# Electronic Mail - what's the abbreviation?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [December 7, 1999, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759 "1999-12-07T17:16:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/1 "1999-12-07T17:16:00Z")
I’m looking for a consensus.
Is it: [list=1][li]e-mail[/li][li]e-Mail[/li][li]Email[/li][li]email[/li]or anything else you can think of?[/list=1]
---
### Author:  [@labradorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/labradorian)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/2 "1999-12-07T17:23:00Z")
C’est courriel.
---
### Author:  [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/3 "1999-12-07T17:34:00Z")
1. Waster of far too much time
---
### Author:  [@SuperNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNerd)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/4 "1999-12-07T17:46:00Z")
I believe the commonly accepted form around here is: 6. eMail.
---
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/5 "1999-12-07T17:52:00Z")
**labradorian** ,
Est-ce que tu viens d’inventer ça, ou bien est-ce que le mot “courriel” est vraiment utilisé pour “e-mail” en français?
* * *
La franchise ne consiste pas à dire tout ce que l’on pense, mais à penser tout ce que l’on dit.
H. de Livry
---
### Author:  [@Nickrz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nickrz)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 5:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/6 "1999-12-07T17:56:00Z")
“eMail” the commonly accepted form? Speak for yourself. Why complicate things with hyphens and caps? Type email and leave it at that.
---
### Author:  [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/7 "1999-12-08T06:06:00Z")
The computer magazines seem to have settled on e-mail. That is easily the form I most often see.
---
### Author:  [@tanstaafl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tanstaafl)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 6:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/8 "1999-12-08T06:27:00Z")
I’ve seen e@mail as well.
---
### Author:  [@Lord\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Jim)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/9 "1999-12-08T06:51:00Z")
I use almost all of them, except that funny looking “e@mail”. I prefer “email”. At the top of this page, they use “Email” but most of the words are capitalized. In the FAQ section, they use “E-mail”, with the capitalization intentional. Seems to me, there isn’t a wrong way to write it.
---
### Author:  [@Patty\_O\_Furniture](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Patty_O_Furniture)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/10 "1999-12-07T19:04:00Z")
I prefer to use “e-mail”, but most spelling checkers try to correct me, so I have evolved to using “email” and they leave me alone.
---
### Author:  [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/11 "1999-12-07T19:05:00Z")
How about e{:-Dfmail?
---
### Author:  [@putrid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/putrid)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/12 "1999-12-07T20:06:00Z")
My vote is for e-mail but, due to natural evolution, I dare say it will soon be uniformly email. I guess I should be ahead of the bunch for once and switch my vote to email.
---
### Author:  [@SuperNerd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuperNerd)
#### Post date: [December 7, 1999, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/13 "1999-12-07T20:17:00Z")
I stand corrected. msWord says eMail is misspelled, but email is okay.
Sorry.
---
### Author:  [@Cessandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cessandra)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 8:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/14 "1999-12-08T08:25:00Z")
Arnold – you make me so mad! 🙂
I try so hard to convince myself that I can understand French, and you have to go and prove me wrong!
* * *
Cessandra
Why sex is better than religion: No need to rest on Sundays!
---
### Author:  [@Satan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Satan)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 3:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/15 "1999-12-08T15:13:00Z")
The spell checker in Word claims it should be **e-mail** with a lowercase “e.”
But it also interprets zzz as sex, so I don’t know if we want Bill Gates to be an authority on matters such as this.
* * *
Yer pal,
Satan
---
### Author:  [@handy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/handy)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/16 "1999-12-08T15:50:00Z")
MS Word always gives me E-mail, which isn’t one of your selections.
I do think the right way is E-Mail as its
an abbreviation for electronic mail.
Can always be right with that one.
---
### Author:  [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 5:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/17 "1999-12-08T17:50:00Z")
Sorry, **Cessandra**. I like to practice my french whenever I can.
My message said:
**labradorian** ,
Did you just invent that, or is the word courriel really used for “e-mail” in french?
* * *
Quand les talons claquent, l’esprit se vide.
Maréchal Lyautey
---
### Author:  [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/18 "1999-12-08T17:58:00Z")
A couple months ago I asked Jesse Sheidlower, former author of Random House Word of the Day on the Web, and currently a Principal Editor for the Oxford English Dictionary. His specialty is new and slang words.
His repsonse: e-mail and email are both common enough to be considered “standard,” though the hyphen may have a slight edge.
---
### Author:  [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/19 "1999-12-08T20:21:00Z")
Beatle’s right. The computer industry has definitely settled on “e-mail”. I use that spelling because it seems like the most natural spelling. I wouldn’t use “email” because it looks like it should be pronounced “em-ail”. I know some people don’t like the hyphen in there, but I’m not one of them.
* * *
“I had a feeling that in Hell there would be mushrooms.” -The Secret of Monkey Island
---
### Author:  [@whitetho](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/whitetho)
#### Post date: [December 8, 1999, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759/20 "1999-12-08T21:11:00Z")
**Cessandra** protested: \* I try so hard to convince myself that I can understand French, and you have to go and prove me wrong!\*
C’mon **Cessandra** , this is the Internet age–anyone who can cut-and-paste can translate French. I ran Mr. Winkelried’s sentence through [babelfish.altavista.com](http://babelfish.altavista.com) and it came up with a very credible translation of: \*Have you just invented that, or well the word “courriel” is really used for " French e-mail "? \*
Note that Bablefish didn’t recognize courriel as being a French word.
[Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/electronic-mail-whats-the-abbreviation/7759.md?page=2)