Letter (message)


A letter is a written message conveyed from one person to another person through a medium. Letters can be formal and informal. Besides a means of communication and a store of information, letter writing has played a role in the reproduction of writing as an art throughout history. Letters have been sent since antiquity and are mentioned in the Iliad. Historians Herodotus and Thucydides mention and utilize letters in their writings.

Roles in human civilization

Historically, letters have existed from the time of ancient India, ancient Egypt and Sumer, through Rome, Greece and China, up to the present day. During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, letters were used to self-educate. Letters were a way to practice critical reading, self-expressive writing, polemical writing and also exchange ideas with like-minded others. For some people, letters were seen as a written performance. For others, it was not only seen as a performance but also as a way of communication and a method of gaining feedback. Letters make up several of the books of the Bible. Archives of correspondence, whether for personal, diplomatic, or business reasons, serve as primary sources for historians. At certain times, the writing of letters was thought to be an art form and a genre of literature, for instance in Byzantine epistolography.
In the ancient world letters were written on a various different materials, including metal, lead, wax-coated wooden tablets, pottery fragments, animal skin, and papyrus. From Ovid, we learn that Acontius used an apple for his letter to Cydippe.
As communication technology has diversified, posted letters have become less important as a routine form of communication. For example, the development of the telegraph drastically shortened the time taken to send a communication, by sending it between distant points as an electrical signal. At the telegraph office closest to the destination, the signal was converted back into writing on paper and delivered to the recipient. The next step was the telex which avoided the need for local delivery. Then followed the fax machine: a letter could be transferred from the sender to the receiver through the telephone network as an image. These technologies did not displace physical letters as the primary route for communication, however today, the internet, by means of email, plays the main role in written communications; however, these email communications are not generally referred to as letters but rather as e-mail messages, messages or simply emails or e-mails, with only the term "letter" generally being reserved for communications on paper.

As literary historical source material

Due to the timelessness and universality of letter writing, there is a wealth of letters and instructional materials on letter writing throughout history. The study of letter writing usually involves both the study of rhetoric and grammar.

Comparison with electronic mail

Despite email, letters are still popular, particularly in business and for official communications. At the same time, many "letters" are sent in electronic form. Nevertheless, frequently, the following arguments are put forth saying letters may have the advantages over email:
Here is how a letter gets from the sender to the recipient:
  1. Sender writes letter and may fold the letter so that it fits in an envelope. A folding machine may be employed.
  2. Sender places the letter in an envelope on which the recipient's address is written in the centre front of the envelope. Sender ensures that the recipient's address includes the Zip or Postal Code and often includes his/her return address on the envelope.
  3. Sender buys a postage stamp and attaches it to the front of the envelope on the top right corner on the front of the envelope.
  4. Sender puts the letter in a postbox.
  5. The national postal service of the sender's country empties the postbox and transports all the contents to the regional sorting office.
  6. The sorting office then sorts each letter by address and postcode and delivers the letters destined for a particular area to that area's post office. Letters addressed to a different region are sent to that region's sorting office, to be sorted further.
  7. The local post office dispatches the letters to their delivery personnel who deliver them to the proper addresses.
This process, depending on how far the sender is from the recipient, can take anywhere from a day to 3–4 weeks. International mail is sent via trains and airplanes to other countries.
However, in 2008, Janet Barrett from the UK, received a RSVP to a party invitation addressed to 'Percy Bateman', from 'Buffy', originally posted on 29 November 1919. It had taken 89 years to be delivered by the Royal Mail. However, Royal Mail denied this, saying that it would be impossible for a letter to have remained in their system for so long, as checks are carried out regularly. Instead, the letter dated 1919 may have "been a collector's item which was being sent in another envelope and somehow came free of the outer packaging".

Kinds of letters

There are a number of different types of letter:

means of transport