“w w Amazon dot com”

Common English Blunders, Devolution toward Simpler

Phrases like this have become increasingly common.

Problem:
A letter “w” is missing.

Explanation:
It is becoming an increasingly common English blunder to omit one “w” and the initial dot or period when an American English speaker tells another person the address of a website.

I believe that this is consistent with my “Devolution toward Simpler” linguistic hypothesis. It’s simpler to say two “w”s than to say three “w”s, and it’s simpler to omit a dot than to say it.

It’s worth noting that “w w Amazon dot com” — when written as “wwamazon.com” — is an actual domain name. What some Web users probably do not realize is that Amazon, the company, had to register this second domain name so that it could redirect traffic to “www.Amazon.com”.

Unfortunately, not all domain-name owners realize that others can effectively steal visitors away from their websites. For example, if one wanted to steal traffic from “www.acme.com”, then one could register “w w acme dot com” — written as “wwacme.com” — and get visitors who do not know to type three “w”s and the initial dot.

Solution:
“w w w dot Amazon dot com”