There are some strange debates that find their way into the confines of the Proofing office. Recently, a rather heated discussion sprang to life after our rule to include a hyphen in “e-mail” was questioned by an outsider. Thus, the debate began about whether the hyphen should remain: e-mail vs. email. To most normal people, hyphens fit snugly into that category of just below ‘obscure meaninglessness’ Much like the protective seal on a can of peanut butter – the hyphen serves it’s purpose best in those brief moments where it can be disposed of, or at least ignored, and then forgotten. But, to me, where you fall on this issue is the equivalent to choosing your political affiliation. So, on which side do you stand? Since its inception, e-mail has been spelled with a hyphen. It does, after all, represent two, separate words. However, it has become trendy with the kids to go around dashing hyphens right and left – without any justification. (Oh, that was intended!) I seem to remember a similar approach to grammar in Orwell’s 1984. The goal of Big Brother was to simplify language and make sure everyone was super depressed about it. Unneeded words and letters were removed for efficiency sake. Now, the hyphen, many would argue, is not a very sexy or exciting appendage of the English alphabet. However, I beg to differ. The hyphen represents a bridging of two worlds. “Electronic” representing the new frontiers made available by the expansion of the Internet – and “mail”, which represents the old-world of slow, inefficient snail mail delivery by human hands/feet. Those brave, hardworking individuals at the U.S. post office are trudging forward to this day, in their fight to get us our various generic mailings and credit card offers. Let me put it to you this way. Which brings you more joy – seeing an e-mail pop onto your screen, or receiving a personally-addressed envelope in your real, physical mailbox? Removing the hyphen from e-mail would equate to rigging this bridge to our past with an unreasonably huge arsenal of explosives and blowing it straight to hell. These anti-hyphenists must realize that they are calling for nothing less than the elimination of our identity as human beings! This dependence on the old, slow method of communication must be honored by the new, digital era. Snail mail paved the long, hard road which electronic mail owes it’s livelihood to. And the least the electronic world can do is to symbolically retain this essential historic link, so that our children will never forget where their little bleeps of code came from. So when I am a grandfather I can tell stories about way back when – before we all became digitized and downloadable. Before the polar caps melted, and we all swam into the binary abyss of the nonphysical realm, where thousands of single-sentence, partial-thought messages beamed directly into our cortex on the hour, every hour, for the rest of our lives. Here’s to the future! 100000111010111111111000001111001011000000110000