There’s a big debate amongst prescriptivists as to whether one should write the term for electronic mail with or without a hyphen — i.e., e-mail or email. That’s a really dumb debate. Why on earth should it matter? I would even go so far as to say that if it matters to you, you’re probably reading the wrong blog. Strike that. You’re reading the right blog, because hopefully I’ll eventually convince you that stupid little niggling points like this don’t matter. Maybe you’ll even come to believe that holding staunch opinions about insignificant points like whether there’s a hyphen in e-mail serves only to convince people that grammar is just a bunch of stupid rules determined more or less arbitrarily by angry old people, and that most of these rules can be safely ignored by reasonable people. (Returning readers may have noticed this is a common theme in my posts.)
Grammar is not that, or rather it oughtn’t to be that. Grammar (from this linguist’s perspective) is really a series of conventions that ease communication and improve the overall likelihood of an intended message being transmitted correctly and efficiently. Does including or excluding the hyphen in e(-)mail affect information transmission or make anything less clear? (Hint: No.)
Is there anyone out there who can give a good reason why this needs standardized? Is it going to hurt you or distract you to read a story where it’s sometimes written e-mail and other times email? Such variation is commonplace. Think about when you’re talking. If you’re like me, sometimes you say either with an “I” sound at the beginning, and other times you say it with an “E” sound at the beginning. There’s no difference in meaning between the two; it’s just two ways of saying the same thing. Sometimes one just seems to sound better, but most of the time, the decision seems to come down to random variation. Why not let hyphenation in e-mail be the same way? Sometimes it looks better with a hyphen, sometimes without, and sometimes it looks about the same. My rule about hyphenating email is to do what feels right to you. Include the hyphen, omit the hyphen. Hyphenate it sometimes, don’t hyphenate it others. Whatever. The world doesn’t care. Or at least the world shouldn’t care. Hopefully at some point it won’t.
Look, if you just can’t stand not having a prescribed form for email, ditch the hyphen. Ray Tomlinson, the first person to send an inter-computer email, says the word shouldn’t have a hyphen. I’m of the opinion that the inventor of something should usually have final say on its name, unless they want to call it something absurd like “The Infinitgatiatorewenerwjrti73426736yyyryteyryreyery”. That’s a name I’d oppose.
Summary: It oughtn’t to make a difference whether it’s email or e-mail, and I say both are perfectly acceptable. If you need to come down on a side, I’d go for the non-hyphenated version.
[Updated 4/24/08: I’ve posted some counter-arguments to claims that e-mail must be hyphenated, in case you happen upon somebody who can’t be dissuaded from the position that this does matter.]
***
The Stupid Grammar Rules series as it stands:
- I: Email vs. e-mail (04/11/08)
- II: data are (08/11/08)
Motivated Grammar 
29 comments
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April 11, 2008 at 10:51 am
Jonathon
I’ve heard it argued that “email” looks like it should be pronounced /ɪ’meil/ or /ɛ’meil/ or some such, rather than /’i:meil/, but I just don’t buy that. Has anyone ever seen the word “email” and been confused about how to pronounce it?
April 11, 2008 at 4:37 pm
Gabe
I agree. And more importantly, do you think more people have gotten confused by the spelling of “email” compared to such standard English words as “thoroughfare”, “knight”, or “impugn”? Heck, even such a common word as “answer” isn’t pronounced like it’s spelled. There’re already a ton of English words whose pronunciations you can’t get from their spellings. Nobody mispronounces “answer” and no one’s going to mispronounce “email”.
April 22, 2008 at 6:53 pm
mike
Here’s a reasonable (or not-unreasonable, maybe) explanation for why the hyphen should be there:
http://www.theslot.com/email.html
I’m more of an “email” guy myself, but where I work (as an editor), the official rule is “e-mail.” I can’t say that anyone out in the real world has ever cared one way or another, tho. Or at least no one who’s got anything better to do. :-)
June 11, 2008 at 10:48 pm
Peter Evans
I read your diatribe on email vs e-mail while eating my tbone steak and it made me spill sauce on my tshirt.
Oh dear! Maybe there is an argument for the hyphenated form – consistency. And of course e-commerce in the e-economy looks so much better than the unhyphenated forms.
June 30, 2008 at 7:39 am
doug
isn’t email a color and e-mail is the electronic mail we’ve all come to love?
August 21, 2008 at 11:55 am
Light, Motion and Magic » Blog Archive » An Excellent Customer email Strategy
[…] without a hyphen. I found interesting articles at The Fiction Desk, Digital Quest and Motivated Grammar. The consensus seems to agree with what I’ve personally been leaning towards: email. But both […]
August 30, 2008 at 5:23 am
theoldcomputerguy
In the early days of search engines, one could not search using special characters such as hyphens, commas, apostrophes, etc. Also, many programs did not like these same special characters being used in variables. Maybe this is where the use of “email” began. However, E-mail is what I consider to be correct.
