Emails have been essential for a couple of years now in our everyday life. Emails are still the number one tool of communication on a professional and personal even with the rise of social medias. Mails or emails are terms that both represent an electronic mail. Where do these names come from? Which is the most adequate? How do we use them? Find the answers in the following article.
Each term’s origins
Several names can be used to represent the electronic message. The email was invented by the american scientist Ray Tomlinson in 1971. It is an electronic message sent through an informatic network to another individuals mailbox. In 1975, the engineer John Vittal added emails to a mailbox by grouping the multiple functions of reading, sending, transferring, attaching files and a trash in a practical interface.
The origin of “mail”
Thee word “mail” originally comes from english. The word means “post” or “mail” and comes close to the term “malle-poste”, coming from the french language. A “malle-poste” contains the mail that is transported in a briefcase by a diligence. The word “malle-poste” itself come from the ancient high-german “malaha” which means “leather bag”
In english, “mail’ refers to electronic mails and postal. The verb “to mail” means “to send an e-mail” or send an electronic mail in french. In the french language, the “mail” can also represent an avenue filled with trees or a large pedestrian walk.
The origin of “email”
The word “email”, comes from the anglo-american abbreviation of “electronic mail”. The word is opposed to the slow speed of postal mail, qualified as “snail mail”.
In french, the word “email” is mostly written with a capitalised letter. It is nevertheless important to keep the (trait d’union) because “email” is a reference to “l’email” (dental protection).
Synonyms
The “electronic message” term is more appropriate to represent an email. Thus, we can keep the “electronic mail” expression.
How to clean them in a single click
Mails or emails, regardless the right wording, are an important part of our everyday life.A french citizen receives around 39 email per day on average. A big part of them are advertising emails such as spams or newsletters.
It is essential to regularly clean your mailbox in order to optimise its performances. Cleanfox is an efficient software which allows you to delete the undesirable emails and definitely unsubscribe from newsletters in a single click. You simply need to link your mailbox to this free tool, which sorts the emails based on the senders.
