We don’t say pi equals three “dot” one four one five etc. A web address visually resembles a number with a decimal point. When I first got on the net way, way back in ancient times (1996) I assumed a web address would be pronounced with a “point”. It took me a while to learn it was “dot”. So why is it pronounced that way?
On a related note, a few years ago I was on the phone with a rep from my bank, getting account information. He was giving me my account balance, and he actually said “dot” instead of “point”. I was dumbstruck. Is “dot” starting to creep into the world of numbers now?
I’ve heard “dot” used in aviation comms, usually when it comes to radio frequencies, e.g., “Roger, switching one two eight dot five.” Not a lot, but I’ve heard it.
“Dot” is very old in the computer world. It goes back to the ancient days of mainframes, where files were (and are still) named (something)dot(something)dot(something)etc.
It’s a lot easier to say-two consonants and a vowel as opposed to three consonants and a diphthong.
When one says “point” within a number, it usually refers to a decimal point; thus, “three point one four…” for pi. However, internet and network addresses are clearly not decimal numbers - they are a series of numbers which use a period as a separator; thus “ten dot zero dot zero dot one” for “10.0.0.1”.
And, of course, it’s a lot easier to say “dot” than “period”.
I would also point out (as earlier posters have hinted at) that the web addresses we are used to seeing aren’t numbers. It seems pretty obvious that whatever the addresses are, they aren’t numbers with decimal points in them. So we use a different terminology. As an illustration, how do you say 3+6? Three plus six? Three and six? Is it three cross six? After all you could call ‘+’ a cross (or a plus sign). Which is it? In most cases it will be intended as a plus sign but it doesn’t have to be.
Consider also a decimal like 3.5. You wouldn’t call it three period five, it is the wrong context.
Once again we find enlightenment from the Jargon File:
The ‘dot’ in “dot com” ('ve occasionally seen this rendered as “dot.com”, which drives me nuts because I pronounce that as “dot dot com”, am I alone in this?) comes to us, both enginerringly and etymologically, from computer programmers and not from mathematicians.
I work in financial markets and it is not unusual to hear people use “dot” instead of “point”. Actully I think it was used a lot more a few yeras back and is becomming less common.
My first signting of “dot” was in the early 1980s, with telecomm standards such as “V.35”. I hadn’t yet heard the phrase “dot com”, which I think I came across for the first time in the late 1980s as the Internet grew.
I’m having a hard time with this…there were bulliten boards here and there in the late 80’s but I don’t think there was an “internet” was there? I mean I could be wrong but are you sure? I remember in 6th grade (92-93) seeing commercials with a little girl standing buy the side of the road and the screen said “The Information Superhighway” and the little girl said “It’s coming.” I always thought that the information superhighway = the internet. The only way I knew of to get on the online before “the internet” was through Procomm and that didn’t have a web browser in it, did it? So when was the first “dot com”? And I mean the first public, practical one, not one they tested in 1642 or something.
Then there’s June in Alison Bechdel’s Dykes to Watch Out For, who used to work for dotcom.com …
The style I’ve seen as an adjective is “dot-com” or “dotcom” or “.com”, as in dotcom ventures.
By the way, many countries - many English-speaking countries, at that - do not use a period (dot) as a decimal point. For a country that uses a comma for a decimal place (3,14 , which is Système Internationale (metric/scientific) usage), or a raised period (3·14, which is British usage), “point com” would be misleading.
Further data: the French say “point com”, but their word for a decimal point is “virgule”, which also means a comma, which is what they use (trois virgule un quatre = 3,14).
“Dot” is just the fastest way to say it. Programmer-types are always looking to save a few bytes here and there even in their speech. Here are some others:
