Email addresses

Every email address contains this sign: @ . Here are some email addresses:

bob@yahoo.bh
jeffery.amherst@britishcouncil.org
reservations@beachhotelbern.com

As you can see, Bob uses his first name only in his email address: bob@yahoo.bh. Jeffery Amherst uses his first name and surname in his email address: jeffery.amherst@britishcouncil.org. The address reservations@beachhotelbern.com gives the name of the department (Reservations), but not the name of the person.

Saying email addresses

When you say an email address:

• remember that @ is pronounced ‘at’ and . is pronounced 'dot'. reservations@beachhotelbern.com is ‘reservations at beach hotel bern dot com’
• sometimes there is a . in the person's name. jeffery.amherst@britishcouncil.org is ‘jeffery dot amherst at british council dot org’
• _ in an email address is called ‘underscore’. teaching_ job@english_academy.id is ‘teaching underscore job at English underscore academy dot I D’.

Note that it is not necessary to use capital J and A in Jeffery Amherst's email address. People sometimes write email addresses with capital initial letters (Jeffery.Amherst@britishcouncil.org). Sometimes it is all in capitals (JEFFERY.AMHERST@BRITISHCOUNCIL.ORG). However, most people write email addresses without capital letters (jeffery.amherst@britishcouncil.org).

Address books

Email addresses appear in alphabetical order (A–Z). When names start with the same letter, look at the second letter. Here, all the names begin with F, but the second letters are: e i r u. These are in alphabetical order.

Domain names

Email addresses often include the name of the country that the address is from. This is the final two letters of the address. Here are some examples: