phrases, sayings, idioms and expressions at

E-mail or an e-mail?

Posted by ESC on November 29, 2000

In Reply to: E-mail or an e-mail? posted by Barney on November 29, 2000

: : : Hi!

: : : I have a question.

: : : The word 'letter' is countable while 'mail' is uncountable. When I wrote 'I sent e-mail to my mother.' an American friend of mine told me that I should put an article 'an' like 'an e-mail.' But should I?

: : : Thank you.

: : : K. Yonehara

: : E-mail is short for "Electronic Mail".
: : So it's as if you were to say:
: : "I sent electronic mail to my mother." ..sounds right.
: : But with the article you would have to say:
: : "I sent an electronic letter to my mother."
: : "Electronic" is just an adjective.
: : Same rules apply if you were to change the adjective to "overnight"
: : "I sent overnight mail to my mother." Or "I sent an overnight letter/package to my mother."
: : HOWEVER: The word "E-mail" has become an accepted euphemism for the word "letter" even though it technically means Mail". So, you're right grammatically but your friend is right in common usage.

: Surely e-mail implies an indeterminate number of electronic messages whereas 'an email' implies just one such message. Hence I can receive 'e-mail' (one or more messages) or I can receive an 'e-mail' message. Well, that's how I understand it this morning in SW1; could get grammatically technical but my pedantic libido is low.

I vote: "I sent an e-mail to my mother." (If it is a single e-mail.) or "I sent e-mail to my mother." (If you sent more than one e-mail.)

OR just say "I e-mailed my mother." Although that might annoy people who don't like nouns turned into verbs.

© 1997 – 2024 Phrases.org.uk. All rights reserved.