Internet Histories

Digital Technology, Culture and Society

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What is internet? The case for the proper noun

and why it is important

Morten Bay

To cite this article: Morten Bay (2017): What is internet? The case for the proper noun and why it
is important, Internet Histories

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2017.1339860

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INTERNET HISTORIES, 2017
https://doi.org/10.1080/24701475.2017.1339860

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

What is internet? The case for the proper noun and why it is
important
Morten Bay
Department of Information Studies, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Academics, style manual editors and others have recently pushed Received 30 January 2017
for an elimination of the capitalisation of the word internet. This Accepted 1 June 2017
choice may have consequences that reach far beyond language KEYWORDS
and spelling, as it lends authority to the claim that there could be Internet; history; noun;
more than one internet, which in turn is based on a historical denition; ARPA; PARC
narrative that is not necessarily accurate. By rst exploring the
meaning of the word internet and subsequently tracing its origins,
this article shows how internet evolved from an adjective
describing a class of networking activities into a proper noun
dening the foundation of the current internet as early as 1976. It
is shown how the use of internet as a common noun emerges
post-hoc and may have commercial origins rather than historical.
The article concludes by showing how both the current, popular,
broad denition of internet, as well as its historical roots, make the
plural use of the term impossible, and why it should only be
considered a proper noun, written as Internet.

Introduction
What is more correct: Internet or internet? Whether the word is capitalised or not may
seem trivial to the casual reader or the non-native English speaker. However, the impor-
tance of this discussion reaches far beyond media style guides and correct spelling. It also
has major consequences for how we perceive the history of networks. As I will show in
the following, the choice of Internet vs. internet can be seen as a manifestation of a dis-
pute between prominent, but competing historical narratives, one of which I will show to
be less credible than the other.
From this point forward, I will use the form internet when discussing the term in ques-
tion. I use internet in quotation marks and un-capitalised to be able to discuss the object
of study in a somewhat neutral manner, until the exploration in this article is presented in
full. The form internet should therefore not be seen as representing any lingual choice,
but merely serves as a placeholder for the object of discussion until the full argument has
been explored.

CONTACT Morten Bay mortenbay@ucla.edu

2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

2 M. BAY

Background
Writers and journalists in the popular media have debated whether to capitalise internet
for years. The discussion usually revolves around the question of whether internet is to
be regarded as a common noun or a proper noun. The lingual classication proper noun is
dened by reference works such as Oxford Modern English Grammar and the Cambridge
Advanced Learners Dictionary and Thesaurus as the name of a particular person, place or
object, which is spelled with a capital letter (Aarts, 2011; McIntosh, 2013). Proper nouns
stand in opposition to the lingual classication common noun, which the same reference
works dene as a noun that names of a group of similar things and not a single person,
place or thing. In other words, table or water would be common nouns, whereas exam-
ples of proper nouns could be Peter, London or the Statue of Liberty. As mentioned,
the grammatical norm for proper nouns is capitalisation (Aarts, 2011; McIntosh, 2013). A
small number of exceptions to the capitalisation rule exists, primarily concerning planetary
bodies, where e.g. The Modern Language Association and The Chicago Manual of Style
prescribes the general use of the decapitalised the earth, but the capitalised usage
Earth when writing about our planet in conjunction with other planets, i.e. Mercury,
Earth, Jupiter and Mars (MLA Style Center, 2016). This type of exception has been used to
explain the Associated Press decision in 2016 to prescribe using internet as a common
noun in their style guide (Associated Press Stylebook, 2016):
The idea of treating internet as a proper noun came about from the beginning of internet
communications. As some argue, the distinction is that the internet we know and use today is
just one internet out of many possible internets. It just so happens that the internet we use is
also called the internet. Its like the Sun that we orbit and the sun of another planetary system.
(DOzario, 2016)

