&quot;I called email “an abomination.” That was 15 years ago, but I’m still surprised anyone ever thought to write the word that way.<p>While it’s true that commonly used two-word or hyphenated compounds often solidify into single words over time, that had never before happened with a compound based on a single letter. We had T-shirts and X-rays for a long time before electronic mail showed up, but we still aren’t writing about tshirts and xrays.&quot;<p>Maybe that&#x27;s because Both T and X are consonants and E isn&#x27;t?