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ZIP Code

ZIP Code

A ZIP Code is the postal code used by the United States Postal Service, which always writes it with capital letters. ZIP is an acronym for the Zone Improvement Plan, but was also meant to suggest that mail travels more efficiently (and therefore faster) when senders use it. The basic ZIP Code format consists of five numerical digits. An extended ZIP+4 code includes the five digits of the ZIP Code plus four more digits which allow a piece of mail to be even more accurately directed to a very small geography. ZIP Code was originally registered as a trademark by the U.S. Postal Service, but its registration has since expired. The term "ZIP Code" is also used in the Philippines to name its postal codes. The Philippine ZIP Code is used by the Philippine Postal Corporation. Unlike American ZIP Codes, Philippine ZIP Codes are four-digit numbers without any extensions. While the cities of Metro Manila use more than one code, towns and cities outside Metro Manila are assigned only one code for every town and city.

Background

The postal service implemented postal zones for large cities in 1943. For example: John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis 16, Minnesota The "16" is the number of the postal zone within the city.

Development

By the early 1960's a more general system was needed, and on July 1, 1963, non-mandatory ZIP Codes were announced for the whole country. Robert Moon, an employee of the post office, is considered the father of the ZIP Code. He first submitted his proposal in 1944 while working as a postal inspector. The post office only gives credit to Moon for the first 3 digits of the ZIP Code, which describe the region of the country. In most cases, the last two digits of the ZIP Code coincide with the older postal zone number, thus: John Smith 3256 Epiphenomenal Avenue Minneapolis, Minnesota 55416 In 1967, these were made mandatory for second- and third-class bulk mailers and the system was soon adopted generally. The United States Post Office used a cartoon character, Mr. ZIP, to promote use of the ZIP Code in the 1970s.

Postal abbreviations

In addition, two-letter abbreviations were introduced for states, eliminating the need to write the state's name out in full. For example, California is CA. Abbreviations are also assigned for U.S. territories like Puerto Rico (PR) and American Samoa (AS), as well as for several former U.S. Trust Territories in the Pacific, such as the Federated States of Micronesia (FM), which are now separate countries. Similarly, US military addresses also have their own abbreviations. Mail to these addresses is sent to the Army (or Airforce) Post Office (APO) or Fleet Post Office (FPO). This may also be used for mail to many US diplomatic missions overseas.

ZIP+4

In 1983, the US Postal Service began using an expanded ZIP Code system called "ZIP+4", which are often called "plus-four codes" or "add-on codes." A ZIP+4 code uses the basic 5-digit ZIP plus an additional 4-digits to identify a geographic segment within the 5-digit delivery area, such as a city block, a group of apartments, an individual high-volume receiver of mail, or any other unit that could use an extra identifier to aid in efficient mail sorting and delivery. Use of the plus-four code is not required except for certain presorted mailings. In general, mail is read by a Multiline Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) that instantly determines the correct ZIP+4 code from the address and—along with the even more specific Delivery point—sprays an 11-digit POSTNET barcode on face of the mailpiece. This technology has greatly increased the speed and accuracy of mail delivery and in turn, kept costs nearly constant for over a decade. For Post Office boxes, the general (but not invariable) rule is that each box has its own ZIP+4 code. The add-on code is often either the last four digits of the box number or 0 plus the last three digits of the box number. However, there is no uniform rule, so the ZIP+4 code must be looked up individually for each box. It is common to use add-on code 9998 for mail addressed to the postmaster, 9999 for general delivery, and other high-numbered add-on codes for business reply mail and requests for special cancellation of stamps. For a unique ZIP code (explained below), the add-on code is typically 0001.

Postal bar code

The ZIP Code is often translated into a barcode called POSTNET, that is printed on the mailpiece as well, to make it easier for automated machines to sort the mail. Unlike most barcode symbologies, POSTNET uses long and short bars, not thin and thick bars. The barcode can be printed by the person who sends the mail, or the post office will put one on when they receive it. The post office generally uses OCR technology, though a human may have to read the address if absolutely necessary. (The automated machinery has the unfortunate tendency to paste the coding over the bottom half-inch of postcards, often obliterating the signature.) People who send bulk mail can get a discount on postage if they have pre-printed the barcode themselves. This requires more than just a simple font; mailing lists must be standardized with up-to-date CASS certified software that adds/verifies a full, correct ZIP+4 code and an additional two digits representing the exact Delivery point. Furthermore, mail must be presort in specific scheme and be accompanied by documentation verifying this. These steps are usually done with PAVE certified software that also prints the barcoded address labels and barcoded sack or tray tags. This means that that every single mailable point in the country has its own 11-digit number (at least in theory). These two digits are usually the last two of the street address or box number, though non-numeric points with names or letters are assigned DP numbers by the local post office. However, when house numbers differ only by a letter suffix, e.g., 120 and 120A, the delivery point may be the same. The last digit is always a check digit, which is obtained by summing the 5, 9, or 11 digits, taking the Modulo base 10 of this sum (i.e. the remainder after dividing by 10,) and finally subtracting this from 10. (Thus, the check digit for 10001-0001 00 would be 7, or 1+1+1=3 and 10−3=7.) An application needs only to print something like /100010001007/ in the 12-point POSTNET font to create a valid barcode. The slashes "/" are translated into start/stop characters (one long bar,) and each digit is translated into a sequence of two long bars and three short bars. On business reply mail, the FIM code primarily indicates the orientation (facing) of the mailpiece, since there is generally not a stamp or postage meter imprint containing fluorecent ink (which is usually used by the facing machine to orient mail.) Additionally, FIM codes A and C indicate that a POSTNET bar code is present, allowing this mail bypass the Multiline Optical Character Reader and go straight to a Barcode Scanning Machine (BCS). For that reason, even though courtesy reply mail and metered reply mail are mailed with a stamp or postage meter imprint, they typically carry a FIM code, namely FIM A, to indicate that the POSTNET bar code is present.

