I just got the new The Yahoo! Style Guide: The Ultimate Sourcebook for Writing, Editing, and Creating Content for the Digital World (about half of which is online for free).
The first thing I wanted to check was the word usage section to see how things have changed since the most recent Microsoft style guide: Microsoft Manual of Style for Technical Publications, Third Edition (2004). Below are some differences in the specific spelling of words (though Microsoft wouldn’t necessarily change these items in a future fourth edition of their guide).
| Microsoft Manual of Style (2004) |
The Yahoo! Style Guide (2010) |
|---|---|
| 1 GB (use a space) | 1GB (no space) |
|
e-mail (in general, like mail) an e-mail message (like a letter) to send an e-mail message |
an email/emails or an email message to email |
|
the Web Web page, Web site webmaster, webcam, webcast |
the Web webpage, website webmaster, webcam, webcast |
I always thought the Web site/webmaster spelling contrast was a silly inconsistency. I’m glad Yahoo agrees.