Email:[C] or [U]?

[hdrao]

Is this correct?

I received six emails today.

[Anglika]

Seems fine to me.

[hdrao]

an e-mail message, but not an e-mail.

--The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage,
Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, 1999

(e-mail messages, but not e-mails)

[engee30]

Originally Posted by hdrao

an e-mail message, but not an e-mail.

--The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage,
Allan M. Siegal and William G. Connolly, 1999

(e-mail messages, but not e-mails)

Everything's fine.
Check this out: Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press

[Tdol]

In British English, there seems to be no problem at all with the plural. I have, however, seen some conservative American arguing that it should not be used in the plural because 'mail' is uncountable, though many ignore this.

[hdrao]

Originally Posted by engee30

Everything's fine.
Check this out: Cambridge Dictionaries Online - Cambridge University Press

But dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive.

[hdrao]

Originally Posted by Tdol

In British English, there seems to be no problem at all with the plural. I have, however, seen some conservative American arguing that it should not be used in the plural because 'mail' is uncountable, though many ignore this.

Yes, I agree with you.
The New York Times Manual of Style and Usage, especially a 1999 edition, has a very distinctive style that in some cases is more suited to a newspaper format and in some cases is just quirky. For example, they don’t use serial comma, whereas almost all U.S. book publishers (and many other newspapers/magazines) do. In fact, from reading The New York Times, I believe someone there needs to find a new style manual
We’re discussing style from the standpoint of the general population; the majority of e-mail users refer to sending an “e-mail”, NOT and “e-mail message”. Doing so would probably seem redundant or wordy to the general English speaker.

[BobK]

Originally Posted by Tdol

In British English, there seems to be no problem at all with the plural. I have, however, seen some conservative American arguing that it should not be used in the plural because 'mail' is uncountable, though many ignore this.

When I was working in a US-based IT firm, this argument had a strange corollary:

• mail is uncountable
• but people often use 'e-mail' as countable
• so if someone says 'I received a mail' it probably means 'I received an e-mail'.

As a result, any countable use of 'mail' was assumed to refer to e-mail; in fact, in the '80s - when I started working there - it was most unusual for anyone to say 'e-mail'. And 'mail', unusually to my (then) ear, was often countable.

b