Post haste

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Garzo
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Post haste

Postby Garzo » Thu Aug 10, 2006 5:47 pm

Eastpondianly, one knows that the post is delivered by the Royal Mail (in shiny red vans) by a postal worker called a postman or postwoman. Sometimes the postal worker will ride a bike to deliver the post, but they still work for the Royal Mail. If you want to post a letter, you put it in a postbox (also shiny red).

Westpondianly, one knows that the mail is delivered by the U.S. Postal Service (in rusty blue trucks) by a mail operative called a mailman or mailwoman (but not a male woman!). Sometimes the mail operative will push a cart to deliver the mail, but they still work for the Postal Service. If you want to mail a letter, you put it in a mailbox (also rusty blue).

But we all have post offices — hurrah! yippee!

— Garzo, first class or penny black?
"Poetry is that which gets lost in translation" — Robert Frost

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gailr
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Re: Post haste

Postby gailr » Thu Aug 10, 2006 6:45 pm

Ahh, the post vs mail question; thanks for delivering this here, Garzo. Although I'm not sure about all this shiny red/rusty blue rubbish...

Everywhere I've lived the mail is delivered in little white trucks, although the jeep-like ones are white and blue. A little mud-splattered in the spring, perhaps, dusty in the summer or late fall, snow-topped in the winter. But not rusty.
Sometimes the mail operative will push a cart to deliver the mail, but they still work for the Postal Service.
Hmmm, this term sounds like one of the public servants what's currently safeguarding our freedoms by checking all our communications... :wink:

-gailr

skinem
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Postby skinem » Thu Aug 10, 2006 7:39 pm

First class post, Garzo!

But I have to ask, would you please explain "penny black"?

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Postby Bailey » Thu Aug 10, 2006 8:18 pm

lol, our hydrants are red; attracts dogs who love them that color, but the mail is delivered in white trucks. By postal you don't exactly mean the same thing we do either.

mark prefers-letter-carriers-to-postal-employees Bailey

Today is the first day of the rest of your life, Make the most of it...
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Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Thu Aug 10, 2006 10:59 pm

First class post, Garzo!

But I have to ask, would you please explain "penny black"?

Penny Black was the first officially issued postage stamp.


I was under the impression that the thing wot Gonzo sticks his letters in was called a pillar box, at least Eastpondianly.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

Garzo
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Postby Garzo » Fri Aug 11, 2006 5:14 am

I think pillar box is a little old fashioned now, although many post recepticles are still pillar-shaped (including my local one). I find postbox to be more colloquial.

I failed to mention that e-mail is always that, and never 'e-post' (although I'm sure someone's tried that). However, the film/movie You've Got Mail (perhaps because it was so corny) always sounded a little too Westpondian.

— Garzo.
"Poetry is that which gets lost in translation" — Robert Frost

Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Fri Aug 11, 2006 12:12 pm

I think pillar box is a little old fashioned now,
Just an old-fashioned guy, running from pillar to post.

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

Garzo
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Postby Garzo » Fri Aug 11, 2006 1:21 pm

I've never thought of from pillar to post in that way before — wonderful!

I obviously seem to be labo(u)ring under the misapprehension that US Postal Service trucks are blue, when the evidence shows them to be white. I simply remember a very old, slightly rusty and seemingly blue mail truck helping us out when our car broke down in the middle of Ohio! Oh me, oh my-o!

