Got a person talking about e-mail addresses. Should I spell it out as below?
“Yes,” George agreed. “We assign e-mail addresses as first name dot last name at St. John’s dot com."
or do this:
“Yes,” George agreed. “We assign e-mail addresses as firstname.lastname@St.Johns.com."
The hassles of new technology in writing.
Posted by MaryRobinette (Member # 1680) on :
I'd do it the second way, because that's the way I'd hear it.
Posted by Silver6 (Member # 1415) on :
I'd also choose the second way, mainly because I had to blink before understanding how the first way worked.
Posted by jabbiati (Member # 2026) on :
Personally, I wouldn't do it at all unless it was critical to the work. I'd find another way around it.
OR
I would use real (or close to it) internet terminology. Like,
The username is your first name and last name concatenated with an underscore. The domain name is umptyscrunch dot com.
Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :
The second way has my vote.
But I think the domain is more likely to be StJohns.com or saintjohns.com (or maybe .edu), because it's unlikely anyone at St. John's would have had the foresight to register the domain johns.com just so they could add the subdomain st.johns.com.
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
You're probably right, Eric, i honestly hadn't thought it through all that well. Posted by Phanto (Member # 1619) on :
Both would freak me out.
I'm not used to emails in fiction. But version 1 is much worse.
Posted by teddyrux (Member # 1595) on :
The first version sounds contrived. Like you're trying to sound like you use the internet, but don't. I had no trouble with the second version, of course I am a netadmin during the day. :]
quote:No Italian that I know would state publicly that any attachment they had was small, especially if the French were admitting to having a petit one.
<LOL> Thanks for that
Posted by Kathleen Dalton Woodbury (Member # 59) on :
I wouldn't write out the email address in either way. I think you should say something like, "We assign email addresses as your first and last name, separated by a dot, at our domain."
In other words, be descriptive instead of literal.
Posted by Eric Sherman (Member # 2007) on :
Kathleen- That would depend more on the kind of person that is speaking. Some people like to spell things out exactly, which Christine's version seems suited to. Also, if hes agreeing, suppose the first person said it your way, and george agrees, restating the fact in a different way.
Christine- I'd use the second version. Its like a phone number. If someone gives a phone number, I'd write it as it's "622-0509" not "it's six two two, oh five oh nine". Same goes for email I'd say.
[This message has been edited by Eric Sherman (edited May 23, 2004).]
[This message has been edited by Eric Sherman (edited May 23, 2004).]
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
George happens to be a computer savy system administrator, which does lead me to believe that he would not use the version Kathleen described, which ahs something of a high language, non-geeky feel to it.
Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :
In that case I'd go with jabbiati's suggestion.
A geeky point: a lot of _true_ geeks suggest that you shouldn't use your real name as part of your e-mail address, because two people can have the same real name, and if you have such a policy it causes confusion when you do get such a conflict. These people would usually suggest using a chosen 'nickname' as the mailbox part of your address.
Decide for yourself whether your character's likely to be one of these
Posted by Christine (Member # 1646) on :
My character is a geek describing a real working system to a non-geek. First of all, it's not in his POV, it's in the non-geeks POV, so skipping the line makes no sense unless I skip the entire scene, which I won't do. Second, firstname.lastname@domain.com is a very common structure, whether duplicates become problems or not, especially at businesses. It would be far MORE unrealistic to use a nickname at a business, where professionalism is a requirement before unique identifiers. True geeks in the business world usually come to realize, sooner or later, that compromise is critical. Third, later in the conversation this very point if brought up and the geek mentions that in those cases he throws in middle initials. Fourth, I find it to be a cowardly approach to writing to skip things just because they're hard. This is the way the conversation happens, it makes perfect sense, and therefore, I'm not going to do a complicated work-around because I'm a little fuzzy about the exact delivery mode. Posted by EricJamesStone (Member # 1681) on :
Christine, I think you've chosen the best way of doing what you're trying to do. I don't find any of the arguments against using firstname.lastname@company.com convincing. The formation firstname.lastname@company.com is a very common structure for corporate e-mail addresses. As for how it's written, anything which did not look like an e-mail address would just be more confusing to the reader.
Posted by Jules (Member # 1658) on :
quote:I don't find any of the arguments against using firstname.lastname@company.com convincing.
Just for the record, neither do I (and, yes, my company does use that structure). Just suggesting that, depending on how geeky your character really was, he might.