September 25, 2008 at 12:50 pm
sahlee
You, the writer of that article above, is stupid. There is no grammar rule covering the “email vs. e-mail” debate. Instead, it’s a matter of personal choice. Why do you ask, “Why on earth should it matter”? You shouldn’t have wrote that article if nothing in it matters. Stupid!
September 30, 2008 at 10:01 am
Felix
Use the form “e-mail” consistently in your writing because you’re an intelligent person; you’re careful; you care about what your readers would think of your writing and you care about their convenience in reading what you’ve written so that they can comprehend it easily and concentrate on it’s content and not distracted by inconsistencies and unusual spellings and word forms; or you respect the original short form of the word.
Use the form “email” if you’re in a hurry; you don’t have the time (a second) or are lazy to type the hyphen; you can’t give the hyphen because of character limit; you don’t care about your readers and what they would think of your laziness; you are in an informal setting and wants an informal word choice; or you just like the newer form of the short form of the word.
And use both forms within the same work if you are stupid; you can’t make up your mind; you don’t know which is right for that particular writing you are doing; you don’t care if you’re inconsistent (and therefore unreliable), or you just don’t care–you don’t care what your readers will think of you, of your inconsistency, and of your writing (in which case you shouldn’t write at all, because you’re just wasting the reader’s time if you do).
September 30, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Gabe
oldcomputerguy: do you prefer “E-mail” with the capital E? If so, that’s intense and I have a lot of respect for your choice. I do like the idea of the hyphen being omitted to avoid causing problems for old search engines.
sahlee: Thanks for the reminder! There is a point to this post, though, which is to dispel the misconception that there is a rule for e(-)mail.
Felix: You committed a number of grammatical errors in your comment; you used “it’s” instead of “its” in the first paragraph, you omitted a word in the second, and you used “wants” instead of “want” in the second as well. But more importantly, your comment contains two major inconsistencies. Your first two lists are finished with a semi-colon and “or”, but your third is concluded with a comma and “or”; your tense also changes between the second and third paragraphs.
I would think almost any reader would consider these to be more substantial of inconsistencies than the inclusion or omission of a hyphen, so are we to think that you are stupid, inconsistent and uncaring? Certainly not; while I disagree heartily with your opinion, it is clear and fluidly written, despite its minor inconsistencies. My advice would be to relax a bit and relax that good grammar can permit inconsistencies with hyphens and the like.
February 4, 2009 at 11:35 am
printjunky
sahlee and Gabe: It’s not accurate to say that no rule(s) exist regarding this. Every entity that publishes “printed” work will have some kind of style and grammar rules. And most of the people finding this blog, will likely find it, as I did, trying to shine some light into some of the gray areas of the rules. Even though it seems a small thing to many, for some, these are not small considerations. They do matter. And they are in no way “stupid!”
Early into what is now more than a dozen years railing for liberalization of grammar (resulting in a more conversational tone, hopefully) on prescriptivist copy desks at mainstream dailies, I realized the ONLY thing that matters is the answer to the question: Would a reasonable person be confused or misunderstand?
So, email it is, IMHO (though there is a caveat: in some European languages, apparently, email is the word for enamel).
Luckily now I’m in the Alt-press world and can make these choices for the better, guided by, but not dictated by the rules.
February 6, 2009 at 7:30 am
Rachel Randolph
Gabe,
Great blog! I love the point you made about the importance of grammar really coming down to ease of communication and improving the likelihood of an intended message being transmitted correctly and efficiently. Your obvious interest in grammar and linguistics makes me think…
that you might be interested in Dianna Booher’s new book, Booher’s Rules of Business Grammar: 101 Fast and Easy Ways to Correct the Most Common Errors (McGraw-Hill, November 2008).
If so, I’d like to send along a copy. Maybe you’ll find a topic in there that sparks a blog idea. If you’d like a copy, would you please reply with your mailing address for the book to rachel.randolph@booher.com.
To your continued success,
Rachel Randolph
April 10, 2009 at 11:15 am
Loyd
The real question is not “which is correct” but rather “why do we hyphenate words?”
Sorry I’m a year late to this discussion but I was just presented with this question and decided to do a little digging.
Since English is a living language and most spellings are based upon common use, both email and e-mail appear to be correct. Hyphens are the general rule when words are shortened and letters omitted but they’re often dropped after the word becomes commonly used in the vernacular.
So, use whatever you can get away with and if someone bets you at a bar which is right, buy them a strong drink and walk away.
June 13, 2009 at 10:38 pm
Grey
E-mail may be more correct, but I think it makes the writer look old fashioned and out of touch.
July 21, 2009 at 7:51 am
Lynne Michelle
Thank you, Felix! Admittedly, I am “old school,” but I like to stay updated on the evolutionary developments within our beautiful English language. Writing for the Web interests me; I am flexible and can integrate changes. However, I am completely turned off by laziness and a lack of caring. A person who is inconsistent within a document, doesn’t care about how the reader perceives his or her choices, and rebels against grammatical rules for the sake of rebellion seems trite, careless, and uneducated. Whenever I view poor grammar on a site, I look for another site. This lack of caring makes you look stupid. Sorry, but it does. The choice of “e-mail” or “email” seems moot. Consistency of usage within the document is key, as is upholding accepted grammatical rules. Honestly, I am a wild and crazy girl. But as soon as I see, “…dumb debate. Why on earth should it matter?” I realize I am on the wrong blog. Apparently, this is a site for people who don’t care. Some of us still read the printed word–and care!
