According to Wikipedia, “snail mail is a dysphemistic retronym — named after the snail with its slow speed — used to refer to letters carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between dispatch of a letter and its receipt, versus the virtually instantaneous dispatch and delivery of its electronic equivalent, e-mail.”

Wiki also says: “This term was used at least as early as 1981 in the animated feature Strawberry Shortcake in Big Apple City, but not in the above sense contrasted with electronic mail, but rather as a rhyming joke to describe mail being delivered by an actual snail. Strawberry receives her letter three weeks late because, as the snail character admits, “Snail mail, she is slow”.”

but….“In the sense of contrasting it with electronic mail, however, Mr Jim Rutt is purported to have first used this phrase in January 1981. Mr. Rutt later went on to become CEO of Network Solutions.”

And: Wiki also notes: “term was used in the 1840’s to contrast the already operating postal mail with the new instantaneous telegraph. The Philadelphia North American stated “The markets will no longer be dependent upon snail-paced mails”.”

My question then is who coined the term snail mail, and when did it become part of our common vocabulary, as distinct from email, which is how most of us mail things today? Did it happen overnight, the adoption of the term snail mail, or did it take a good ten years or so?

The transformation of language is fascinating. Way back in 1840s, even! Then Rutt in 1981. Is he still alive and where?

What I am curious to know and find out is if there was much resistance from the media and common usage when snail mail was first popularized. I mean, did many naysayers naysay and say “You can’t just call normal post office mail, snail mail, who do you think you are, that word will never catch on!” But it did catch on! Why did it catch on and who popularized it? If they had called it turtle mail, would that have worked too?

Snail mail? Turtle mail? Who names these things?

Personally, I prefer handwritten letters, so why would I want to disparage them?  E-mail is fast and all, but then why didn’t you just call them?

There doesn’t need to be any special word for reading from paper.  We’ve had that discussion before.  Also, there’s no point in calling it “snail-reading,” as some people (myself included) read faster from a print source than they do from an electronic one.

I’ve heard the term ‘snail mail’ even before e-mail became prevalent. It was often used to refer to the ‘nth class’ mail, usually packages, which were sent the ‘cheapest way possible’. You didn’t care about speed, you just wanted to save on shipping costs.

I think I remember seeing an old MAD cartoon depicting the ‘U.S. Snail’, listed as ‘the slowest creature on earth’.

This seems really freakin’ familiar, doesn’t it?  Taglines, are you any relation to danbloom?

Hmm.. yeah, you’re probably right, Tah. I thought it *was* him.. I hadn’t noticed the username.

Brothers?  Sisters?  Other related family member?

gray - 20 November 2009 06:30 AM

Brothers?  Sisters?  Other related family member?

I’ll take a trip down the internet to get to the bottom of this. I’ll have to fit through my computer screen first, no mean feat. Then I’ll crawl inside the cables and wires in my quest for the truth.

I will see my answer if taglines throws off his bowler hat and becomes danbloom with karate kick moves while wearing his stilettos. Accipiter will need to rescue the day with his Kung Fu type moves as “Defender of the Drag on”

Truthfully, I had never heard the term until the advent of electronic messaging (which became ‘e-mail’) became the vogue inhouse in very large law firms in DC where I worked.  That was back in the early 80s when PCs were only just being used by select firms who had the moxie to outfit all their individual offices with them.  Prior to that time period which was really rather narrow until these became common place, most large firms in law and accounting used huge IBM (mag cards), Data Stream etc. monsters that were housed in one main area and were confined to word-processing or accounting massives which required heavy ventilation and cooling as well. 

PCs had been in existence of course, but were not considered for mainstream usage by most though the military had been using them for some time.  In-house messages were such an amazing technological advance that I was overwhelmed for all of about 60 seconds, but then, I’d been using the monsters for a good long time but had also been using small, compact processors at home as well. 

There used to be a game we played where a phrase would be given and you had to make up a two-word rhyming term to define the phrase and I remember the one that may have been the foundation: 

a sticky path left behind by a legless critter = ‘snail trail’.

Robin Bobcat - 20 November 2009 12:56 AM

Hmm.. yeah, you’re probably right, Tah. I thought it *was* him.. I hadn’t noticed the username.

I know! I assumed it was danbloom just from the title.

Tah - 20 November 2009 12:17 AM

This seems really freakin’ familiar, doesn’t it?  Taglines, are you any relation to danbloom?

My thoughts exactly.

They have the same IP address.

Boo - 23 November 2009 07:56 AM

They have the same IP address.

Figures.