Structure and allocation

By geography

ZIP Codes are numbered with the first digit representing a certain group of U.S. states, the second and third digits together representing a region in that group (or perhaps a large city), and the fourth and fifth digits representing more specific areas, such as small towns or regions of that city. The main town in a region (if applicable) often gets the first ZIP Codes for that region; afterwards, the numerical order often follows the alphabetical order. Geographically, many of the lowest ZIP Codes are in the New England region, since these begin with '0'. Also in the '0' region are Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands and APO/FPO military addresses for personnel stationed in Europe. Some low zip codes are: 00501 for Holtsville, New York (a unique ZIP code for the U.S. Internal Revenue Service center there); 00601 for Adjuntas, Puerto Rico; 01001 for Agawam, Massachusetts, and 01002 for Amherst, Massachusetts. The numbers increase southward along the East Coast, such as 02115 (Boston, Massachusetts), 10036 (New York City), 19103 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania), 20008 (Washington, DC), 30303 (Atlanta, Georgia), and 33130 (Miami, Florida). From there, the numbers increase heading westward and northward. For example, 40202 is in Louisville, Kentucky, 50309 in Des Moines, Iowa, 60601 in Chicago, Illinois, 75201 in Dallas, Texas, 80202 in Denver, Colorado, 94111 in San Francisco, California, 98101 in Seattle, Washington, and 99950 in Ketchikan, Alaska. Ketchikan, Alaska • 4-5 • 6-7 • 8-9]] The first digit of the ZIP code is allocated as follows:
- 0 = Connecticut (CT), Massachusetts (MA), Maine (ME), New Hampshire (NH), New Jersey (NJ), Puerto Rico (PR), Rhode Island (RI), Vermont (VT), Virgin Islands (VI), APO Europe (AE), FPO Europe (AE).
- 1 = Delaware (DE), New York (NY), Pennsylvania (PA)
- 2 = District of Columbia (DC), Maryland (MD), North Carolina (NC), South Carolina (SC), Virginia (VA), West Virginia (WV)
- 3 = Alabama (AL), Florida (FL), Georgia (GA), Mississippi (MS), Tennessee (TN), APO Americas (AA), FPO Americas (AA).
- 4 = Indiana (IN), Kentucky (KY), Michigan (MI), Ohio (OH)
- 5 = Iowa (IA), Minnesota (MN), Montana (MT), North Dakota (ND), South Dakota (SD), Wisconsin (WI)
- 6 = Illinois (IL), Kansas (KS), Missouri (MO), Nebraska (NE)
- 7 = Arkansas (AR), Louisiana (LA), Oklahoma (OK), Texas (TX)
- 8 = Arizona (AZ), Colorado (CO), Idaho (ID), New Mexico (NM), Nevada (NV), Utah (UT), Wyoming (WY)
- 9 = Alaska (AK), American Samoa (AS), California (CA), Guam (GU), Hawaii (HI), Northern Mariana Islands (MP), Oregon (OR), Washington (WA), APO Pacific (AP), FPO Pacific (AP). Other U.S. territories have codes starting with 9. However, with the expansion of ZIP codes, the assignment of the first digit to a group of states has broken down. For example, ZIP codes beginning with 0 and 1 are in use in New York; beginning with 2 and 5, in the District of Columbia; and beginning with 7 and 8, in Texas. The next two digits represent the sectional center facility (sorting facility for a region) (e.g. 432xx = Columbus OH), and the fourth and fifth digits represents the area of the city (if in a metropolitan area), or a village/town (outside metro areas): 43209 (4=Ohio,32=Columbus,09=Bexley). When a sectional center facility's area crosses state lines, that facility is assigned separate three-digit prefixes for the states that it serves; thus, it is possible to identify the state associated with any ZIP code just by looking at the first three digits. Often, the last two digits are assigned in alphabetical order to each community for sortation centers that serve multiple cities. It is important to note that despite the geographic derivation of most ZIP Codes, the codes themselves are not geographic regions, but simply categories for grouping mailing addresses. ZIP Code "areas" can overlap, be subsets of each other, or be artificial constructs with no geographic area. Similarly, in areas without regular postal routes (rural route areas) or no mail delivery (undeveloped areas), ZIP Codes are not assigned or are based on sparse delivery routes, and hence the boundary between ZIP Code areas is undefined.