July 24, 2009 at 9:56 am
Desi
Thank you Loyd. You took the words right out of my e-mouth.
August 28, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Gabe
Lynne Michelle: You misunderstand my point; I certainly do care about language. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t bother writing this blog. My point is not that debate about English usage are all dumb, but that this particular debate is dumb. In fact, we agree, given that you said that “The choice of ‘e-mail’ or ’email’ seems moot.” There are far more important rules to English grammar than this one.
Also, you say that you seek another site when you find inconsistent or wrong grammar on it, that it makes the author look lazy and stupid. Yet you agree with Felix without criticizing his grammatical errors and inconsistencies. You contradict your stated point; you’re willing to overlook an uncaring writer when you can understand and agree with his arguments.
November 5, 2009 at 3:01 pm
Dave
I’m a fairly young person and wouldn’t describe myself as “old school,” but I find “email” to be aesthetically difficult for some reason. I cringe whenever I see it. So maybe not a grammatical defense, and I certainly see it written both ways, but I always choose “e-mail” for ease of reading. I don’t think it makes you look out of touch.
December 30, 2009 at 10:51 pm
Ron
I have noticed a lot of what seems to me to be over-hyphenization in modern English. I was taught that a hyphen joins two words into one word. If that hasn’t evolved, then e-mail is a misuse of the hyphen. I don’t want to be tight-hinied about it, though, so both forms are usages up with which I will put.
February 6, 2010 at 1:19 am
vanmathi
pl send the english grammar to my mail daily
August 17, 2010 at 11:23 pm
Paul
This is a great post. Of course it’s fun to say, “Who gives a —-?” But it’s not completely trivial. It’s not a bad thing to want to spell correctly and, in controversial cases, make sound decisions. Plus, those of us who make a living off the written word have to appear credible.
But yes, let’s get rid of the hyphen already! Just the fact that it’s being debated so much tells us that it’s not really needed. The “keep the hyphen” arguments are so fuddy-duddy.
October 5, 2010 at 7:12 am
PC
“I was taught that a hyphen joins two words into one word. If that hasn’t evolved, then e-mail is a misuse of the hyphen.”
The “e” in “e-mail” is short for “electronic mail.” It is a hyphenated abbreviation, like “e-commerce.”
October 28, 2010 at 7:10 am
RichieP
“Such variation is commonplace. Think about when you’re talking. If you’re like me, sometimes you say…”
This argument is invalid. It is well established that the standard of gramatical correctness for speaking is not the same as the standard for writing. Even if the hyphen in “e-mail” is optional, you must stick with one form throughout your formal writing. And if you are being formal, you may as well use the hyphenated form. Those who don’t care, won’t care. But amongst those who do care, the majority will consider “e-mail” to be correct.
November 1, 2010 at 2:40 pm
LE
I don’t care either whether people write e-mail or email, except when I have a grammar test with the word email in it. Am I supposed to say it’s wrong because there’s no hyphen or am I supposed to say the sentence is correct? So, there should be a rule about it, just for tests like that, so people know what to put.
November 3, 2010 at 8:14 am
Gabe
Paul: You are spelling correctly, in either case. That’s why I say it doesn’t matter.
RichieP: Why must you stick with one form of “email” throughout your formal writing? You take that as a given, but consistency is not a virtue unto itself. Consistency can indeed be a vice: don’t you get irritated when a writer uses the same word too many times?
LE: The rule is that both forms are correct. If you are taking a grammar test with the word “email” mattering on it, then the person designing your test is an idiot.
August 17, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Bettie Waddle
Hopefully???? Please use “I hope” unless you are using “hopefully” to describe a person’s mood when acting, as in “full of hope.”
December 14, 2011 at 11:48 am
Bedford Writer
I think that there’s an argument to be made that e-mail and email are different words. Consider…
Before computers: “I’m going to send a letter by mail.”
Early computer age: “I’m going to send a letter by e-mail.”
Current: “I’m going to send an email”.
“e-mail” means “electronic-mail” and the hyphen makes sense. “email” is a modern word referring to the communication itself, and commonly to the system of communication as well.
Extending this, I wouldn’t bother to say, “I’m going to send an email by e-mail”, simply because it sounds redundant. I would say “I’m going to send emails”, because I substituting for “letters” not “mail”.
On a different note, does anyone else enjoy the fact that a conversation begun three and a half years ago is still current and continuing?
June 18, 2012 at 2:32 am
Darren Collins
Don’t even get me started on log-on / logon / log on / log-in / login / log in.
;o)
October 2, 2012 at 11:25 pm
Keats
You are an ars.Follow your logic to the end. Why bother writing the article.