Internet, Web, and Other Post-Watergate Concerns
Q. Why is it apparently okay to write “Web site” as two words and “online” as one?
A. Until very recently, in fact, we preferred “on-line.” Webster’s tenth, the orthographic bible for CMOS, codified “on-line” as a hyphenated adjective, giving 1950 as its probable date of birth (and probably the first moment when computers and telecommunications systems and their associated vocabulary began to really become part of everyday English). But computers have continued since then to grow in the world’s consciousness at about the same rate that processing speed has increased (i.e., according to Moore’s Law). And it was practically inevitable that “on line”—grammatically two words—would complete its evolution to one word (via the hyphen, in this case). American Heritage (4th ed., 2000), in fact, now advises “online” (we hope Webster’s will follow suit). And for the fifteenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, we decided to go with “online.” We still recommend “Web site,” however, a decision reinforced by the autonomy of the proper noun “Web.” But this too will doubtless evolve, becoming“website,” at least if the structure and nomenclature of the World Wide Web proves to endure, without some other standard or standards taking its place.
So, all I can say in defense of CMOS is that we try to follow the grammatically logical form for compounds, but with an eye toward the dictionary, whose job it is to record the evolution of our language. For your own usage, of course, consistency is the key: “website,” for example, looks wrong only when it stands next to “Web site” in the same document. I predict, however, that “Web site” will begin to look wrong eventually if it has to stand next to a worldwide preponderance of “websites.”