Unmatching city limits with ZIP-codes & changes

The ZIP code boundaries do not always match the city limits. For example, the Arizona zip code 85254 is a Scottsdale, Arizona ZIP code, but approximately 85% of the area served by this ZIP code is actually in neighboring Phoenix, Arizona. The post office that serves this area is a Scottsdale post office. So, therefore, the mailing address is Scottsdale despite it being Phoenix. This can cause confusion for the residents of the ZIP code with some people saying that they live in Scottsdale when they actually live in Phoenix. A city of Scottsdale website listing the positive and negative aspects of the city mentioned the 85254 ZIP code as a positive aspect because of the Scottsdale name being used for businesses outside the city limits in Phoenix. ZIP codes and municipality boundaries may fail to match either because the ZIP code system was formed before the municipality was founded or because voters or governments have elected to move a municipal border. Similarly, many ZIP codes are for villages, Census Designated Places, portions of cities, or other entities that aren't officially recognized municipal entities. For example, ZIP code 03750 is for Etna, NH, but Etna is not a municipality, it is actually a village district in the town of Hanover, New Hampshire (Zip Code 03755). Like area codes, ZIP Codes are sometimes divided and changed, especially when a rural area becomes suburban. Typically, the new ZIP codes become effective once announced, and a grace period (e.g., one year) is provided in which the new and old ZIP codes are used concurrently, so that postal patrons in the affected area can notify correspondents, order new stationery, etc. Most significantly, in rapidly developing suburbs, it is sometimes necessary to open a new sectional center facility, which must then be allocated its own three-digit ZIP-code prefix or prefixes. Such allocation can be done in various ways. For example, when a new sectional center facility was opened at Dulles Airport in Virginia, the prefix 201 was allocated to that facility; therefore, for all post offices to be served by that sectional center facility, the ZIP code changed from an old code beginning with 220 or 221 to a new code or codes beginning with 201. However, when a new sectional center facility was opened to serve Montgomery County, Maryland, no new prefix was assigned. Instead, ZIP codes in the 207 and 208 ranges, which had previously been assigned alphabetically, were reshuffled so that 207xx ZIP codes in Montgomery County were changed to 208xx codes, while 208xx codes outside that county were changed to 207xx codes. Because Silver Spring (whose postal area includes Wheaton) has its own prefix, 209, there was no need to apply the reshuffling to Silver Spring; instead, all mail going to 209xx ZIP codes was simply rerouted to the new sectional center facility. ZIP codes also change when postal boundaries are realigned. For example, at the same time at which the above-noted change in Montgomery County took place, and under pressure from then D.C. Mayor Marion Barry, the USPS realigned the postal boundary between the District of Columbia and Maryland to match the actual boundary. Previously, many inner suburbs, such as Bethesda and Takoma Park, had been in the Washington, D.C., postal area. As a result of the change, ZIP codes in Maryland beginning with 200 were changed to new ZIP codes beginning with 207, 208, or 209, depending on their location, and ZIP codes straddling the D.C.-Maryland line were split. For example, 20014 (Bethesda) became 20814, while the Maryland portion of 20012 (Takoma Park) became 20912.

By type/use

There are three types of ZIP codes: unique (assigned to a single high-volume mailer), PO box-only (used only for PO boxes at a given facility, not for any other type of delivery), and standard (all other ZIP codes). As examples of unique ZIP codes, certain governmental agencies, universities, businesses, or buildings that receive extremely high volumes of mail have their own unique ZIP Code, such as 81009 for the Federal Citizen Information Center (FCIC) of the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) [http://www.pueblo.gsa.gov] in Pueblo, Colorado, 21250 for University of Maryland Baltimore County, 30385 for BellSouth in Atlanta, 12345 for General Electric in Schenectady, New York, 10048 for the World Trade Center complex in New York, New York (until its destruction on September 11, 2001) and 77230 for victims of Hurricane Katrina being housed at the Houston Astrodome. The White House has its own secret ZIP+4 Code, separate from the publicly-known 20500, for the President of the United States and his family to receive private mail [http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/1996/analysis/time/9701/27/tumulty.html]. An example of a "PO box-only" ZIP code is 22313, which is used for PO boxes at the main post office in Alexandria, Virginia. In the area surrounding that post office, home and business mail delivery addresses use ZIP code 22314, which is thus a standard ZIP code. The above will be made clearer by examining the allocation of ZIP codes in Princeton, New Jersey:
- 08540 - standard (deliveries in most of the Princeton postal area)
- 08541 - unique (Educational Testing Service)
- 08542 - standard (deliveries in the central area of the borough of Princeton)
- 08543 - PO box only (PO boxes at the main post office)
- 08544 - unique (Princeton University) Another type: M - Military 34036, Military - Armed forces Americas (except Canada)

