So the writers in my department have different opinions on how to word something. I need some grammatical advice.
“Log in” is sometimes combined as “login.” Fair enough. I prefer to keep it two separate words, but when it’s used as a noun I can deal with it.
However, what about “log into”? Some of our team is writing “login to.” This seems wrong to me, but I can’t come up with any good justification because I am not much of a grammar maven.
Thoughts, opinions, advice?
Thanks very much!
I actually use statements like this at work. I would invariably use “log into”
There’s also “Log in to” Which I might have occasionally absent-mindedly used, but I don’t remember an instance.
p.s. etymola-whatsits - what is the origin of using the word ‘Log’ in this context?
This all goes back to DEC v. VAX or some such days-of-yore computing dichotomy, IIRC.
Some system prompted for a user id with login: and some with logon:. On login systems you exited by typing logout; on logon systems you exited by typing logoff.
Because all of them are one word, I would, being the kind of traditionalist that I am, use login to.
EDIT: FWIW, Wikipedia views them all as two words.
I have been told by the computer geeks at work that you use your login to log on to a computer. They say you can’t log in or log into a computer.
I don’t think ‘login’ exists as a verb, at all – it’d always have to be ‘to log in’ or ‘to log into’. The noun ‘login’ is usually taken to either describe the process of logging in, or as a synonym for screen name/nickname (‘My SDMB login is…’).
I agree with this (and I’m enough of a geek to go up against whatever anybody else’s geeks say :))
“Login” and “logon” are used on computer systems because operating system commands never have spaces in them, not because they make particularly good sense in English. After all, people logged into and out of things before computers came along. Security officers log into and log out of their shifts.
“My login is…” is shorthand for “My login ID is…”, just like we say “microwave” as shorthand for “microwave oven.”
Whether you log *into *a computer or *onto *a computer gets down to some real hair-splitting.
This was my understanding. It’s your login name, but the action is to log on.
So, tell them to goto hell. 
Aha! That makes sense.
Hmmm… as a writing geek (vs. a computer geek), I think I have to go with “log into”!
Hooray for geekiness!
But does that then mean you log outof or log offof your computer?
But once you’re in you switch to hair-pulling.
p.s. You are neither in it, nor on it.
‘You’ and ‘it’ are not connected. the questin is, is IT logged out, or is IT logged in.
I once had a computer teacher who had a bee in her bonet about calling them computers. She thought it implied that they were brains that could ‘compute’ She insisted on calling them ‘Machines’
Your literal facts are correct, but you’re wrong as to what this term means. See post 6.* Your name is in/on the log of people using the computer. That’s exactly the derivation of this usage. It doesn’t come from microcomputers, it comes from networked minis and mainframes.
Yeah either log in or log on work fine.
Thinking about it in the original terms of a log like a Sailing ships Captain’s Log. it it sounds acceptable to put something’ in the log’ or ‘on the log’, just like ‘in the record’, or ‘on the record’ both work.
I could understand this if it were 1948. The term “computer” first meant a person who did computations. When machines were invented to do this, they were called “electronic computers” or “computing machines.” But today the original usage has been lost, and her position would be merely quaint, and is downright eccentric for a computer teacher.
Logon please: Joeuser
?log-f syntax error
logon please:
The GPO Style Manual – probably the best guide for this sort of question – has “login,” “logon,” and “logoff.” There is no listing for “log out,” which means it’s not one word.
Definitely a pet peeve of mine. The verb is two words, while the adjective and noun are one. See also: backup.