Note that DOzario capitalises Sun, acknowledging that this proper noun can exist along-
side the common noun sun. He does not extend the same courtesy to internet.
Another argument for lower-case internet is made through a comparison with the his-
torical transition of other technologies from proper to common noun, such as television
and radio (Long, 2004; Schwarz, 2002). These were initially capitalised as proper nouns,
but later became so commonplace that they changed into common nouns.
However, none of these are strong arguments for lower-case internet due to the mat-
ter of uniqueness. Although we have a sun (which we have named the Sun), we know
that there are other suns in the universe. The Sun was never the only one in existence.
Likewise, there was never only one single telephone. There was never only one single
radio. These technologies were replicable and intended for mass distribution from the
moment of their creation. Indeed, their very existence is contingent on there being more
of them. But there is no evidence that the word internet was originally intended to
describe something that could be plural. In fact, there is evidence of the opposite.
In the following, I will show how internet is in fact a unique entity. It should be consid-
ered a proper noun and therefore should be capitalised. As will become apparent in the
following, internet was not used as a proper noun from the outset (as DOzario claims),
nor was it originally used as a common noun, as other sources suggest (OED.com, 2017).
Initially, internet was not even used to describe a thing or a place, but a class or a cate-
gory, and was used as a classifying adjective. The rst time it appeared as a noun, it was in
 INTERNET HISTORIES 3

the proper noun form, to name an actual infrastructure that was emerging from attempts
at connecting several separate networks.
I make this argument based on a review of a range of available documentation, which I
by no means claim to be complete. The history of computer networking is still a young
eld, and archives are still being organised, catalogued and indexed. I have based my nd-
ings on a review of oral histories, Internet Experiment Notes, the Request For Comment
series, publications, reports and memos that are currently publicly accessible. The ndings
and the arguments they yield should be understood within these limitations.
However, the debate over capitalisation internet does not just stem from a lack of
awareness about the actual, historical emergence of internet. I propose that the confu-
sion surrounding internet also stems from a lack of consensus about what it is. Haigh,
Russell, and Dutton (2015) seems to acknowledge both this confusion and the shift from
common to proper noun by writing that the word internet, encompasses everything
online but has no specic referenthence its reclassication from a proper to a com-
mon noun (p. 145). This is the result, according to the authors, of the fact that The
Internet has grown gigantic and amorphous, exceeding the scope of any simple deni-
tion (p. 143). They quote Morozovs (2013) complaint that These days, the Internet
can mean just about anything (p. 17). Morozov may not be a computer network histo-
rian, but if he, along with Haigh, Russell and Dutton are correct about the current,
abstract nature of internet, it is essential to study how it achieved this status. But how
can we know the history of something if we dont know what it is? A completely open
interpretation also opens up history, and standardising a particular way of spelling
internet could lead to the authorisation of a certain historical narrative which may not
be accurate.
My ndings show that the term internet has a very denitive path, but they also sup-
port Haigh, Russell and Dutton in their view that todays internet cannot be dened in
simple terms and has a multifaceted origin. These three historians have contributed
invaluably to the history of networks, and particularly Russells (2012) critique of what I
will henceforth refer to as the (D)ARPA narrative1 is not only impressive and eloquent, it
is vital to the eld. He joins Campbell-Kelly and Garcia-Schwartz (2005), Schafer (2012) and
several others in challenging the reductionist whig history (Russell, 2012, p. 3), in which
(D)ARPA created the ARPANET, initiated internetworking research which resulted in the
development of TCP and IP, and a few decades later, we have the incomparably broader
Internet we know today. Particularly, Vint Cerfs and Robert Kahns version of the history
of internet has been critiqued because of their personal involvement in the develop-
ment of TCP and the ARPANET. Few network historians would argue against the fact that
Kahns and Cerfs contributions to todays internet are essential, they are just not the
whole story. When it comes to the term internet, however, Kahn and particularly Cerf do
play substantially larger roles.2

What is internet? Ofcial and not-so-ofcial denitions

To understand how internet became such an abstract term, it seems prudent to study
previous and current denitions that have been stated through literature, standards and
legislation.
4 M. BAY

The FNC denition

In 1995, the Federal Networking Council (FNC) unanimously passed a resolution dening
the term Internet. This denition was developed in consultation with the leadership of the
Internet and Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) Communities (FNC, 1995, p. 1). As the FNC
was chartered by the National Science and Technology Council of The White House (FNC,
1997), their denition of internet can be seen as somewhat ofcial and is worded as
follows:
The Federal Networking Council (FNC) agrees that the following language reects our deni-
tion of the term Internet.
Internet refers to the global information system that
(i) is logically linked together by a globally unique address space based on the Internet
Protocol (IP) or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons;
(ii) is able to support communications using the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol (TCP/IP) suite or its subsequent extensions/follow-ons, and/or other IP-compatible
protocols; and
(iii) provides, uses or makes accessible, either publicly or privately, high level services layered
on the communications and related infrastructure described herein. (FNC, 1995)