Other uses

Delivery services other than the USPS, such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service, and DHL require a ZIP code for the optimal internal routing of a package. This spares customers from being required to use some other routing designator, such as the IATA code of the destination airport or railhead. ZIP Codes are used not only for tracking of mail, but in gathering geographical statistics in the United States. The U.S. Census Bureau keeps track of the latitude and longitude of the center-point of each ZIP Code, a database which numerous other companies sell. The data are often used in direct mail campaigns in a process called ZIP Code marketing, developed by Martin Baier. Point of Sale cashiers sometimes ask consumers what ZIP Code they live in in order to collect corporate purchasing pattern data. The corporation or specialists then analyze these data to determine the location of new business establishments. Finally, ZIP-coded data is also used in analyzing geographic factors in risk, an insurance industry and banking practice pejoratively known as redlining.

Pop culture

- Starting in 2000, National Geographic magazine instituted a regular monthly feature which focuses on the community served by one ZIP code.
- ZIP codes can take on a certain amount of cachet or become bywords: 90210 in Beverly Hills, California being probably the most famous example appears in the titles of two Beverly Hills-centric television shows: Beverly Hills 90210 and Dr. 90210.
- Public-service announcements for the government's consumer information center have become famous for their ZIP code in Pueblo, Colorado -- 81009.
- Game show viewers of the 1960s, 1970s and 80s became familiar with announcer spots for the Spiegel catalogue, and the company's address, "Chicago 60609."
- The PBS children's series ZOOM made frequent musical use of 02134, the ZIP code of WGBH -- the show's originating station in Boston.
- In 1964, at the height of his popularity, Smokey Bear, mascot of the United States Forest Service, received so much fan mail that he was assigned his own ZIP code, 20252.

External links

- [http://www.usps.com/zip4/ ZIP Code lookup] from the United States Postal Service.
- [http://www.census.gov/geo/www/gazetteer/gazette.html ZIP Code datasets] freely available from the US Census Bureau.
- [http://www.zip-area.com US Zip and Area codes] Structured and mapped directory.
- [http://acg.media.mit.edu/people/fry/zipdecode/ zipdecode] An interactive Java applet from the MIT Media Lab that shows ZIP Code distribution throughout the US.
- [http://maps.postalcoded.com/geolocate.html Postalcode Geolocator] Allows you to overlay postal code polygons or view all postalcodes within an area you are viewing. Category:Geocodes Category:Postal system ja:ZIP (郵便番号)

