snail-mail

n. Paper mail, as opposed to electronic. Sometimes written as the single
word SnailMail. One's postal address is, correspondingly, a snail address.
Derives from earlier coinage USnail (from U.S. Mail ), for which there have
even been parody posters and stamps made. Also (less commonly) called P-mail
, from paper mail or physical mail. Oppose email. (Note: Actual garden
snails progress at about 10 meters per hour, which is about 25-50 times
slower than the U.K.'s Royal Mail; comparable measurements for other
countries have not yet been made. More biologically apt terms might be
sloth-mail at 250 m/hr or tortoise-mail at 270 m/hr. See
http://www.newscientist.com/lastword/answers/789communication.jsp?tp=communication
for details.