— Garzo.
"Poetry is that which gets lost in translation" — Robert Frost

anders
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Postby anders » Fri Aug 11, 2006 6:07 pm

I failed to mention that e-mail is always that, and never 'e-post' (although I'm sure someone's tried that).
I think we've been into this sometime, somewhere, but anyhow. I insist on on translating into Swedish, so I write e-post. Many customers will prefer e-mail, but then they'll have to make the change themselves. Between friends, I refer to mail items as elektriska brev (electric letters).
Irren ist männlich

Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Fri Aug 11, 2006 9:47 pm


I insist on on translating into Swedish, so I write e-post. Many customers will prefer e-mail, but then they'll have to make the change themselves. Between friends, I refer to mail items as elektriska brev (electric letters).
Why insist in translating everything into Swedish when "post" is a rather recent loan-word anyway? Are you working on Purifying Swedish? Just asking. :D

-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

anders
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Postby anders » Sat Aug 12, 2006 2:44 pm

Are you working on Purifying Swedish?
Yes. like a former finance minister used to say:
Varför använda utländska ord, när det finns en adekvat nationell vokabulär?
:Why use foreign words, when there is an adequate national vocabulary?
Irren ist männlich

Palewriter
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Postby Palewriter » Sat Aug 12, 2006 4:42 pm

Are you working on Purifying Swedish?
Yes. like a former finance minister used to say:
Varför använda utländska ord, när det finns en adekvat nationell vokabulär?
:Why use foreign words, when there is an adequate national vocabulary?
Wasn't is also Gunnar Sträng who said: "The best for of defense is a tax?" Nah...just kidding. He was, however, the Minister of Finance who fathered the dreaded "moms" (value added tax), which, if I'm not mistaken, is now 25% in Sweden. Lucky for Swedes that the progressive income tax there is so low. :D


-- PW
"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention to arrive safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming: Wow!!! What a ride!"

Stargzer
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Re: Post haste

Postby Stargzer » Sun Aug 13, 2006 3:20 pm

. . . If you want to mail a letter, you put it in a mailbox (also rusty blue).

. . .
Back in Ancient Times, US mailboxes were blue with red on the top.

Image



Then, during the Viet Nam War, some wags started spray-painting yellow stars at the red/blue border . . .


Flag of the National Front for the Liberation of Southern Vietnam(Viet Cong):

Image


. . . resulting, in 1972, in the solid, dark blue mailboxes of today.
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee

Huny
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Postby Huny » Mon Aug 14, 2006 1:12 am

When living in California, we had the little Jeep trucks or the larger mini-van type trucks driven by mail carriers in uniforms. Soon after I moved to Georgia, I was going to my mail box to check the mail when, out of nowhere, a car, like a regular car your or I would drive, rolled up to my box and a person in regular street clothes said, " Here's your mail, ma'am (don't even go there, gail). I was shocked. I asked the man, "just what you think you are doing with my mail in your hands and why are you opening up my mailbox?" He looked at me thunderstruck and said, "I'm just the mail carrier, don't shoot!" ( :wink: pw) as he sped off. I was, to no ends, thoroughly ashamed of myself. I had no idea that rural mail carriers were alowed to use their own vehicles and dress out of uniform, were as the the carriers in the city wear uniforms.
So that's how things are done around here, huh... :shock:

Huny- Who now knows Georgia mud is hard to wash out of clothes. :?
"What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compaired to what lies inside us." R.W.E.

Stargzer
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Postby Stargzer » Mon Aug 14, 2006 1:41 am

Poor girl! Welcome to The Boondocks! :)

He could have been a contract carrier, not a USPS employee, who gets paid to use his own car on rural routes. I've seen both on our route, but lately they have been USPS employees in the white USPS trucks with the steering wheel on the right, like a British car.

BTW, Garzo, on rural British postal routes, do the trucks or cars have the steering wheel on the left, like an American car? In the US, the postal vehicles used for delivery have the steering wheel on the right so the mail carrier can drive up to the mailbox and leave the mail without leaving the vehicle. Otherwise, they'd have to drive on the wrong side of the road, as many newspaper deliverers do on rural "tube routes" (where they put the newspaper in a tubular box on a post with the newspaper's name on it).
Regards//Larry

"To preserve liberty, it is essential that the whole body of the people always possess arms, and be taught alike, especially when young, how to use them."
-- Attributed to Richard Henry Lee


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