Why the hyphen in e-mail?
Q: Norm, why do you insist on putting a hyphen in “e-mail”? Most folks just call it email– isn’t that simpler?
A: Yeah, it’s probably simpler, but I don’t like it. Notwithstanding its many idiosyncrasies, English does have some rules of spelling and pronunciation, and “email” doesn’t satisfy them. It also makes more sense to be consistent with similar terms such as e-commerce, e-business and e-invoicing.
And, as a Canadian, there’s also the French thing. In French, émail means enamel, so the less confusion we cause, the better.
And speaking of French, kudos to our French-speaking compatriots for creating the word courriel from “courrier électronique”. Meanwhile, the European French, as they often do, have lazily adopted or semi-adopted the English words email and mél . As much as they hate to see the Colonials lead the way, though, many Europeans now seem to be admitting that the Canadien word courriel is “très cool”, and even l’Académie Française gives the term genuine respect.