Article (i) and (ii) clearly state that Internet is an information system based on TCP/IP, but
is also open to any future protocols with the same functionality. However, the third article
in the FNC denition lacks specicity: What are high level services and what does it
mean to be layered on the communications and related infrastructure? Without more
accurate interpretation, the third article opens up the possibility of redening any applica-
tion which runs on a TCP/IP-based infrastructure as actually being internet. Kahn and
Cerf (1999) argued in favour of the FNC denition of internet for precisely the reason
that it opened up the term internet to something that is more than just the TCP/IP-based
network infrastructure, such as incorporating HTTP and thereby the World Wide Web
(WWW) at the application layer. Note also that the FNC capitalises Internet and some-
what implies that there is only one of its kind (the global information system, emphasis
mine.)

The Title 47 denition

Subsequent to the FNC denition, another ofcial denition of internet appeared in
US legislation the following year. In The Telecommunications Act of 1996 (now codied
as Title 47), internet is also capitalised and dened as such: (1) Internet.The term
Internet means the international computer network of both Federal and non-Federal
interoperable packet switched data networks (U.S. Code 47 x230). This language
entered the US Code courtesy of the CDA-COPA-CIPA legislative battle (Menuey, 2009;
Nichols, 2009). Even though it refers to the international computer network, emphasis
mine, this denition is precariously unspecic and could be taken to mean any com-
puter network based on packet switching that has the capability to work with another
packet switched network. This line of reasoning would cause the internet to emerge
when ALOHANET was connected to the ARPANET in 1973 (Abramson, 2009), which, as
we shall see later, is a critical issue. From the same legislative work came another,
more specic denition, added to The Telecommunications Act of 1996 in 1998:
 INTERNET HISTORIES 5

The term Internet means the combination of computer facilities and electromagnetic trans-
mission media, and related equipment and software, comprising the interconnected world-
wide network of computer networks that employ the Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol or any successor protocol to transmit information. (U.S. Code 47 x231)

x231 is similar to article (i) and (ii) of the FNC denition, dening Internet (capitalised, as
in the FNC denition) as a system that can transmit information through Transmission
Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, i.e. an information system, as the FNC denition clas-
sies it. The phrase related equipment and software could be stretched to include appli-
cations as part of, rather than making use of, internet. At the time of writing, these two
denitions are still current in US law.

The integrated denition

As mentioned, the two denitions above can be interpreted as being open to the inclu-
sion of WWW in internet. Many people conate WWW with internet, which is evident
in the many instances where this conation has been pointed out as incorrect (Anderson
& Wolff, 2010; Kim, 2014; Riesman, 2012; Wagstaff, 2014 to name but a few). There are also
arguments against including WWW in the denition of internet. For example, it raises
questions in policy debates over net neutrality and censorship if services on the WWW
were to be understood as part of the actual internet. On the technical side, WWW-
related protocols such as HTTP reside at the application level (rather than the network
layer) in both the TCP/IP implementation model as dened in Braden (1989, p. 4) and the
OSI network layer stack (Berners-Lee, Fielding, & Frystyk, 1996; Zimmerman, 1980). Thus,
WWW is contingent on the prior existence of interconnected networks.

The abstract denition

This is the broad denition also presented above by Haigh, Russell and Dutton, in which
internet has gone from merely describing infrastructure, to describing infrastructure plus its
users, extensions and cultural consequences. The popularity of this denition is quite evident.
Nowadays, internet is even ascribed agency through collective action, e.g. the internet
went nuts (Apatoff, 2017, para. 2), and the internet reacted (Charlton, 2017, para. 1). This
abstract internet is also used by historians to tie prior information systems to todays inter-
net. Examples include Perkowitz (2016) who calls Paul Otlets Mundaneum an internet, or
Campbell-Kelly (2007) who ties Vannevar Bush Memex, Lickliders Intergalactic Network and
H.G. Wells World Brain to internet through an evolutionary process.
Finally, this abstract denition of internet also paves the way for using the term in
other contexts, such as Internet of Things.3 What all the above denitions have in com-
mon is that internet is an information system in the shape of a network that can encom-
pass many different technologies. They also all point to a single, unique internet and do
not consider any alternatives that can be described as internet. So why are we even dis-
cussing using internet as common noun?

