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Dot-com or dot.com or .com

Posted by Barney on June 27, 2000

In Reply to: Dot-com or dot.com posted by ESC on June 27, 2000

: From USA Today online (June 27, 2000)

: 'Dot-com' or 'dotcom'? Look it up
: NEW YORK - Unless you've been living on a desert island for the past decade, you know what it is. But how do you spell it? ''Dot-com'' is preferred, according to the new edition of the Random House Webster's New College Dictionary. Or it can be ''dot.com,'' but certainly not ''dotcom'' or ''.com.'' It is among the hundreds of words appearing for the first time among 207,000 definitions in the new edition of the dictionary due out next month. ''It's very media-heavy,'' said Wendalyn Nichols, editorial director for Random House References. ''We just try to stay on top of current issues. Slang is the sexiest, but we also keep up with the latest political leaders.''

: Also on Random House's new words list:
: Antiglare: A type of headlight.
: Sky surfing: Aerial skateboarding.
: Slamming: Change of long-distance service without customer's permission.
: Gaydar: a homosexual's ability to spot another.
: Eye candy: attractive person of limited merit.
: Senior moment: brief lapse or moment of confusion.
: Dead-cat bounce: a temporary recovery in stock prices after a steep decline.
: My bad: whoops.

In my view, if referring to an Internet based company, an acceptable expression might be '.com' to indicate both that it is an Internet based company and that it has a '.com' registration. It's equally valid to refer to similar companies in European countries by their '.x' URL attribute and indeed this is common in both England and France.

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