[LINK] Conflating multiple concepts into the single word "email"

[Robin Whittle]

This has been a pet peeve of mine for some time.  Today I found the
trifecta - a site which uses the term "email" on its own for three
separate concepts:

  1 - Email address.

  2 - Email account accessed via website or desktop/cell-phone/tablet
      client software.

  3 - Email message.

The page http://www.photonicsonline.com/hub/bucket/homelatestheadlines
invites me to:

 "Get the latest news, product offerings and industry updates
  delivered to your in-box.  Enter your email. [1]"

After I entered my email address a window popped up with:

 "Thanks for signing up for the Photonics Online newsletter! You
  need to confirm your subscription before you'll start receiving
  the newsletter. To do so:

    Check your email [2] for a message from Photonics Online.
    Click the confirmation link in that email [3].
    If you don't see the email [3] in about 10 minutes, please
    check your spam filter.

    Add info at photonicsonline.com to your list of "safe senders"
    in your email program. [Now they are being specific, but they
    should use "email account" whether or not it is accessed by a
    a program on a PC, tablet or whatever.] Otherwise, the
    newsletter might end up in your spam folder instead of your inbox.

  Once you do that, you'll receive the newsletter the next time it
  is published."

Their message did fall foul of my (not recently updated) Spamassassin
system and was dumped into "Spam Marginal", due to it containing an
image linked from a remote website and being HTML only.  There was no
further use of "email", just the perfectly apt term "message".

Despite being HTML, the link address was not a link - I had to copy and
paste it into a browser window.

Whoever created this system seemed to think that just having
"http://www.xxxx . . ." in an email message would transform it into a
clickable link.   Email systems tend to do that for plain text messages,
but not (as far as I know) for HTML messages.  Maybe that is changing
now that everyone and their gnat is using cellphones and the like for
email communications, with what I assume are inherent difficulties doing
things like copy and paste to a browser window.

  - Robin            http://www.firstpr.com.au