In fact, the earliest use of the word, cited in the Oxford English Dictionary from 1974, was with a lowercase i. Initially, there were many internets—the word was used to refer to any computer network comprising or connecting a number of smaller networks; it later came to refer specifically to the global network we know today, which was distinguished as “the Internet” as opposed to “an internet”. It isn't uncommon for words to take on a capitalized form in a particular meaning regarded as a proper noun (for instance, Americans style the foundational document of their federal government as “the Constitution”);
According to Bob Wyman, a Google tech staffer and long-time Net expert, the “I” should be capitalized to make clear the difference in meaning between the Internet (the global network that evolved out of ARPANET, the early Pentagon network), and any generic internet, or computer network connecting a number of smaller networks. WIRED's Style guide, published in 1996 and edited by Constance Hale, makes the same distinction. Indeed, the earliest citations for the word in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED), from the mid-1970s, refer to “internet” in the generic sense and spell it with lowercase “i”, whereas all the later OED examples refer to the global network, using a capital “I”.
“If you never capitalize internet,” wrote Wyman in 2008 on his blog, “you are simply indicating that you don't understand the technical distinction between the Internet and an internet.”
Even more so then understanding some technical differences, misspelling Internet with a lower-case i when you mean the Internet demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of a proper noun. Proper nouns refer to a specific, individual person, place or thing as opposed to one of many of a kind of thing. This is technology; it's language. There is no excuse for not having a basic grasp of your native language after you've been on the planet for several decades or more. Nor is laziness an excuse for doing the wrong thing.
Now one could make the argument that alphabets should have only a single case, and I'd be all for getting rid of upper case altogether, but as long as we are going to use upper and lower cases in our language, we should use them correctly. We should all speak the same English, the king's English. Sloppy language leads to miscommunication and is indication that the speaker deserves no respect.
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2016/04/should-you-capitalize-internet/
https://www.wired.com/2015/10/should-you-be-capitalizing-the-word-internet/
Even more so then understanding some technical differences, misspelling Internet with a lower-case i when you mean the Internet demonstrates a fundamental misunderstanding of the concept of a proper noun. Proper nouns refer to a specific, individual person, place or thing as opposed to one of many of a kind of thing. This is technology; it's language. There is no excuse for not having a basic grasp of your native language after you've been on the planet for several decades or more. Nor is laziness an excuse for doing the wrong thing.
Now one could make the argument that alphabets should have only a single case, and I'd be all for getting rid of upper case altogether, but as long as we are going to use upper and lower cases in our language, we should use them correctly. We should all speak the same English, the king's English. Sloppy language leads to miscommunication and is indication that the speaker deserves no respect.
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