snail mail

messaging (Or "snailmail", "smail" from "US Mail" via

"USnail"; "paper mail"). Bits of dead tree sent via the

postal service as opposed to electronic mail. One's postal

address is, correspondingly, a "snail (mail) address". There

have even been parody USnail posters and stamps made.

The variant "paper-net" is a hackish way of referring to the

postal service, comparing it to a very slow, low-reliability

network. Sig blocks sometimes include a "Paper-Net:"

header just before the sender's postal address; common

variants of this are "Papernet" and "P-Net". Note that the

standard netiquette guidelines discourage this practice as a

waste of bandwidth, since netters are quite unlikely to

casually use postal addresses and if they really wanted your

snail mail address they could always ask for it by e-mail.

Compare voice-net, sneakernet, P-mail.

(1995-01-31)