Date:  Tue, 8 Aug 1995 11:09:22 PDT

From:  tom creswell <creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]CROWN.NET>

Subject: Re: Keep those e-mails coming in (interim report)



In keeping with my normal tendency to not participate in the impedance of

language change, indeed, to hasten it in the direction of ease of production

if possible, I use as my regular spelling non-hyphenated _email_ and do,

despite NY Times and the majority of ADS query respondents, use it at

will as a count noun. Haven't had any objection from correspondents yet..



Not only that, but throwing caution to the winds, I regularly spell without

a hyphen or a slash (two current dictionaries show hyphen, two slash)

_CDROM_. I hope that this information does not cause the anal NYTimes

copy editor to suffer a coronary event.



Tom Creswell

219/926 7018-------------------------------------

Name: tom creswell

E-mail: creswell[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]dodo.crown.net (tom creswell)

Date: 06/27/95

Time: 12:24:20



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---------------Original Message---------------

I thought I'd collect a few more intuitions before reporting them to the Times

(again, for anyone who needs to be urged, you can participate in the survey or

"e-mail contest", as they call it, by writing directing to them at

mediabiz[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]nytimes.com). So far, the majority shares my conservative dialect in

which e-mail is a mass noun or verb but not a count noun. (Incidentally, in

response to Bethany and I think someone else, I'd argue that in "an e-mail

message", 'e-mail' is not an adjective but a noun within a noun-noun compound,

exactly as 'water' in "water torture" or 'milk' in "a milk bath". There's

little evidence if any that such modifiers are adjectives, although they cer-

tainly share semantic and syntactic properties with adjectives. But then so

do PPs as in "an in-your-face response". Pre-nominal modifer, si; adjective,

no.) There are several respondents who do use 'e-mail' as a count noun, in-

cluding one who uses it as such in the singular only. (Creeping counthood.)



Larry





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