United States Postal Service

:This article describes the United States Postal Service. For the band named The Postal Service see The Postal Service. The United States Postal Service (USPS) is an agency of the United States government responsible for providing postal service in the United States; it is generally referred to within the United States as "the post office." The postal service was created under Benjamin Franklin on July 26, 1775 by decree of the Second Continental Congress. Based on a clause in the United States Constitution empowering Congress "To establish Post Offices and post Roads," it became the Post Office Department in 1792. In 1971, the department was reorganized as a quasi-independent agency of the federal government and acquired its present name. The USPS is the third-largest employer in the United States (after the United States Department of Defense and Walmart), and operates the largest civilian vehicle fleet in the world, with an estimated 170,000 vehicles, the majority of which are the easily identified "mail trucks," as shown in the pictures to the right. Some rural mail carriers use personal vehicles. Competition from e-mail and private operations such as United Parcel Service, FedEx, and DHL has forced USPS to adjust its business strategy and to modernize its products and services. The Department of Defense and the USPS jointly operate a postal system to deliver mail for the military known as the Army/Air Force Post Office and the Fleet Post Office.
Governance and organization
The USPS is headed by a Board of Governors appointed by the President and confirmed by the US Senate. The Board has a similar role to a corporate board of directors, setting policy and procedure and postal rates for services rendered. The United States Postmaster General, formerly appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, but now appointed by the board of governors, serves as Chief Operating Officer and oversees the day to day activities of the service. The USPS is often mistaken for a government-owned corporation (e.g. Amtrak), but is legally defined as an "independent establishment of the executive branch of the Government of the United States," as it is wholly owned by the government and controlled indirectly by the President. As a government agency, it has many special privileges, including sovereign immunity, eminent domain powers, powers to negotiate postal treaties with foreign nations, and an exclusive legal right to deliver first-class and third-class mail. The USPS has both a commercial (.com) and governmental (.gov) top level domain, but chooses to use the .com domain as its primary address, which causes its Internet presence to resemble that of a corporation more than that of a government agency.
Monopoly status
The USPS enjoys a government monopoly with respect to first-class and third-class letter delivery under the authority of the Private Express Statutes. The USPS says that these statutes were enacted by Congress "to provide for an economically sound postal system that could afford to deliver letters between any two locations, however remote." In effect, those who mail letters to a near location are subsidizing those who are mailing letters to distant locations. The USPS enjoys monopoly status in that it possesses the exclusive permission under federal law to deliver first and third class mail. However, an exception to private carriers is made with regard to "extremely urgent letters" as long as the private carrier charges at least $3 or twice the U.S. postage, whichever is greater (other stipulations, such as maximum delivery time, apply as well); or, alternatively, it may be delivered for free. The USPS also enjoys a monopoly privilege in placing mail into standardized mailboxes marked "U.S. Mail." Hence, private carriers must deliver packages directly to the recipient, leave them in the open near the recipient's front door, or place them in a special box dedicated solely to that carrier (a technique commonly used by small courier and messenger services). In the 1840s Lysander Spooner started the commercially successful American Letter Mail Company which competed with the United States Post Office by providing lower rates. He was successfully challenged with legal measures by the U.S. government and exhausted his resources trying to defend what he believed to be his right to compete. The 37 cents (USD) required by the USPS to deliver a letter in the U.S. compares favorably with other industrialized countries, such as those of the European Union, where the postage for an ordinary domestic first-class letter is nearly twice that much. It is debatable whether any meaningful competition for ordinary letter delivery would develop in the absence of a legal monopoly. In countries that have recently undergone postal service privatization, no meaningful competition for first-class letter delivery has materialized and the overall cost of services to consumers has risen (this does not take into account tax burden relief by diminished subsidies). As it continues to lose package services market share to private competitors, the USPS and its organizational structure face an uncertain future. As an affiliate of the federal government, the USPS is not required to pay any of the federal or state income taxes that regular businesses pay. Since the USPS is also directed by law to break even in the long run, there is currently not much tax revenue lost due to this tax exemption. However there is a possibility that a private alternatives to the USPS monopoly on normal letter delivery could provide better service at a lower cost, as well as be profitable and net tax contributors (Private competitors in package delivery have become profitable even with the tax burden placed on them and now dominate the market). [http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3976] Therefore, some critics view the current tax exemption as a subsidy provided by the government to the USPS.
Subsidized services
The USPS claims to have operated "in a businesslike manner without taxpayer support" since its spinoff from the cabinet on July 1, 1971 following the passage of the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970. It does, however, receive compensation from taxpayer funds for certain services that it is mandated to provide for free or at a discount, including free mail for the blind, military mail, nonprofit mail and overseas ballots. $36 million in such compensation was paid for fiscal 2004. In addition, Congress appropriated the USPS a total of $762 million for biohazard decontamination and detection equipment in response to the 2001 anthrax attacks.
Types of postal facilities
Although its customer service centers are called post offices in regular speech, the USPS recognizes several types of postal facilities, including the following:
- A main post office, formerly known as a general post office, is the primary postal facility in a community.
- A station or post office station is a postal facility that is not the main post office, but that is within the corporate limits of the community.
- A branch or post office branch is a postal facility that is not the main post office and that is outside the corporate limits of the community.
- A classified unit is a station or branch operated by USPS employees in a facility owned or leased by the USPS.
- A contract postal unit is a station or branch operated by a contractor, typically in a store or other place of business.
- A community post office (CPO) is a contract postal unit providing services in a small community in which other types of post office facilites have been discontinued.
- A finance unit is a station or branch that provides window services and accepts mail, but does not provide delivery.
- A processing and distribution center (P&DC) or processing and distribution facility (formerly known as a General Mail Facility) is a central mail facility that processes and dispatches incoming and outgoing mail to and from a designated service area.
- A sectional center facility is a P&DC for a designated geographical area defined by one or more three-digit ZIP code prefixes. While common usage refers to all types of postal facilities as "substations," the USPS Glossary of Postal Terms does not define or even list that word. Temporary stations are often set up for applying pictorial cancellations.
Addressing envelopes
For any letter addressed within the United States, the USPS requires two things on the envelope. The first is the address of the recipient, to be placed in the center of the envelope. It is sometimes required to put the name of the addressee above the address. Another optional addition to the address is a ZIP+4 code. The second is some means of indicating that postage has been paid, usually a stamp, but perhaps a meter label, or in certain cases such as members of Congress a signature or other writing indicating that the sender has franking privileges. First-class mail costs 37¢ upwards, depending on the weight of the letter and the class, and the indicia is supposed to be placed in the upper-right corner. A third, and optional (but strongly suggested) addition is a return address. This is the address you wish the recipient to respond to, and, if necessary, the letter to be returned to if delivery fails. It is usually placed in the upper-left corner or occasionally in the back (though the latter is standard in some countries). Undeliverable mails that cannot be readily returned, including those without return addresses, are treated as dead mails at a Mail Recovery Center in Atlanta, Georgia or Saint Paul, Minnesota. ;The formatting of the address is as follows: :Line 1: Name of recipient :Line 2: Street address or P.O. Box :Line 3: City (ISO 3166-2:US code or APO/FPO code) and ZIP+4 code ;Example: :Mr. John Doe :1111 JOHNSON ST :NEW YORK NY 10036-4658 The USPS maintains [http://www.usps.com/ncsc/lookups/usps_abbreviations.htm a list of proper abbreviations]. The formatting of a return address is identical. A common myth is that a comma is required after the city name, but this is not true. The Post Office recommends use of all upper case block letters using the appropriate formats and abbreviations and leaving out all punctuation except for the hyphen in the ZIP+4 code to ease automated address reading and speed processing, particularly for handwritten addresses; if the address is unusually formatted or illegible enough, it will require hand-processing, delaying that particular item. The USPS publishes the entirety of their [http://pe.usps.gov/text/pub28/welcome.htm postal addressing standards].
Mail sorting
Processing of standard sized envelopes and cards is highly automated, including reading of handwritten addresses. Mail from individual customers and public postboxes is collected by mail carriers into plastic tubs. The tubs are taken to a Processing and Distribution Center and emptied into hampers which are then automatically dumped into a Dual Pass Rough Cull System (DPRCS). As mail travels through the DPRCS, large items, such as packages and mail bundles, are removed from the stream. As the remaining mail enters the first machine for processing standard mail, the Advanced Facer-Canceler System (AFCS), pieces that passed through the DPRCS but do not conform to physical dimensions for processing in the AFCS (i.e. large envelopes or overstuffed standard envelopes) are automatically diverted from the stream. Mail removed from the DPRCS and AFCS is manually processed or sent to parcel sorting machines. In contrast to the previous system, which merely canceled and postmarked the upper right corner of the envelope, thereby missing any stamps which were inappropriately placed, the AFCS locates indicia (stamp or metered postage mark), regardless of the orientation of the mail as it enters the machine, and cancels it by applying a postmark. Detection of indicia enables the AFCS to determine the orientation of each mailpiece and sort it accordingly, rotating pieces as necessary so all mail is sorted right-side up and faced in the same direction in each output bin. Mail is output by the machine into three categories: mail already bar-coded and addressed (such as business reply envelopes and cards), mail with machine printed (typed) addresses, and mail with handwritten addresses. Additionally, machines with a recent Optical Character Recognition (OCR) upgrade have the capability to read the address information, including handwritten, and sort the mail based on local or outgoing ZIP codes. Mail with typed addresses goes to a Multiline Optical Character Reader (MLOCR) which reads the ZIP Code and address information and prints the appropriate bar code onto the envelope. Mail (actually the scanned image of the mail) with handwritten addresses (and machine-printed ones that aren't easily recognized) goes to the Remote Bar Coding System, a highly advanced scanning system with a state of the art neural net processor which is highly effective at correctly reading almost all addresses, no matter how badly written. It also corrects spelling errors and, where there is an error, omission, or conflict in the written address, identifies the most likely correct address. When it has decided on a correct address, it prints the appropriate bar code onto the envelopes, similarly to the MLOCR system. RBCS also has facilities in place, called Remote Encoding Centers that have humans look at images of mail pieces and enter the address data. The address data is associated with the image via an ID Tag, a fluorescent code printed by mail processing equipment on the back of mail pieces. Mail with addresses which cannot be resolved by the automated system are separated for human intervention. If a local postal worker can read the address, the appropriate bar code is printed onto the item. If not, the item is sent to one of three Mail Recovery Centers in the United States (formerly known as Dead Letter Offices, originated by Benjamin Franklin in the 1770s) where it receives more intense scrutiny, including being opened to determine if any of the contents are a clue. If no valid address can be determined, the items are held for 90 days in case of inquiry by the customer; and if they are not claimed then they are destroyed. Once the mail is bar coded, it is automatically sorted into destination postal stations. Items for local delivery are retained in the postal station while other items are trucked to either the appropriate station if it is within approximately 200 miles, or the airport for transport to more distant destinations. Mail is flown, usually as baggage on commercial airlines, to the airport nearest the destination station, then at a nearby processing center the mail is once again read by a Delivery Bar Code System which sorts the items into their local destinations, including grouping them by individual mail carrier. After the September 11, 2001 attacks, only letter-sized mail has been flown on passenger airlines. Packages are solely transported via cargo carriers, most notably FedEx.
Major products and services

