howwwzattt... for a snail mail??
Snail mail is a derogatory retronym - named after the snail with its proverbially slow speed - used to refer to letters and 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. It is also known, more neutrally, as paper mail, postal mail, or land mail.
Storing paper mail uses more physical space than storing e-mail. However, paper is a reliable storage medium and is not inherently dependent on any modern technologies. Documents printed on most common paper and left undisturbed for one hundred years will be easily readable. In contrast, most electronic storage degrades much faster. Worse, devices that can read a particular electronic storage medium may be difficult to find and use even a decade or two after their introduction.
There are efforts to renew interest in paper mail, such as the creation of mail art - physical art that is distributed and swapped around the world.
Snail mail is also a term used in reference to penpalling. Snail mail penpals are those penpals that communicate with one another through the postal system, rather than on the internet which is becoming the standard form of communication for penpals.
Remember the times when the most advancement we have in technologies are the telephone, telex, telegram and of course the snail mail? Even the fax machines are still it its infancy at that time. Nowadays, we have so much technologies, so much gadgets at our disposal such as the internet and mobile phones where communicating are much more easier, much more simpler and much much more efficient than before. Remember when the undersea cables for communication went kaput near Taiwan early this year (if I'm not mistaken)? Half of the world population went panic and even some dare say that, at that moment they seems like to be living in the stone age without the knowledge of what to do next apart from staring blankly at their pc. We have become vulnerable because of this. For me personally, I welcomed all those modernization but in certain aspects I still prefer things the old fashion way. Such as, I still want my daily newspaper to be in its conventional form so I can read it anytime I want and throw it anywhere I please though with my fingers at my disposal I still can read the news through the World Wide Web. Mind you, I could bring the newspaper inside the loo too. Banks still sending their reminder to me by the snail mail although I already filled up my email address in their forms. And you know what, what about love letters? I still keep them (without the knowing of the wife laaaa...) and from time to time would sneaked up behind the cupboard to see whether it still there or not and wondering what the sender might be doing at that moment, the smell of it seems like only yesterday hehehe...
p.s: In the year of 1988, I was caught red handed because of the snail mail...
