Effective with this sentence, I, Chris Finke, will no longer capitalize the “W” and “M” in wired magazine.

At the same time, Wired News becomes wired news.

Why? The simple answer is because there is no earthly reason to capitalize any of these words. Actually, there never was.

True believers are fond of capitalizing words, whether they be marketers or political junkies or, in this case, techies. If It’s Capitalized, It Must Be Important. In German, where all nouns are capitalized, it makes sense. It makes no sense in English. So until it becomes Die Wired Nachrichten, I’ll just follow customary English-language usage.

Still, the decision wasn’t made lightly. Style changes are rarely capricious, since change plays havoc with my sacred cow, consistency.

But in the case of wired magazine, wired, and wired news, a change in my writing style was necessary to put into perspective what wired magazine is: another medium for delivering and receiving information. That it transformed human communication is beyond dispute. But no more so than moveable type did in its day. Or the radio. Or television.

This should not be interpreted as some kind of symbolic demotion. Think of it more as a stylistic reality check.

But now, by lowercasing wired, wired magazine, and wired news, I, Chris Finke, am simply giving the medium its proper due.

Chris Finke is an Internet user, a Web surfer, and an e-mail sender.