ON SLANGUAGE: a humor column about snailmail, snailpapers and escargot -- by Leinad Moolb
ON SLANGUAGE
a humor column
Snailmail, snailpapers and escargot
by Leinad Moolb
Snailmail came into general use in the 1980s and 1990s, and became a common term by the turn of the century. Pundits say it was first coined in around 1982 or so. It means, of course, the slow pace of surface mail, even the slow pace of airmail from country to country, compared to the instantaneous sending and receiving of email messages across the ethersphere of the Internet's blogospheric invisibility wires.
So everyone is okay with snailmail today. It is both a term of endearment and a term of derision. Some people still use snailmail, and it has its uses. Most people today use email 24/7. Even 24/7/365.
Fast foward to 2010. A bloke in a far away foreign country, raised in the wilds of western Massachusetts and mis-educated at Tufts in the Late Sixties and Early Seventies, puts his mind to the grindstone one day on a slow newsday -- he editor in chief of The Daily Snailpaper in Taiwan -- and says to himself, he says: "Hmmmmmm, why not call these print newspapers, which I dearly love, but which arrive at our doorsteps in the morning with news that is already 12 hours old, why not call these print newspapers "snailpapers", just for fun, and as a link to the term snailmail, and partly out of nostalgia, and partly out of solastagia, too, and I think I will start using that term now."
So the bloke did, and now that term is ubiquitous. Bill Keller speaks of his New York Times as a wonderful and insightful snailpaper, and even Ben Bradlee speaks of the Washington Post as one of the most important snailpapers in the USA. So there. The term is in common usage now.
The bloke who coined the word says he did partly for fun, partly in jest, and mostly as a term of endearment, not as a term of derision. "I love snailpapers," he said in a recent email. "I hope they never disappear."
After coining the term, and seeing that it was good, the editor of The Daily Snailpaper went out to eat at a posh French restaurant in Taipei and ordered, on his boss's expense account, a wonderful dish of escargot, washing it all down with a fine bottle of wine.
AND NOW YOU KNOW. .....THE REST OF THE STORY OF HOW SNAILPAPERS AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT FOR PRINT NEWSPAPER(s) CAME INTO BEING. Sort of.
a humor column
Snailmail, snailpapers and escargot
by Leinad Moolb
Snailmail came into general use in the 1980s and 1990s, and became a common term by the turn of the century. Pundits say it was first coined in around 1982 or so. It means, of course, the slow pace of surface mail, even the slow pace of airmail from country to country, compared to the instantaneous sending and receiving of email messages across the ethersphere of the Internet's blogospheric invisibility wires.
So everyone is okay with snailmail today. It is both a term of endearment and a term of derision. Some people still use snailmail, and it has its uses. Most people today use email 24/7. Even 24/7/365.
Fast foward to 2010. A bloke in a far away foreign country, raised in the wilds of western Massachusetts and mis-educated at Tufts in the Late Sixties and Early Seventies, puts his mind to the grindstone one day on a slow newsday -- he editor in chief of The Daily Snailpaper in Taiwan -- and says to himself, he says: "Hmmmmmm, why not call these print newspapers, which I dearly love, but which arrive at our doorsteps in the morning with news that is already 12 hours old, why not call these print newspapers "snailpapers", just for fun, and as a link to the term snailmail, and partly out of nostalgia, and partly out of solastagia, too, and I think I will start using that term now."
So the bloke did, and now that term is ubiquitous. Bill Keller speaks of his New York Times as a wonderful and insightful snailpaper, and even Ben Bradlee speaks of the Washington Post as one of the most important snailpapers in the USA. So there. The term is in common usage now.
The bloke who coined the word says he did partly for fun, partly in jest, and mostly as a term of endearment, not as a term of derision. "I love snailpapers," he said in a recent email. "I hope they never disappear."
After coining the term, and seeing that it was good, the editor of The Daily Snailpaper went out to eat at a posh French restaurant in Taipei and ordered, on his boss's expense account, a wonderful dish of escargot, washing it all down with a fine bottle of wine.
AND NOW YOU KNOW. .....THE REST OF THE STORY OF HOW SNAILPAPERS AS A TERM OF ENDEARMENT FOR PRINT NEWSPAPER(s) CAME INTO BEING. Sort of.
posted by dan at 7:37 PM
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