The term internet as classifying adjective, verb, common or proper noun

Earlier, I mentioned how there is disagreement about whether internet has moved from
common noun to proper noun or the opposite way. This alludes to the two forms being
mutually exclusive, but maybe they can co-exist, like sun and the Sun?
6 M. BAY

Robert Taylor, widely reported as having imagined and subsequently initiated the
ARPANET project4 while working at (D)ARPA (Abbate, 1999; Hafner & Lyon, 1996; Isaacson,
2014; Waldrop, 2001), has been very critical of the (D)ARPA narrative. He has been quoted
as emphasising that ARPANET was not internet (Crovitz, 2012; Taylor, 2004; Peter, n.d.),
because in his view an internet is a connection of two or more interactive networks
(Computer History Museum, 2010, 46:54).
In one instance, Taylor very specically makes the distinction between proper noun
and common noun, and indicates a co-existence:
We had the rst internet, lower case i, at Xerox PARC about 1975, 1976 where we had
invented the Ethernet. We connected it to the ARPAnet and now you have an internet. Lower
case I internet is a connection of two or more interactive computer networks. So we have the
ARPAnet and the Ethernet that makes an internet. Now we also had name servers, email sys-
tems, other features associated with this total Alto system that gave us the rst internet .
So that we had a small by todays standards internet user community, but we didnt have the
internet with a capital I. (UT Austin, 2011)

Taylor has been a very visible and vocal supporter of the common noun use of internet,
at a minimum as existing alongside the proper noun. This co-existence is also recom-
mended by the Oxford English Dictionary (OED.com, 2017) and to an extent, the AP Style
Book (2016), which does allow for references to the internet, but only as lower-case. So,
should the term internet be used to describe both something of which there could be
many, and one particularly popular instance of that something?
I argue that this is a false choice. There never was, and never will be, more than one
internet, for reasons I will now proceed to unpack. To claim that there is only one net-
work of packet networks in existence is, of course, absurd. Interconnected packet mesh
networks in rural Africa or interconnected LANs at a meeting of gamers are also networks
of packet networks, even if they are not, or only sparsely connected to internet. The US
Department of Defense has its own network of packet networks, SIPRnet, which is used
for exchange of classied information (U.S. Department of Defense 2017). But the naming
of the latter network is exactly the point. The US military does not refer to SIPRnet as
internet, because it is not even connected to the internet. Nor is it been common to
refer to any other minor assembly of interconnected packet networks like LANs as
internets.
As seen in the quote above, Taylor seems to base his common noun denition of inter-
net on the premise that the team he led at Xerox PARC in the 1970s achieved internet-
working before the researchers funded by (D)ARPA working on TCP and IP. There are a lot
of indications that this claim may be valid (Hafner & Lyon, 1996; McJones, 2008; Taft,
1983). But it is circular logic and a poor argument that internet can be dened as two or
more interconnected networks, simply because PARC achieved internetworking before
those working on what some now call the internet. Also, the main premise is awed. If
Taylors own denition of internet two or more connected packet networks is used,
the rst internet would have been the aforementioned connection between ARPANET
and ALOHANET in 1973 (Abramson, 2009), at least two years prior to when Taylor claims
that PARC had the rst internet at Xerox Parc. In May 1973, Robert Metcalfe had only
just been inspired by ALOHANET to write a memo to Xerox PARC, suggesting what would
later become ETHERNET (Metcalfe, 1973), which is foundational to Taylors argument. Very
few scholars would likely agree that the connection between ARPANET and ALOHANET
 INTERNET HISTORIES 7