First Class Mail
The normal mail service used by individuals and business sending a small amount of mail. One rate regardless of distance.
- Letters: The cost to send a letter weighing up to 1 ounce (28 g) is currently 37 cents, increasing to 39 cents on January 8, 2006.
- Each additional ounce is an additional 23 cents, up to 13 ounces.
- Sending a postcard costs 23 cents.
- Packages weighing up to 13 ounces (369 g) can be sent.
- Best effort delivery including return service for undeliverable mail.
- Forwarding service: With a valid change of address on file, mail coming to the old address will be sent to the new address for up to 12 months.
- Available to anyone.
- Recommendations (but no enforced rules) about mailpiece quality and addressing.
- Mail is picked up at customer's house or place of business, or can be dropped in any public mail collection box.
- Delivery to every address in the United States, except some small towns with no delivery to addresses within a quarter mile (400 m) of the post office. Post offices in some rural small towns without street deliveries require post office box numbers and addressees in these towns are eligible for fee-free post office boxes.
Standard Mail
Used mainly for businesses.
- Minimum 200 pieces per mailing
- Must weigh less than 16 ounces (454 g)
- No return service unless requested (an additional fee is charged for return service)
- Not for personal correspondence, letters, bills, or statements
- Annual fee
Bulk Mail
Used for businesses to send large quantities of mail.
- Can be First Class or Standard Mail
- Discounted rates
- Permit required
- Enforced rules about mailpiece quality and addressing.
- May require additional work by the sender, such as pre-sorting by ZIP Code.
- Mail must usually be brought to a postal facility.
Parcel Post
Used to send packages weighing up to 70 pounds (31.75 kg)
- Rates based on distance, weight, and shape
- Delivery to every address in the United States
Media Mail
Formerly (and colloquially, still) known as "Book Rate," Media Mail is used to send books, printed materials, sound recordings, videotapes, CD-ROMs, diskettes, and similar, but cannot contain advertising. Maximum weight is 70 pounds (31.75 kg).
- Delivery standards are 5-8 business days
- Rates based on weight
- Much cheaper than Parcel Post, but sometimes slower
Library mail
Same as Media Mail, but receives an additional discount and may be used only for books or recordings being sent to or from a public library, museum or academic institution.
Priority Mail
Priority Mail is an expedited mail service with a few additional features.
- Average delivery time is 2-3 days (but this is NOT guaranteed, may take longer)
- Flat rate envelopes and boxes available (one rate for whatever you put in the envelope, though the envelope must seal on its own)
- Packages up to 70 pounds (31.75 kg).
- Label can be printed online
- Delivery to every address in the United States
Express Mail
Express Mail is the fastest mail service.
- Typically overnight or second-day delivery, including Sundays and holidays
- Flat rate envelope available
- Packages up to 50 pounds (22.7 kg)
- Delivery to most addresses in the United States
- Guaranteed on-time delivery or the postage is refunded subject to conditions
Postal Money orders

