What is “internet”? The case for the proper noun and why it is important

ABSTRACT

Academics, style manual editors and others have recently pushed for an elimination of the capitalisation of the word “internet”. This choice may have consequences that reach far beyond language and spelling, as it lends authority to the claim that there could be more than one “internet”, which in turn is based on a historical narrative that is not necessarily accurate. By first exploring the meaning of the word “internet” and subsequently tracing its origins, this article shows how “internet” evolved from an adjective describing a class of networking activities into a proper noun defining the foundation of the current “internet” as early as 1976. It is shown how the use of “internet” as a common noun emerges post-hoc and may have commercial origins rather than historical. The article concludes by showing how both the current, popular, broad definition of “internet”, as well as its historical roots, make the plural use of the term impossible, and why it should only be considered a proper noun, written as Internet.

KEYWORDS:

• Internet
• history
• noun
• definition
• ARPA
• PARC

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Dr. Bradley Fidler for providing many of the sources that makes the claims and arguments in this paper even remotely valid, for inspiring the idea for the paper and for invaluable guidance, enjoyable collaborations and exhilarating discussions of the subject over many years. Thanks also goes to Dr. Leah Lievrouw for persistent aid and inspiration.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. The DoD's Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) was founded in 1958, but changed its name to DARPA in 1972, then back to ARPA in 1993 and finally to DARPA again in 1996. For convenience purposes, it is referred to here as (D)ARPA throughout the paper.

2. This article is not an attempt to iconise Kahn and Cerf or support the “hero inventor” version of “internet” history, which Katz-Kimchi (2015) has exposed, but my findings do show a strong relation between the (D)ARPA internetworking research and the emergence and subsequent re-interpretation of “internet” as a proper noun.

3. These extensions sometimes become quite peculiar. What, for example, is the original “internet” made of, if not of things?

4. This is disputed by Taylor's former superior at (D)ARPA, Charles Herzfeld (2014).

5. Interestingly, Cerf also uses “internet” as verb, “internetting” (p. 35). This verb form had been in use for several years, at least outside the computer network domain. Its root, “internetworking” can be found as far back as 1973, when Hinshaw writes about “inter-networking of community systems”, with regards to local cable tv networks (Hinshaw 1973 p. 8). The term “internetting” even appears a year earlier in an October 1972 presentation of information service concepts from the MITRE corporation: “…the requirements for any private communication modes are discussed, as well as the desirability of internetting, via satellite communications or other means, different types of local cable communication services…” (Eldridge & Mason 1973, p.1).

6. “internet” only appears in three papers in the issue, while “internetwork” and “internetworking” is the norm. Postel uses “internet” as both a proper noun and a common noun, even in the same sentence: “The collection of interconnected networks is called an internet. IP is the network protocol of the internet and this is a level 3 protocol in the OSI model.” (Postel 1980, p. 607). In almost all other instances, “internet” is used as a classifying adjective.

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Morten Bay

Morten Bay is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Information Studies. His main research focus is online communication infrastructures and how they interact with society, including policy/regulation, privacy and national security as well as their impact on socioeconomics, identity and epistemology. He is also an award-winning author of five books and covers technology as a journalist for several media outlets.