had much to do with the internet that emerged later, especially since doing so would
lend support to the (D)ARPA narrative. But you cannot reject the ARPANET-ALOHANET
connection as being internet without also rejecting Taylors denition.
As can be seen from the quotes above, Taylor has used his status as a respected inter-
net pioneer to publicly advocate the position that the internet should be used as a com-
mon noun, at least alongside the proper noun. It is worth noting, however, that this view
places the internetworking research done at PARC in a position that is much more central
to the development of todays internet than the (D)ARPA narrative would, and hence, it
earns PARC a more prominent position in the history of internet. PARC was never suc-
cessful in monetising their internetworking efforts which, along with most other, similar
projects, disappeared in the fog of the protocol wars of the 1980s and 1990s (Abbate,
1999). But there were close relations between the PARC and the (D)ARPA teams during
their separate technology developments (see below), and Taylors view seems to be that
the PARC team does not have the historical recognition that they deserve. He has publicly
criticised the attribution of internet fatherhood to Cerf, Kahn, Larry Roberts and Leonard
Kleinrock, suggesting that they are taking undue credit for internet inventions (Com-
puter History Museum, 2010; Taylor, 2004). By insisting on differentiating between lower
case i and capital I internet, Taylor lends authority to the notion that there could be
more than one internet, thereby diminishing the credibility of the (D)ARPA narrative. If
this was a deliberate strategy employed by Taylor and members of the PARC team retroac-
tively, it has been quite successful. As I will now proceed to show, there are indications
that their effort is the only reason we are even considering using internet as a common
noun.
Taylors interpretation, as well as the whole idea of internet as a common noun, is
likely rooted in a denition of internet presented by PARC in 1979. Studying the docu-
mentation, however, it becomes clear that the (D)ARPA-funded TCP-based network of net-
works was referred to as a specic infrastructure with a proper noun (i.e. either capitalised
or referred to as the internet) as far back as 1976. In contrast, there is no documented
indication that anyone at PARC was using internet as a noun at that time, even though
Taylor, as quoted above, claims that PARC had internet in 1975. This may be due to the
strategic choice at Xerox to keep the work proprietary, and hence out of the public eye, as
many accounts of the interactions between the PARC researchers and the (D)ARPA-funded
group indicate (Hafner & Lyon, 1996; McJones, 2008; Taft, 1983). These conversations were
never recorded to the knowledge of the author, and we only have oral histories to indicate
how the term internet was used colloquially. However, there is strong evidence that
internet was not used as a noun at all before 1976. Rather, it was initially used as a classi-
fying adjective.

The evolution of internet

1973 1976: Classifying adjective use
After almost four decades of using the word internet as a noun, it can be hard to imagine
that it was not a noun, initially. In this section, I will provide evidence of how, from the out-
set, researchers were not necessarily thinking about creating a separate infrastructure
called internet, but merely attempting to facilitate communication between networks.
And how, at a specic point in time, as separate networks were connected and the
8 M. BAY

technology developed, the vision of it being an actual, separate infrastructure came into
frame, and the word internet began appearing as a proper noun, indicating a realisation
in the minds of the researchers that the sum of the parts might be something in itself. But
until that moment, internet and internetwork is used as a classifying adjective rather
than a noun. The Oxford Dictionaries blog denes classifying adjectives as placing people
and things into categories or classes. Do you read a daily newspaper or a weekly one? Does
your house have an electric oven or a gas oven? and provides examples such as The
western hemisphere and the external walls (Oxford Dictionaries, 2017). A classifying
adjective is a type of adjective that cannot be graded, i.e. it does not make sense to talk
about being more daily or less nuclear. Often, a classifying adjective places a noun con-
ceptually or geographically relative to something else. An example is the external wall
example above, but a more pertinent example is the word international, which is consid-
ered a classifying adjective (Attarde, 2007; Bakshi, 2000). International is not a noun, but
it classies something as being implemented across or between nations. With that in
mind, it is perhaps easier to see how internet was originally a word that classied some-
thing that was implemented between networks. In fact, many compounded words with
the prex inter- followed by some type of noun are classifying adjectives: inter-rm
and interdiscipline. Sometimes, a sufx is added, as in interdepartmental, interdisci-
plinary and intergalactic. These examples are from the Oxford English Dictionary, which
also categorises internetwork as both adjective and noun, tracing its origins as an adjec-
tive as far back as 1935 (OED.com, 2017).
In late 1972, ARPANET project manager Larry Roberts convened the International Net-
work Working Group (INWG). From the INWG meetings, Cerf and Kahns produced the
INWG 39 paper that is seen as the rst document describing what would become TCP
(McKenzie, 2011). This is one of the rst, if not the rst document related to the history of
internet which uses the term internetwork. Examples include internetwork communi-
cation (Cerf & Kahn, 1974, p. 1), internetwork timing procedures (p. 3) and internetwork
header (p. 5.). As a result, researchers both inside and outside the (D)ARPA community
start using the term in the same manner (see Davies 1974; Mader, Plummer & Tomlinson
1974; Pouzin, 1974; McKenzie, 1974).
Considering the description of classifying adjectives above, it should be clear that
internetwork communication, internetwork timing procedures and internetwork
header are intended as classifying adjectives, showing that the following nouns are sup-
posed to be considered as being placed in between networks, rather than within networks.
Nowhere in the paper referenced above, its predecessor (Cerf & Kahn, 1973), or in any of
its successors in this period, are there references to the or an internetwork. As a classify-
ing adjective, however, the term is in heavy use. Even when the shortened version, inter-
net appears for (what appears to be) the rst time in RFC 675 (Cerf, Dalal, & Sunshine,
1974) it is only used four times, and only as a classifying adjective. In all other instances,
internetwork is used. In the introduction, the Internet Transmission Control Program
from the title even becomes Internetwork Transmission Control Program [TCP] (p. 1).
Thus, it is reasonable to assume that though (D)ARPA researchers may have had a
vague idea that the sum of the networks would in itself be considered a specic infrastruc-
ture, they do not express this in any publications, and was not thinking in terms of an
internet or the internet yet. It also is worth noting that while internetwork was intro-
duced as a classifying adjective in early 1973, Robert Metcalfes initial ETHERNET memo
 INTERNET HISTORIES 9

