the world that look like, e.g., "[email-masked]" makes the
context even more clear.

> Citing mailto doesn't help; it's an artificial, technical
> context that defined its uses.  The lesson to learn from this
> case is that self-contained contexts get to choose whatever
> the definers want. Natural language contexts have their own
> rules and we should follow them.

ok.

> So if this is a form -- I'm assuming the xml2rfc context is
> best thought of as a form -- capitalize if that's what is
> being done.  Don't if it isn't.

The issue isn't whether "email:" is written that way before the
relevant data or it is written "Email:".  Personally, I prefer
the latter for exactly the reasons you cite, e.g., we spell out
"Phone:" and capitalize it (and, by more or less arbitrary
convention, don't spell it "Tel:" or "Telephone:", which would
presumably be equally reasonable.

What I was objecting to was (and is) versions of XML2RFC
(apparently including the one the RFC Editor is using) that,
instead of putting "Email:" into that position (which some,
including the current online version, do), are spelling it
"EMail:", a form that has certainly not been widely accepted,
much less for 10-15 years or longer.  And the "natural language
context" certainly doesn't predict to it either.

    john

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 19 Jun 2015 18:54:04 -0700

On 6/19/2015 12:27 PM, John C Klensin wrote:
> relevant data or it is written "Email:".  
...
> context" certainly doesn't predict to it either.

So you're essentially lodging a bug report:

   The correct presentation rendering of the field name for <email>
should be "Email:".  Some versions render it as "EMail:".  This creates
an inconsistency; and this should be treated as a bug.

d/

---

From: John C Klensin <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 03:08:30 -0400

--On Friday, June 19, 2015 18:54 -0700 Dave Crocker
<[email-masked]> wrote:

>> The issue isn't whether "email:" is written that way before
>> the relevant data or it is written "Email:".  
> ...
>> much less for 10-15 years or longer.  And the "natural
>> language context" certainly doesn't predict to it either.

>    The correct presentation rendering of the field name for
> <email> should be "Email:".  Some versions render it as
> "EMail:".  This creates an inconsistency; and this should be
> treated as a bug.

That may very well be.   I decided to try to raise the question
more broadly because one of the versions (or profiles or style
sheets -- I don't know which) that is producing "EMail:" is the
RFC Editor's version/ style sheet.  Because of that, I'm not
sure whether this is a bug in the code/ versioning or an, IMO,
particularly ill-advised policy decision (both because I think
the spelling is wrong and because gratuitous differences between
I-D conventions, format, and layout and their RFC counterpart
are probably a bad idea.

   john

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 20 Jun 2015 09:21:08 -0700

On 6/20/2015 12:08 AM, John C Klensin wrote:
> Because of that, I'm not

I tried to choose wording that makes this distinction irrelevant.

It specifies a 'proper' representation.  It calls for conformance to
that representation.

If anyone wants to take issue with either of these, they can, but both
points are simple and discrete; ie, separable.

So, for example, debating group preference between Email and EMail is
separate from a possible debate about whether all IETF-related
renderings should use the same string.

So we can establish a clear and stable base of the 'technical' detail,
and then worry about enforcement.

d/

---

From: Tony Hansen <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 22 Jun 2015 17:29:40 -0400

There is an rfcedstyle processing instruction that the RFC Editor sets
before processing the XML files. One aspect of that mode is the spelling
EMail.

From Marshall's original README:

"rfcedstyle yes
attempt to closely follow finer details
from the latest observable RFC-Editor style
so as to minimize the probability of
being sent back corrections after
submission;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            

this directive is a kludge whose exact behavior
is likely to change on a regular basis
to match the current flavor of the
month;                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                

presently,
it will capitalize the adjective "This"
in automatically generated headings,
use the variant "acknowledgement" spelling instead of
Merriam Webster's main "acknowledgment" dictionary entry,
use the "eMail" spelling instead of
Knuth's more modern "email" spelling,
only put one blank line instead of two before top sections,
omit "Intellectual Property and Copyright Statements"
and "Author's Address" from the table of content,
and not limit the indentation to a maximum tag length
in <references> sections."

I'm pretty certain that the v2 xml2rfc does likewise.

    Tony Hansen