- Provide a safe alternative to sending cash through the mail
- Money orders are cashable only by the recipient, just like a bank check. One of the reasons for the growing popularity of money orders is that, unlike a personal bank check, they are pre-paid and therefore cannot bounce.
Global services
Airmail, Global Priority, Global Express, and Global Express Guaranteed Mail are offered to ship mail and packages to almost every country and territory on the globe.
Airline and rail division
The United States Postal Service does not directly own or operate any aircraft or trains. The mail and packages are flown on airlines with which they have a contractual agreement. The contracts change periodically. Depending on the contract, you may see aircraft painted with the USPS paint scheme. Contract airlines have included: Emery Worldwide, Ryan International, Federal Express, Rhoades Aviation, and Express 1 International. The Postal Service also contracts with the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, or Amtrak to carry some mail between certain cities such as Chicago, Illinois and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
Add-on services
The Postal Service offers additional services for some types of mail.
Delivery confirmation

- Confirms delivery of package
- Detailed package tracking is not included, but information is sometimes available
- Results available online or telephone
- Only available with First Class Mail parcels, Priority Mail, and Package Services (Media Mail, Parcel Post, and Bound Printed Matter)
Signature confirmation

- Confirms delivery with signature
- Recipient's signature is kept on file
- Only available with First Class Mail parcels, Priority Mail, and Package Services (Media Mail, Parcel Post, and Bound Printed Matter)
Insurance

- Provides package with insurance from loss or damage while in transit
- Available for amounts up to $5,000
- Covers material losses only minus depreciation
Certified Mail

- Provides proof of mailing, and a delivery record
- Available for First Class Mail and Priority Mail
Registered Mail

- Provides mailing receipt, delivery record, and protection for valuables
- Available for Priority Mail and First Class Mail
- Availble for sending US Government classified documents, up to the Confidential level.
Collect On Delivery (C.O.D.)

