Brief by Central Staff
Internet – September 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine
What you can learn in cyberspace
We keep hearing that the Internet is a superb educational tool, and now we’ve learned something.
When the Internet arrived here in the fall of 1995, we got an email account with the provider. The name had to be 8 characters or less, so we started getting messages at coloctl@rmii.com.
Rocky Mountain Internet then pulled out of Central Colorado, so we had to change addresses when we switched to a new provider, Mountain Computer Wizards.
“Coloctl” was pretty much unpronounceable and when you tried, it sounded like an Aztec term along the lines of “atl-atl” (a throwing stick) or “Nahuatl” (what they called themselves and the name of the Aztec language, which is related to Ute). Or perhaps it sounded more like an abbreviation for an embarrassing medical condition. But regardless, we didn’t think it was particularly memorable which letters we used out of Colorado Central.
So we tried to contrive a better email address that might also serve as a domain name. Our first thought was cocentral, but it was already taken by a company called Computer Central.
We batted around other ideas until Martha hit upon cozine, derived from Colorado Central Magazine. It was short and easy to pronounce and remember. In publishing slang, a ‘zine is a magazine that operates rather informally, and we’re in the middle of Colorado, CO to the Postal Service. Cozine fit well for a COlorado ‘zine.
After our cyberworld rechristening, we started getting our email at cozine@chaffee.net and registered the domain name of coloradocentralmagazine.com.
We had never imagined that cozine might apply to anything else, but then came a lesson from the ‘Net. We recently received email from a fellow named Ed Cozine, who was trying to track down other members of the Cozine family.
We had to tell him that we’re not related and had never even met or heard of anyone named Cozine. He informed us that the family pronounces the name to rhyme with “cosign” rather than as “cozeen.”
Live and learn. And if you’re related to anyone named Cozine, he’d be glad to hear from you at edcozine@yahoo.com.
