Internet-related prefixes

Internet related prefixes such as e , i , cyber , info , techno and net are added to a wide range of existing words to describe new, Internet or computer related flavors of existing concepts, often electronic products and services that already have a non electronic counterpart. The adjective virtual is often used in a similar manner.

E , standing for electronic, is used in the terms e mail, e commerce, e business, e banking, e sports, e paper, e cigarette, e car, e girl, e reservation, and e book. The lowercase initial e prefix was used as early as 1994 by eWorld, Apple's online service.

The i prefix was used in 1964 in In Watermelon Sugar, Richard Brautigan's American postmodern post apocalyptic novel published in 1968. Set in the aftermath of a fallen civilization, it focuses on a commune organized around a central gathering house which is named "iDEATH"
The i prefix was used as early as 1994 by iVillage, an internet community site by and for women. More recent examples include the BBC's iPlayer, and Google's former iGoogle service. It has even been used by companies not in the IT sector for their websites, such as Coca Cola's now defunct icoke. com. Apple Inc. is especially connected to the i prefix. They first employed it for the iMac line of computers starting in 1998, and have since used it in many of their other product names, including iCal, iSync, iChat, iBook, iDVD, iLife, iMessage, iPod (and iPod Socks), iSight, iPhone, iWeb, iTunes, iCloud, and others. They have said it stands for "Internet". Promotional materials for the 2004 film I, Robot, inspired by Isaac Asimov's short story collection of the same name, utilized a lowercase i as a cultural reference to the rising popularity at that time of the prefix in product names. The letter "i" was also used in the popular Nickelodeon show iCarly, as that show primarily uses the internet as its main theme and to parodize the fact that Apple uses "i " in almost all its products.

The word virtual is used in a similar way to the prefixes above, but it is an adjective instead of a prefix. For example, it is used in the terms virtual reality, virtual world, and virtual sex.

These prefixes are productive. Michael Quinion notes that most of these formations are nonce words that will never be seen again. He writes that new terms such as "e health" are unneeded; in this case telemedicine already exists to describe the application of telecommunications to medicine. He similarly points out the redundancy of e tail, e commerce, and e business.

There is some confusion over whether these prefixes should be hyphenated and/or in upper case. In the case of e mail, it was originally hyphenated and lowercase in general usage, but the hyphen is no longer common. In 1999, Michael Quinion attributed the forms "email", "E mail" and "Email" to uncertainty on the parts of newer Internet users. In 2013, the Associated Press Stylebook removed the hyphen from "e mail", following the general usage of the word. McFedries observes that a backlash against the use of e and cyber can be traced to the late 1990s, quoting Hale and Scanlon requesting writers in 1999 to "resist the urge to use this vowel as cliché" when it comes to e and calling cyber "terminally overused". A comparable usage from outside the English language is the Japanese prefix denki (電気), meaning electricity, which was used in Meiji era Japan to denote products exhibiting a Western sensibility.