"Login" or "Log In"?

Do you "login" to a website, or do you "log in" to a website?

Login form. Is this right?

Not to be a "grammar freak" or anything, but many sites don't know the proper terminology for logging in. It's really just a minor annoyance, but staring at a "Please login to continue" prompt can get annoying, especially if it's on your college's student services site. (Shouldn't they know better?)

Here is the proper usage of terms such as "login" and "setup".

Login

"Login" is an adjective or a noun. You can talk about a "login form" or "login system", as well as "email setup" or "ACME Corporation Software Setup Wizard".

However, you cannot "login" to a website any more than you can "entry" a house.

Log In

"Log in" is an action, a verb. You log in[to] Facebook, and you set up your email. It's perfectly valid to say "ACME Corporation Software Setup Wizard will set up your advanced enterprise workflow solution in 3 easy steps."

Which one do I use?

In the case of "login" versus "log in":

Login

  • "Login" link (implying that this is used as a noun to point to a login form)
  • "Please enter your login information"
  • "Thank you for using our login form/page"

Log In

  • "Log In" button on a login form
  • "Please log in to continue."
  • "You are not logged in."

There. That's not too hard, is it, especially if you're a multi-million-dollar corporation?

Posted on Monday, September 6, 2010 at 1:20 PM | Permalink | Tags: grammar

Comments (3)

David das pwner lol
Tuesday, September 27, 2011 at 9:29 AM
dude, totally true. i am like on my school computer and i even saw the login log in thing. it says login and i do agree, it is totally bullcrap that they put up login rather than log in. lol glad i could vent a little. and btw, nookkin is working at school so the comps are white listing
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nookkin
Wednesday, September 28, 2011 at 11:32 PM
@David das pwner lol It's actually blacklisting most likely.

Whitelist = allow "good" sites, block all others
Blacklisting = block "bad" sites, allow all others
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e
Wednesday, February 26, 2014 at 8:21 AM
"Login" is never an adjective. It can be used in an adjective-like way ("login system" etc.), but it's still a noun: linguistics call this attributive use, or pre-modification of the noun with another noun. "Login" does not have the properties of most true adjectives, such as comparability ("how login is this system?") and the ability to be placed in predicative position ("the system was login").
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