listserv vs. listserve

zimu

Diamond Member
Jun 15, 2001
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is it wrong to say "listserve?" i know most people say listserv and thats how its "supposed" to be, but is there some history behind this?
 

Jzero

Lifer
Oct 10, 1999
18,834
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It's sort of a misnomer. Listserv is a piece of software that serves mailing lists (hence the name ListServ duh :) ). It was sort of the standard for awhile, and like using The Internet interchangably with World Wide Web, ListServ has been used to describe any emailing list, regardless of what server drives it.

I've never seen it spelled with an 'e' at the end.