from 22 May 1973 does not use that term anywhere, even though it touches on potential
internetworking of a PARC network for ALTO computers and the ALOHANET (Metcalfe,
1973).

19761978: Proper noun use

Between December of 1974 when internet appears in RFC 675 and July 1976, there are
plenty of occurrences of internet in the documentation, but these have all been identi-
ed as classifying adjective by the author. Then, in early 1976, Vint Cerf writes a status
report on the ARPA Internetwork Protocols Project (Cerf 1976, cover page), later known
as the ARPA Internet program (Russell, 2014 p. 239; Abbate, 1999, p.122, 147).
Although it is not a very decisive indication, Cerf in his report seems to refer, for the rst
time on paper, to a specic infrastructure (i.e. with a capitalised proper noun): The stabili-
sation of the various TCP implementations should introduce some new pressures for these
specications, as will the planned PRNET/Internet demonstrations next quarter (Cerf
1976, p. 36). It should be noted that grammatically correct English does not require capi-
talisation after a forward slash (Grammarly, 2017). In the rest of the document, Cerf uses
internet, internetworking etc. as classifying adjectives, so the distinction between
PRNET (Packet Radio Net) and the capitalised Internet seems to indicate that Cerf is
beginning to think of internet as specic, unique infrastructure.5
The rst direct reference to internet as a specic infrastructure, i.e. a proper noun,
appears to be in Internet Experiment Note 25 from January 1978. Here, Virginia Strasizar
initially uses the term internet as a classifying adjective: discusses the use of status
messages and ow control to improve internet performance (Strazisar 1978, p.2). But fur-
ther down on the same page, she clearly uses internet as a proper noun: The algorithm
minimizes the average delay of packets in the internet. An optimal dynamic routing
scheme, such as the one presented here, potentially provides the best service, in terms on
minimising delay, in the internet (emphasis mine). On the next page, she even provides a
concrete denition: The internet is a collection of networks connected by gateways.
Considering that Strazisars paper must have been under preparation in 1977 due to its
publication early in 1978, it appears that internet as a proper noun would have in use in
the (D)ARPA network research community in 19761977, and perhaps even earlier, since
Cerf is referring to tests already planned in his 1976 report.

1978: Catenet
In July 1978, six months after Strazisars paper, Cerf attempts to describe a model of inter-
networking which could allow data networks of widely varying internal operation to be
interconnected, seemingly including networks outside the (D)ARPA community. Accord-
ing to this document, (D)ARPA network researchers had now adopted a new name for
interconnected networks: The term catenet" was introduced by L. Pouzin in 1974 in his
early paper on packet network interconnection (Pouzin, 1974). The (D)ARPA research proj-
ect on this subject adopted the term to mean roughly the collection of packet networks
which are connected together (Cerf 1978, p. 0). Note the specicity: catenet" is the col-
lection of packet networks, according to Cerf. Although the name has changed, he still
refers to a specic infrastructure.
Interestingly, in this document, Cerf still uses internet as a classifying adjective (see p.
1, 2, 5, 7 and 8). On page 8, he also uses the internet environment term used a year later
10 M. BAY

by Postel (1979) as well as Pickens, Feinler and Mathis (1979). This is important, as it indi-
cates that by 1979, at least according to these authors, internet still referred to a specic
infrastructure, just not exclusively. Another interpretation could be that the (D)ARPA inter-
net was just seen as one part of catenet, but this does not seem to be the case Braden,
Postel, and Rehkter (1994) acknowledge that what they at by 1994 called Internet (capi-
talised) was indeed known as catenet: Under this model, the Internet (originally dubbed
the Catenet) is formed using routers (originally called gateways) to interconnect distinct
and perhaps diverse networks (p. 1).

