Surface mail
Encyclopedia
Airmail
Airmail is mail that is transported by aircraft. It typically arrives more quickly than surface mail, and usually costs more to send...
. Surface mail is significantly cheaper and slower than airmail, and thus is preferred for large or heavy, non-urgent items – it is primarily used for packages, not letters.
History
The term "surface mail" arose as a retronymRetronym
A retronym is a type of neologism that provides a new name for an object or concept to differentiate the original form or version of it from a more recent form or version. The original name is most often augmented with an adjective to account for later developments of the object or concept itself...
(retrospective term), following the development of airmail – a term was needed to describe traditional mail, for which purpose "surface mail" was coined. A more recent example of the same process is the term snail mail
Snail mail
Snail mail or smail is a dysphemistic retronym—named after the snail with its slow speed—used to refer to letters and missives carried by conventional postal delivery services. The phrase refers to the lag-time between dispatch of a letter and its receipt, versus the virtually instantaneous...
(to refer to physical mail, be it transported by surface or air), following the development of e-mail
E-mail
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
.
United States
On May 14th, 2007, the United States Postal ServiceUnited States Postal Service
The United States Postal Service is an independent agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States...
eliminated international surface mail as part of its cost-cutting measures.