Web site or website? E-mail or email?

to be truthful, I use both uses of either. I thing they both look fine in either form…

But I’ve been known to have kooky ideas…

I don’t think they’ve been in our language long enough to have a “widely approved” version, but /shrug.

I prefer using “website” and “email” since it seems more appealing visually. To me…

How about in formal documents? Do you think you can get away with using ‘website’ or ‘email’, or is it out of place? I know that legal documents are required to use the forms ‘Web site’ and ‘e-mail’, but how about things like user guides or official letters?

Hmm, I didn’t know the bit about legal documentation…

In a case like that, the formal e-mail, and web site would probably apply.

another one for you is “blog” or “weblog”

I doubt either would be used in legal or a business sense, but usually I’ve been shocked with what people have been writing about lately.

I’d consider Web log to perhaps be appropriate in a formal situation, and obviously blog for something informal. It just annoys me when I’m writing the same thing two ways, ‘website’ one minute in an IM chat and then ‘Web site’ the next minute in some documentation I’m writing. I’d rather use one than a combination of two, so I thought I’d get some opinion on the matter :)

Just curious, why is it capitalized in legal documentation? The web is not the phenom it once was…

It’s not just legal documentation, being a proper noun it is formally how it should be written. Same as ‘Internet’. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proper_noun#Proper_nouns_and_common_nouns

Ah I see. Up until that explanation I did not consider either to be proper nouns. I’ve grown up experiencing them as simple nouns, a basic medium.

Internet – the specific worldwide network we’re using now, that the original public Fluther.com is on, etc.
internet – a network similar to the Internet, but not necessarily this specific one (or clumsily/lazily/in-protest-of-capitalization/whatever, the Internet)
Web – the specific collection of http (hyperlinked) documents, sites, etc. that we’re using now
web – any collection of http (hyperlinked) documents, sites, etc.
web site – correct formal form until “website” is in the dictionary you define your style with. Will always be correct. Might eventually become archaic/stuffy, or not. Personally I almost always use this form, and have changed it when editing.
website – casual, acceptable, informal form that’ll probably be in your dictionary if it isn’t already
electronic mail – Will always be correct, but is already needlessly explicit in most contexts.
e-mail – Will probably always be correct, but probably rarer in casual/relaxed/lazy usage due to the oh-so-hard hyphen-use.
email – casual, acceptable, informal form that’ll probably be in your dictionary if it isn’t already
E-mail – wrong to capitalize the E except at the start of a sentence.

(If you’re in the government, especially the military, they’ll torture you with perverted rules and changes of all kinds of terms, acronyms etc., and change the rules regularly. Just go AWOL in protest and start a love in, would be my suggestion.)

“E-mail – wrong to capitalize the E except at the start of a sentence.”

That’s worth noting, I never mentioned that. Thanks for the list Zaku, rather comprehensive!