World Wide Web.
As a proper noun, “World Wide Web” is capitalized when written out in full and when shortened to “the Web.” When combined into compound form, though, it is usually lowercase {website}.
Because “the Web” is just one protocol (way of exchanging information) on the Internet — separate from mail and news protocols, for example — the terms “Web” and “Internet” are not interchangeable — e.g.:
o “At least two of every five messages sent over the Web [read ‘Internet’] are spam, anti-spam software maker Brightmail says.” “Microsoft Puts Limit on Hotmail,” Investor’s Bus. Daily, 26 Mar. 2003, at A2.
o “‘It’s a cat-and-mouse game,’ said Ralph Sandridge, Lockheed Martin director of operational excellence, whose job is fighting spam and other Web [read ‘Internet’] menaces.” Chris Cobbs, “Spammed!” Orlando Sentinel Trib., 10 Apr. 2003, at C1.
For information about the Language-Change Index click here.
Quotation of the Day: “If footnotes were a rational form of communication, Darwinian selection would have resulted in the eyes being set vertically rather than on an inefficient horizontal plane.” Abner J. Mikva, Goodbye to Footnotes, 56 U. Colo. L. Rev. 647, 648 (1985).
