The word “e-book” will remain hyphenated at The New York Times, according to the publisher’s latest version of its style guide which was updated this week. However, according to the new rules, “e-mail” will now be spelled “email” on The Times’ news pages and online sites. The AP Style guide dropped the hyphen in the word back in 2011.
Stranger style dictates that we use hyphens for e-mail and e-book. Gillian and I had a conversation about whether we should use the hyphen back when I started writing about e-books, and we decided that e-books should follow the same rules as e-mail. I don't have a very strong opinion one way or the other about the hyphenation or non-hyphenation of the words, but I do think the New York Times is wrong to split the spelling of ebooks and e-mail the way it does now. It seems obvious to me that the two words should follow the same style. I don't think that even the mighty persuasiveness of a Slog poll can override Stranger style, but I'm curious to see what you all think of this, the most pressing issue of our time.
