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Also see Email
 | This is the JargonFile (V4.00) entry for email - Next: emoticon, Prev: EMACS |
| :email: /eemayl/ (also written e-mail and E-mail) 1. /n./ Electronic mail automatically passed through computer networks and/or via modems over common-carrier lines. Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net. See network address. 2. /vt./ To send electronic mail. Oddly enough, the word emailed is actually listed in the OED; it means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or perh. arranged in a net or open work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is probably derived from French ''emaille (enameled) and related to Old French emmaille"ure (network). A French correspondent tells us that in modern French, email is a hard enamel obtained by heating special paints in a furnace; an emailleur (no final e) is a craftsman who makes email (he generally paints some objects (like, say, jewelry) and cooks them in a furnace). There are numerous spelling variants of this word. In Internet traffic up to 1995, email predominates, e-mail runs a not-too-distant second, and E-mail and Email are a distant third and fourth. | |
| * (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996 - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain) | |