1979: Common noun usage

It is around this time that the PARC researchers begin publishing the work on PARC Uni-
versal Packet (PUP), which according to Taylor (McJones, 2008) had been kept proprietary
for years. The rst inter-ofce memorandum specifying PUP seems to have been circu-
lated within PARC in October 1975 and updated in June 1978 (Boggs, Shoch, Taft, & Met-
calfe, 1979). The memorandum clearly explains the interconnectivity of networks at PARC
and external networks such as the ARPANET using PUP. It does not, however, use the
term internet. It only has a very sparse usage of the term inter-network, at one point
describing PUP as a standard inter-network packet format (p. 1) note the classifying
adjective use. In August 1978, one of PUPs creators, John Shoch, gave a presentation in
which he uses internetwork, inter-network inter-net and internet interchangeably
(Shoch, 1979) as classifying adjectives.
The rst time PARC uses internet as a noun seems to be in July 1979, when Xerox
made the PUP specication public (Boggs et al., 1979):
As with most internetwork models, one envisions a collection of heterogeneous networks,
connected with a set of internetwork gateways to form a loosely coupled system known gen-
erally as an internet . An internet should provide the ability for any two hosts to communi-
cate, so long as their own local networks are interconnected. (p. 2).

Note that the word internet is used here as common noun, which is the rst such
appearance in any documentation found by the author.
In a special issue of IEEE Transactions on Communications about internetworking from
1980, the 1979 PUP specication is reprinted, along with a paper on internetworking using
TCP and IP by Jon Postel (Boggs, Shoch, Taft, & Metcalfe, 1980; Postel, 1980). In this publi-
cation, things become somewhat messy, as Postel seems to go along with the common
noun usage while also trying remain faithful to the proper noun usage, sometimes even
within the same sentence.6

19811982: Return to proper noun use

By November 1981, however, the (D)ARPA community seems to drop catenet and settle on
The Internet, as can be seen by Postels use of the internet in RFC 788: but again there is
a variety of le naming conventions in the internet (Postel, 1981, p. 8). David D. Clark refers
to the internet (without capitalisation) eight months later, in RFC 814: In order to answer
this, it is necessary to know something about the expected maximum size of the internet.
Currently, the internet is fairly small (Clark, 1982, p. 2). By 1983, Postel refers to the Internet,
capitalised and as a proper noun in RFC 881: Domain style names are being introduced in
the Internet to allow a controlled delegation of the authority and responsibility for adding
 INTERNET HISTORIES 11

hosts to the system (Postel, 1983, p. 0). In other words, from at least 1981 onwards, there is a
push to adopt the proper noun use we are discussing in this paper.
Summing up, there are no indications that neither the (D)ARPA nor the PARC research-
ers were using internet as anything but a classifying adjective until Cerf refers to a spe-
cic infrastructure with that name in 1976. It is clear from Strazisars paper that from late
1977, internet was the name given to a specic infrastructure. PARC researchers do not
use the term as a noun until mid-1979, where they use it as a common noun. This then
leads to a period of confusion, in which the (D)ARPA researchers do the same, perhaps
out of respect for their colleagues at PARC. But within a couple of years, they settle back
on using internet as a proper noun to describe a particular, unique network of networks.

