74 LANGUAGE AND THE INTERNET
are then taken or promoted as guides to the Internet in general, an
unhelpful prescriptivism can be the result, similar in its naivety, un-
reality, and oversimplification to that encountered in the grammar
books of old.
All these dangers can be seen in the newspaper article summa-
rized above; and they are present in more sophisticated, book-
length accounts too. For example, the editors ofWiredmagazine
make ten recommendations in their handbookWired Style,fiveto
do with writing prose online, and five to do with ensuring consis-
tency in spelling and punctuation.^15 The principles seem to have
been compiled with aWiredreadership in mind; but, as the quo-
tation on p. 65 suggests, and as the book’s blurb makes clear, the
exposition is being offered to a wider world as ‘theguide for navi-
gating the informal waters of digital prose’. The principles them-
selves are uncontentious, to my mind, and are summarized in
Table 3.1. Several are well grounded in linguistic thinking; others
are no different from those which inform the corresponding dis-
cussions of copy-editing in conventional publishing.^16 But when
they are interpreted as being applicable to an audience that goes
beyond that ofWired, there are grounds for concern, as can be seen
from a discussion of the first two.
The first principle, headed ‘The medium matters’, requires the
language to suit the technology: ‘we need to craft our messages to
suit the medium and its audience’. The linguistic recommendations
which follow are: for e-mail, ‘Think blunt bursts and sentence frag-
ments. Writing that is on-the-fly – even frantic.’ ‘Pith and punch
also define posting on the Web, The Well, wherever.’ And they am-
plify this accordingly:
Look to the Web not for embroidered prose, but for the sudden
narrative, the dramatic story told in 150 words. Text must be
complemented by clever interface design and clear graphics.
Think brilliant ad copy, not long-form literature. Think pert,
breezy pieces almost too ephemeral for print. Think turned-up
volume – cut lines that are looser, grabbier, more tabloidy. Think
distinctive voice or attitude.(^15) Hale and Scanlon (1999). Quotations are from pp. 3–24.
(^16) For example, Butcher (1992).