Keyword: MAIL | Post vs Mail vs Email

Email (or better yet, electronic mail) has been with us for several decades now and one can say that today it is essential for both professional and personal purposes. It is useful to digitally send and receive messages and files to/from other people, and much quicker too. The “e”, from “electronic”, refers to the fact that these messages are sent using electronic means. The term “mail” was not chosen by chance, although it may have been an unconscious act. Although with different meanings and different language origins, “mail” in this context came from the French word malle, meaning “bag”. As the letters to be delivered were carried inside bags, soon the term was expanded to the letters themselves.

“Post” has basically the same meaning as “mail”, but “mail” is used in American English while “post” is chiefly used in British English. This term also comes from French: poste, which in this context means “station for post horses”. If nowadays cars have to go to petrol stations to refuel, in the past horses would have to rest and get fed at regular intervals. These “posts” were located in strategic positions to make sure the horses would have places to “refuel” or to be replaced. As the horse riders would carry the “letter bags”, these posts became known as “post offices”.

Therefore, in the old days, the letters were transported inside bags on horses. The person who rode the horse with the bags full of letters, or just messages written on a piece of paper (especially in war time, which was rather often), was called a “courier”. This word came from an older version of the French word courir, which means “to run”. Obviously, the messages had to reach their destination as fast as possible, thus, the horse riders would have to “run” from “post” to “post”. Nowadays “courier” is connected to diplomacy, drug traffic or contraband, espionage, and tourism.

The couriers would ride the horses at all speed to make the delivery as soon as possible. In Europe, at least, they used to carry a horn to warn the post offices that mail was arriving. That is why many postal services in different countries have horns in their logos. Sometimes, the couriers would deliver the messages or letter bag to another courier who was ready to go and just waiting for the first one to arrive. The horse would stop just long enough for the exchange to proceed and the second rider would depart at full speed as soon as he had the message or the letter bag with him. This has inspired the relay races in sport. The English idiom “don’t shoot the messenger” has its roots in couriers. In truth, it is not clear if messengers would be killed when delivering bad news, but the receivers would surely be infuriated.

However, the postal system as we know it was not invented in Europe, but in Persia. Royal roads were built especially for couriers, covering the entire empire. Tests were made to know the distance a horse could run before it collapsed and then post offices were built accordingly. At the time, only official mail was delivered, thus, there was no personal correspondence.

At the beginning, messages were pieces of papers that were relayed from hand to hand. Later, the postal system expanded to include personal correspondence. Messengers on horseback were replaced by mail coaches and postal service was paid by the receivers. As most of them weren’t willing to pay, a new solution had to be found. Hence, the stamps, which were pre-paid by the senders and allowed for the letters to be delivered in mailboxes. In emails, mailboxes are called inboxes (the incoming or arriving email). The courier, in the meantime, turned into a postman or mailman or mail carrier.

The pieces of paper became “letters”, a name that came from the Latin litterera. It meant letters from the alphabet, the way someone would write, a message sent to someone, or literature. Nowadays, the letters have turned into emails as most people communicate digitally. This has led Denmark’s postal service to decide to stop delivering letters at all, with consequences. However, parcels may be booming. The orders people make online on shopping websites and apps are sent via post service, thus giving mail carriers extra hours at certain times of the year, like Christmas.

Times are changing and mail as we know it may change dramatically. Yet, postal service has undergone many changes over thousands of years, adapting to the needs of each epoch. In a globalized world, the exchange of correspondence between people in different parts of the world is more important than ever, and also faster than ever thanks to technology. No one is expecting to send a courier on horseback to deliver a message between France and Australia… but thanks to technology a message can travel that distance in seconds (by its own!). On the other hand, some packages cannot be sent by email. Of course, today, instead of horses, we have vans, trains, boats, and aeroplanes.