There is only one Internet

How will we use the term internet in the future? For years now, researchers have worked
to nd a successor to TCP/IP which currently is the basis of internet. If, say, the Named
Data Networking project (Named-Data.net. n.d.) ends up with a protocol that will replace
TCP/IP, will we change the name of what we now call The Internet to Namenet or
NDNnet? Probably not. In fact, both the project and the NSF grant backing it refers to a
Future Internet Architecture. It is not inconceivable that internet will be divorced from
its current protocols in the future, and hence the term internet has transcended its origi-
nal technology. This does not mean that there can be more than one internet. It means
the opposite.
For the layman, the emergence of internet was as much a sociocultural shift as a tech-
nological development (Benkler, 2008; Castells, 1996; Dijk, 2012; Wellman, 2001). As such,
any global network of the same kind, accessible in the same way, providing the same
types of information and experiences will likely be known as the proper noun Internet.
Only if a network that provides a radically different interaction experience comes along
with a cultural shift that approximates that of internet will the broader population likely
start referring to it differently. There are not many indications that the majority of English-
speakers would consider more than one internet. Although it is unwise to draw any
denitive conclusions from Google Trends or Google Ngram, searching the plural inter-
nets shows a peak of interest around 1997, but it has declined ever since. Only very few
occurrences of internets show up in English-language searches as of January 2017, and
they appear mostly as either a grammatically erroneous version of Internets or as par-
ody (get off my internets).
In addition, since the likely root of the common noun internet is the competitiveness
between (D)ARPA and PARC, and it was only created and defended by PARC researchers
post hoc, the basis for a current use of internet as a common noun is weakened. Just like
the verb internetting, it should be seen as obsolete in current terminology and existing
only as a part of networking history. That leaves the proper noun and the classifying adjec-
tive. But even the latter has changed. When we use internet as a classifying adjective today,
it is with an inferred reference to the proper noun; Internet streaming or Internet connec-
tion, we are not referring to any internet or to internetworking. In other words, even
though it may not suit the AP Stylebook gatekeepers, the proper noun the Internet is the
only usage that makes any historical or practical sense in todays vernacular.
12 M. BAY

Conclusion
As I have indicated above, the documentation on this matter is limited. Future research archi-
val ventures in the history of networking may very well invalidate my claims. Records or oral
histories may very well emerge with evidence that internet was widely used as a common
noun in the 19721978 period among (D)ARPA researchers or documentation of the PARC-
(D)ARPA team discussions may emerge showing the same. For now, I have shown that when
internet rst emerges as a noun, it is used as a proper noun. Without the 1979 PARC deni-
tion, we may never even have thought of internet as a common noun. I have also shown
that subsequent denitions, even ofcial ones, support the much wider understanding of
internet now in use, and Ive ventured that there will likely never be another internet other
than the one we now know. We should honour this result of massive collaboration and com-
plex assemblage of events and discourse by referring to it as a proper noun.

Notes
1. The DoDs Advanced Research Project Agency (ARPA) was founded in 1958, but changed its
name to DARPA in 1972, then back to ARPA in 1993 and nally to DARPA again in 1996. For con-
venience purposes, it is referred to here as (D)ARPA throughout the paper.
2. This article is not an attempt to iconise Kahn and Cerf or support the hero inventor version of
internet history, which Katz-Kimchi (2015) has exposed, but my ndings do show a strong
relation between the (D)ARPA internetworking research and the emergence and subsequent
re-interpretation of internet as a proper noun.
3. These extensions sometimes become quite peculiar. What, for example, is the original internet
made of, if not of things?
4. This is disputed by Taylors former superior at (D)ARPA, Charles Herzfeld (2014).
5. Interestingly, Cerf also uses internet as verb, internetting (p. 35). This verb form had been in
use for several years, at least outside the computer network domain. Its root, internetworking
can be found as far back as 1973, when Hinshaw writes about inter-networking of community
systems, with regards to local cable tv networks (Hinshaw 1973 p. 8). The term internetting
even appears a year earlier in an October 1972 presentation of information service concepts
from the MITRE corporation: the requirements for any private communication modes are dis-
cussed, as well as the desirability of internetting, via satellite communications or other means,
different types of local cable communication services (Eldridge & Mason 1973, p.1).
6. internet only appears in three papers in the issue, while internetwork and internetworking
is the norm. Postel uses internet as both a proper noun and a common noun, even in the
same sentence: The collection of interconnected networks is called an internet. IP is the net-
work protocol of the internet and this is a level 3 protocol in the OSI model. (Postel 1980, p.
607). In almost all other instances, internet is used as a classifying adjective.

Acknowledgments
The author wishes to thank Dr. Bradley Fidler for providing many of the sources that makes the
claims and arguments in this paper even remotely valid, for inspiring the idea for the paper and for
invaluable guidance, enjoyable collaborations and exhilarating discussions of the subject over many
years. Thanks also goes to Dr. Leah Lievrouw for persistent aid and inspiration.

Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the author.
 INTERNET HISTORIES 13

Notes on contributor
Morten Bay is a PhD candidate at the UCLA Department of Information Studies. His main research
focus is online communication infrastructures and how they interact with society, including policy/
regulation, privacy and national security as well as their impact on socioeconomics, identity and
epistemology. He is also an award-winning author of ve books and covers technology as a journal-
ist for several media outlets.

ORCID
Morten Bay http://orcid.org/0000-0003-1431-3297

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