Editing Internet (section)

== Terminology ==
{{Further|Capitalization of Internet|internetworking}}

The word ''internetted'' was used as early as 1849, meaning ''interconnected'' or ''interwoven''.<ref>{{OED|Internetted}} nineteenth-century use as an adjective.</ref> The word ''Internet'' was used in 1945 by the United States War Department in a radio operator's manual,<ref>{{cite web |title=United States Army Field Manual FM 24-6 Radio Operator's Manual Army Ground Forces June 1945 |date=18 September 2023 |url=https://archive.org/details/Fm24-6/mode/2up |publisher=United States War Department }}</ref> and in 1974 as the shorthand form of Internetwork.<ref name="RFC675"/> Today, the term ''Internet'' most commonly refers to the global system of interconnected [[computer network]]s, though it may also refer to any group of smaller networks.<ref name="The New York Times"/>

When it came into common use, most publications treated the word ''Internet'' as a capitalized [[Proper noun and common noun|proper noun]]; this has become less common.<ref name="The New York Times" /> This reflects the tendency in English to capitalize new terms and move them to lowercase as they become familiar.<ref name="The New York Times" /><ref name="Wired" /> The word is sometimes still capitalized to distinguish the global internet from smaller networks, though many publications, including the ''[[AP Stylebook]]'' since 2016, recommend the lowercase form in every case.<ref name="The New York Times">{{Cite news|last=Corbett|first=Philip B.|date=1 June 2016|title=It's Official: The 'Internet' Is Over|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/insider/now-it-is-official-the-internet-is-over.html|access-date=29 August 2020|issn=0362-4331|archive-date=14 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201014142148/https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/02/insider/now-it-is-official-the-internet-is-over.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="Wired">{{Cite news|last=Herring|first=Susan C.|date=19 October 2015|title=Should You Be Capitalizing the Word 'Internet'?|magazine=Wired|url=https://www.wired.com/2015/10/should-you-be-capitalizing-the-word-internet/|access-date=29 August 2020|issn=1059-1028|archive-date=31 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201031024342/https://www.wired.com/2015/10/should-you-be-capitalizing-the-word-internet/|url-status=live}}</ref> In 2016, the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'' found that, based on a study of around 2.5 billion printed and online sources, "Internet" was capitalized in 54% of cases.<ref>{{Cite web|last=Coren|first=Michael J.|title=One of the internet's inventors thinks it should still be capitalized|url=https://qz.com/698175/one-of-the-internets-inventors-thinks-it-should-still-be-capitalized/|access-date=8 September 2020|website=Quartz|date=2 June 2016 |language=en|archive-date=27 September 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200927102759/https://qz.com/698175/one-of-the-internets-inventors-thinks-it-should-still-be-capitalized/|url-status=live}}</ref>

The terms ''Internet'' and ''[[World Wide Web]]'' are often used interchangeably; it is common to speak of "going on the Internet" when using a [[web browser]] to view [[web page]]s. However, the [[World Wide Web]], or ''the Web'', is only one of a large number of Internet services,<ref>{{cite web|date=11 March 2014|title=World Wide Web Timeline|url=http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150729162322/http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/03/11/world-wide-web-timeline/|archive-date=29 July 2015|access-date=1 August 2015|publisher=Pews Research Center}}</ref> a collection of documents (web pages) and other [[web resource]]s linked by [[hyperlink]]s and [[Uniform resource locator|URLs]].<ref>{{cite web|title=HTML 4.01 Specification|url=http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html#h-12.1|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081006131915/http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/struct/links.html|archive-date=6 October 2008|access-date=13 August 2008|publisher=World Wide Web Consortium|quote=[T]he link (or hyperlink, or Web link) [is] the basic hypertext construct. A link is a connection from one Web resource to another. Although a simple concept, the link has been one of the primary forces driving the success of the Web.}}</ref>