# Why do we say "dot com"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 24, 2001, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957 "2001-06-24T10:11:41Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c67d28/32.png) [@Weird\_AL\_Einstein](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weird_AL_Einstein)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2001, 10:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/1 "2001-06-24T10:11:41Z")
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? ---
**Author:** ![flyboy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/4da419/32.png) [@flyboy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flyboy)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2001, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/2 "2001-06-24T12:09:50Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2001, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/3 "2001-06-24T13:28:02Z")
“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. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [June 24, 2001, 7:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/4 "2001-06-24T19:27:04Z")
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”. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/5 "2001-06-25T00:37:59Z")
Title mangled. Fixed. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/6 "2001-06-25T01:06:42Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![sjc](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e5b9ba/32.png) [@sjc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sjc)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 1:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/7 "2001-06-25T01:10:25Z")
Oh, I didn’t add my theory that the ‘.’ in web addresses is in fact a separate sign from both the period and the decimal point. It’s a dot. Obviously. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 1:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/8 "2001-06-25T01:36:26Z")
Once again we find enlightenment from the Jargon File: > [@](#): > > Computers are much pickier and less flexible about spelling than humans; thus, hackers need to be very precise when talking about characters, and have developed a considerable amount of verbal shorthand for them. Every character has one or more names – some formal, some concise, some silly. Common jargon names for ASCII characters are collected here. See also individual entries for bang, excl, open, ques, semi, shriek, splat, twiddle, and Yu-Shiang Whole Fish. The ‘dot’ in “dot com” ('ve occasionally seen this rendered as “[dot.com](http://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. The Jargon File entry, including a dazzling array of such terms, is available at: [http://tuxedo.org/jargon/html/entry/ASCII.html](http://tuxedo.org/jargon/html/entry/ASCII.html) ---
**Author:** ![MrWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9f8e36/32.png) [@MrWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrWhy)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/9 "2001-06-25T02:26:13Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Weird\_AL\_Einstein \* > \*\*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 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. ---
**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/10 "2001-06-25T03:31:40Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ve occasionally seen this rendered as “[dot.com](http://dot.com)”, which drives me nuts because I pronounce that as “dot dot com”, am I alone in this? You are not alone in this. One of my friends went with an ISP called “[vdot.net](http://vdot.net)”. Conversation went like this: “Yeah, my email address is ‘myself at vee dot net’”. ::I write down ‘myself@v.net’. She looks and shakes her head:: “No, it’s actually vee dot DOT net” ::I write down ‘myself@v.dotnet’ and again she shakes her head:: “No, the dot is on the OTHER side of the dot” ::I write down ‘myself@vdot.net’ and she nods, Yeah that’s it:: What the fuck were they thinking?? ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/11 "2001-06-25T03:52:46Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Cisco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ccd318/32.png) [@Cisco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cisco)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 8:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/12 "2001-06-25T08:06:34Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by CurtC \* > \*\*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. ---
**Author:** ![dylan\_73](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/ecccb3/32.png) [@dylan\_73](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dylan_73)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/13 "2001-06-25T08:50:39Z")
Yes, the internet existed then. There was no web, but there was ftp, usenet, internet email, gopher etc. A brief history of the internet is at [http://www.netvalley.com/archives/mirrors/davemarsh-timeline-1.htm](http://www.netvalley.com/archives/mirrors/davemarsh-timeline-1.htm) ---
**Author:** ![MrO](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/50afbb/32.png) [@MrO](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrO)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/14 "2001-06-25T09:39:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mjollnir \* > **"Dot" is very old in the computer world.** The fact that this strikes me as funny probably proves that \* I’m\* old. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 9:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/15 "2001-06-25T09:48:33Z")
Then there’s June in Alison Bechdel’s _Dykes to Watch Out For_, who used to work for [dotcom.com](http://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). ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/16 "2001-06-25T13:57:55Z")
“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: ! = Bang $ = Buck - = Splat Bill Norton Austin, TX ---
**Author:** ![jmonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jmonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmonster)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 2:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/17 "2001-06-25T14:14:07Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by bnorton \* > ! = Bang > $ = Buck > > - = Splat # = Octothorpe ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/18 "2001-06-25T14:56:13Z")
matt\_mcl wrote: > [@](#): > > 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). To further confuse things, “virgule” is the English word for what’s commonly called “slash.” So does anyone know the first time “dot” was used for this meaning? ---
**Author:** ![Heath\_Doolin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Heath\_Doolin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Heath_Doolin)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 4:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/19 "2001-06-25T16:55:12Z")
Why do we say “dot com”? -Because saying ‘flushing your money down the toilet’ has too many syllables ---
**Author:** ![John\_Bredin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/96bed5/32.png) [@John\_Bredin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Bredin)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2001, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957/20 "2001-06-25T19:23:25Z")
Don’t know about [dot.com](http://dot.com), but the U.S. Department of Transportation is [http://www.dot.gov](http://www.dot.gov) which would be spoken as “wwwdotdotdotgov” 🙂 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-we-say-dot-com/69957.md?page=2)