Today’s rant focuses on my pet hate:  The habit of prefixing something with the letter E to denote that it is electronic and therefore better and more advanced than its predecessor.

eLearning
Just because a learning method is slightly different it doesn’t warrant a new word. When schools adopted paper and pencils instead of slates and chalk in the last century they didn’t rename the concept “pLearning” did they – and why not? Because that would have been plain stupidity and the dunce who had come up with it would have got six of the best for his insolence!!


eTicket
As long as I have to produce a paper copy of my Ticket to board a plane the concept is flawed. They’re just shifting the responsibility (and cost) of printing something!!

eBusiness
[sigh]

eCrime
eCrime is supposedly committed by eCriminals who are pursued by the ePolice and sent to ePrison?

eBook
I’d love to see who wins the battle between the eBook and Apple’s iBook. Hopefully they’ll have mutually assured destruction and the good old fashioned Book will reign supreme.

eBike
Motorised bicycle surely?

E-democracy
You don’t have eTheocracy, eDespotism and eCommunisim do you..? Oh for crying out loud!!

E-agriculture
No I’m not kidding this word exists. Nobody seems to be sure what it means though. Perhaps it describes the cultivation of crops that grow in the fluff that accumulates inside PCs? Or maybe it’s just a farmer with a laptop.
eFax – why even bother? Are we saying the fax wasn’t electronic in the first place?

eCommuting
Apparently this term refers to working from home.  If you don’t travel to work, you don’t commute.  Therefore not only is this word a dreadful abomination of English it is 100% redundant.

This smug looking chap is doing some eBusiness by sending an email on his eBike whilst eCommuting.  Hopefully he'll be distracted enough to hit a lamp post and be taken to A&E.

Mistaken atrocities
etail – the R had fallen off... or at least I hope it did.
E-Flat – no, not an electronic dwelling, but the musical note that you can’t quite reach on a standard tuned guitar.
E-Class – Mercedes are let off for having A, B, C and D class models. Jaguar had an E-Type as well on the same grounds.
E-Coli – let off because I can’t pronounce Escherichia coli
E-circumflex – descriptions of foreign diacritical marks are exempt from the list.

Can you do any better?  Please leave an eComment if you have a worse offender.