![](https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/wifi-logo-190x123.jpg)
Call this a PSA of sorts.
I was searching the Rocket Yard Blog for a specific article on WiFi. Or was it wi-fi? Hmmm ā maybe it was WIFI in all caps with no hyphen? Or Wi Fi, with a space? All lowercase with no space? Should it even matter? *sigh*
So, how do you correctly spell WiFi?
Wellā¦ that depends.
āWi-Fiā is a trademark of the Wi-Fi Alliance, a network of companies that promotes wifi technologies and certifies products to make sure they conform to specific standards. So, if theyāre the ones who oversee the adoption of this technology, then I guess the correct spelling of Wi-Fi is settled.
Wellā¦ not necessarily.
What is WiFi?
![](https://eshop.macsales.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/wifi-refrigerator-120x120.png)
It really depends on how you use the term. When most of us say āwifi,ā we are usually referring to a WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network). āWhatās your wifi password? Is there wifi at the hotel? Dude, my new refrigerator has wifi!ā So, basically, we are way off the mark and have been using the wrong term for quite some time.
Why is that?
My theory is that once people started seeing the Wi-Fi certification logo on products, they just assumed the technology itself was called Wi-Fi. Which it isnāt. Itās the IEEE 802.11 family of standards. Plus, how the heck would you pronounce WLAN anyway? Wuh-Lan? Double-You-Lan? There could be wars the likes of how to correctly pronounce GIF.
But just as we tend to call all adhesive bandages āBand-Aids,ā flying plastic discs āFrisbees,ā and facial tissues āKleenex,ā society has usurped the Wi-Fi branded name. And they changed the spelling to āwifiā along the way. Thatās probably a good thing because, as previously mentioned, āWi-Fiā is trademarked. We wouldnāt want the wireless cops arresting little Johnny for an essay he wrote showing his grandmother how to connect to the internet so she can FaceTime him.
Time will tell
Remember when we had āe-mail?ā Then for a while, it was āeMail.ā Now we have āemail.ā The general consensus tends to drive rapid changes in a language like this. If you need proof of how the use of wi-fi vs. wifi has bourne out over time, look at this Google Trends chart going all the way back to 2004.
Does āwifiā radically taking the world by storm make it the correct spelling? I donāt really know, but it is how itās commonly being spelled these days. At least when people are searching for it. And I guess thatās okay because it is a fairly new word ā made up by the people, for the people.
Most online dictionaries, as well as the macOS dictionary, redirect āwifiā to āWi-Fi.ā Still, the unhyphenated version will likely be widely adopted as an accepted spelling before too long. The AP Stylebook already says itās okay, so I think itās time for me to ditch the hyphen unless itās referring to the Wi-Fi Alliance. Because, well, itās their name.
Incidentally, have you ever noticed that WiFi is not hyphenated in the Wi-Fi Allianceās own logo? Iām just sayinā¦
Whatās the explanation for the ātwo-humpedā pattern in wifi searches that appears prominently in the graph since 2012 or so?
Happy to be in Germany where itās actually mostly WLAN (ĖveĖlaĖn) :-)
Intel occasionally adds the dash in their product names (but apparently not their URLs):
https://www.intel.com/content/www/us/en/products/sku/189347/intel-wifi-6-ax200-gig/specifications.html
(Oh, and everyone knows gif is pronounced with ājā as in jif, just like giraffe, Gnome and Galileo.)
I actually do the reverse oversimplification, I use āWLANā for everything, including the technology. Pronouncing āWā is a lot simpler in German, so it is a much more common term here than in English-speaking countries.
The IEEE 802.11 working group came up with the WLAN standard during a brainstorming session at the McDonalds in Nieuwegein. WLAN stands for Wireless Local Area Network that provides access to the Internet. Previously known as āwifiā, coined by the wife of Dutch team member Cees Link
I also love these discussions. By the way, in Latin America most people pronounce āwifiā as āwee-feeā ā which makes sense, of course.
Wi-Fi originated from the reference of āwide fidelityā, referring to the bandwidth and signal quality at the very beginning of the standards development and from which the first standard was created. The abbreviation of the term āwide fidelityā was the first thing that stuck and has remained. If anyone remembers it differently, Iām happy to stand corrected.
Your Google Trends chart has a major user interface error:
When a chart has clearly ordered series, as this one does, the legend should show the names in the same order.
HAHAHAHAHAHA!
I LOVE discussions like these! haha! [Hmmā¦how does one properly spell āhaha?ā Or Ha-ha? or?ā¦]
Perfect.
Oh, and itās GIF, pronounced similar to something you Give someone, like advice.
Hahahahaha!
Wrong thread to start a GIF war ā thatās over here: How to Correctly Pronounce GIF! :-)
I think thatās a given ā¦ or maybe a ā¦ ACK!!
Haha ā I see what you did there! Caught it in a jiffyā¦
wyfy, silly. Like syfy.
Actually, as an old line Science Fiction fan, reader, and all that, I know that Isaac Asimov claimed that Science Fiction (capitalized) was the correct term for the literature of speculation. The term āSciFiā was a derogatory term meaning silly cildrenās movies and games. People have forgotten that, and now call it all scifi. I remain in Asimovās camp, and I disdain all the stupid movies about fictional futures and superheroes.
So now people call it syfy and wyfy fits right in with that!
Goddamn trademark lawyers!
Iām with Asimov: either say the words, of abbreviate it S. F. or S-F.
I recall the first words out of my fatherās mouth when he saw me reading Andre Nortonās Galactic Derelict:āWhy are you reading that SciFi crap?ā
This did two things: 1, it made me a confirmed S-F reader; 2, I decided to become a scientist. Like most of his generation, he mistakenly thought imagination had no place in science. Today, I have two words for scientists with no imagination: fencepostāthey arenāt going anywhere.
What does the OED say?
My question is not about spelling, but pronunciation. Are the two āiāsā long or short?
Well, most say it with the long āiā as in wÄ«fÄ«, but who knows. It could be another wiki where most pronounce it wikÄ (wih-key) instead of wÄkÄ (wee-key).
Iāve heard all of those, though with both long āiā appears most common to me.
OT: Now, how does one pronounce ākludge.ā I used to pronounce it āMicrosoftā¢ā but we donāt want to go there, do we? ;^)
Thank for clearing this up along with āemail.ā I love the graph. Who would have thought someone took the time to gather the data and plot it. So itās wifi, but is it Wi-Fi 6 or Wi-Fi VI, or wifi 6, etc.?
Iām not sure. You tell me! :-)