Esports

This is now a thing, as they say.

I’m not entirely sure what it all involves, but then I’m not that keen on the non-electronic version of sports.

My interest in esports is orthographical, naturally. Why no hyphen (e-sports)?

The hyphen is routinely dropping out of e-mail (which I can live with), and to some extent e-commerce, but probably not e-filing or e-discovery.

Inconsistency on this point suggests that the decision whether to hyphenate is driven by look and sound: ecommerce may suggest a pronunciation starting in the same way as ecology, with the emphasis on the second syllable. This explains the occasional rendition of the word as eCommerce, to make it clear(er) that the emphasis is on first syllable. An old-fashioned hyphen would achieve that more elegantly.

Esports is, to me, perilously similar to escorts, which has an unfortunate connotation.

Neil Guthrie (@guthrieneil)

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