- Allows merchants to offer customers an option to pay upon delivery
- Insurance comes included with fee
- Amount to be collected cannot exceed $1,000
- Available for First-Class Mail, Express Mail, Priority Mail, and Package Services (Parcel Post, Bound Printed Matter, and Media Mail)
Postage stamps
All unused US postage stamps issued since 1861 are still valid as postage at their indicated value. Stamps with no value shown or denominated by a letter are also still valid at their purchase price.
Copyright and reproduction
All US postage stamps and other postage items that were released before 1978 are in the public domain. After this time they are copyright by the postal service under Title 17 of the United States Code. Written permission is required for use of copyrighted postage stamp images. [http://www.usps.com/communications/organization/noncommlicensing.htm]
PC postage
In addition to using standard stamps, postage can now be printed from a personal computer using a system called Information Based Indicia. Authorized providers of PC Postage are:
- [http://www.stamps.com Stamps.com]
- [http://www.pitneybowes.com Pitney Bowes]
- [http://www.endicia.com Endicia Internet Postage]
Sponsorships
Beginning in 1996, the USPS was head sponsor of a professional cycling team bearing its name. The team featured Lance Armstrong, seven-time winner of the Tour de France. The sponsorship ended in 2004, when the Discovery Channel stepped in as the main sponsor and renamed the team as the Discovery Channel Pro Cycling Team.
Employment in the USPS
The USPS employs more people than any company in the United States except Wal-Mart. It employed 790,000 personnel in 2003, divided into offices, processing centers, and actual post offices. USPS employees are divided into three major categories according to the work they engage in:
- Letter Carriers, also referred to as mailmen or mail-carriers; are the public face of the USPS.
- Mail handlers and processors often work at the evening and night to prepare mail and bulk goods for the carriers to deliver. Work is physically strenuous, especially for mail handlers; many mailbags loaded from and onto trucks weigh as much as 60 pounds (27 kg).
- Clerks work in the post offices, handling customers' needs, receiving express mail, and selling stamps. DCO's (Data Conversion Operators), who type out and forward mail to their destinations.
Public reputation
In the early 1990s, there was a widely publicized wave of workplace shootings by disgruntled employees at USPS facilities. Due to sensationalistic media coverage, postal employees gained a mostly undeserved reputation among the general public as being mentally ill. This stereotype in turn has influenced American culture, as seen in the slang term "going postal" (see Patrick Sherrill for information on his August 20, 1986, rampage) and the computer game Postal. Another example is the movie Men in Black II, where all of Tommy Lee Jones' co-workers at the post office turn out to be aliens. In an episode of Seinfeld, the character Newman, who is a mailman, explained that postal workers "go crazy and kill everyone" because the mail never stops. The [http://www.usps.com/communications/news/strs.htm Setting the Record Straight] section of USPS.com features letters to newspaper editors, television producers, and other media representatives which USPS has sent in response to criticisms of the Postal Service and to uses of the term "going postal." Also, the fact that the post office enjoys a governement-enforced monopoly on letter delivery is a source of resentment by some who would rather see competition and lower prices for the service
See also

- U.S. postal abbreviations
- History of USPS rates
- Rural Free Delivery
- USPS creed
- Government monopoly
- Postal Inspection Service
Unions of the U.S. Postal Service

- American Postal Workers Union
- National Association of Letter Carriers
- National Postal Mail Handlers Union
- National Rural Letter Carriers Association
External links

- [http://www.usps.com USPS Official web site]
- [http://www.usps.com/cpim/ftp/pubs/pub32.pdf USPS Glossary of Postal Terms (Publication 32)]
- [http://pe.usps.com/text/pub28/welcome.htm USPS Postal Addressing Standards (Publication 28)]
- [http://www.usps.com/history/his1.htm History of the United States Postal Service]
- [http://www.nalc.org/depart/cau/pdf/manuals/pub542.pdf Understanding the Private Express Statutes] USPS Publication 542 (June 1998) pdf file
- [http://www.uspsprocycling.com US Postal Service cycling team]
- [http://www.lysanderspooner.org/STAMP2.htm "Father of 3-cent Stamp" Spooner fought Post Office] Account of Lysander Spooner's fight against USPS monopoly
- [http://flag.blackened.net/daver/anarchism/tucker/tucker38.html The Post Office and Private Mail Service] 19th century American individualist anarchist Benjamin Tucker opposes USPS monopoly
- [http://www.cato.org/dailys/12-07-99.html America's Post Office Challenges The Digital Age] An argument in support of ending the government monopoly
- [http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=3976 Time for the Mail Monopoly to Go]
- [http://www.cato.org/testimony/ct-eh043096.html Postal Service Privatization] Dr. Edward L. Hudgins, of the Cato Institute, speaks to Appropriations Subcommittee on Treasury, Postal Service, and General Government Postal Service
- Category: Postal organisations Postal Service

Acronym

Acronyms and initialisms are abbreviations such as NATO, laser, or DNA, written as the initial letter or letters of words, and pronounced based on this abbreviated written form. Of the two words, acronym is the much more frequently used and known, and many dictionaries, speakers and writers refer to all abbreviations formed from initial letters as acronyms. However, some still differentiate between acronyms and initialisms: an acronym was originally a pronounceable word formed from the initial letter or letters of the constituent words, such as NATO /neɪtoʊ/ or RADAR /reɪdɑɹ/, from RAdio Detection And Ranging, while an initialism referred to an abbreviation pronounced as the names of the individual letters, such as TLA /ti.ɛl.eɪ/ or XHTML.

History

Acronyms and initialisms are a relatively new linguistic phenomenon, having only become popular during the 20th century. As literacy rates rose, the practice of referring to words by their first letters became increasingly convenient. The first recorded use of the word initialism in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) is in 1899, and the first for acronym is in 1943. The word acronym comes from Greek: ακρος, akros, "topmost, extreme" + ονομα, onoma, "name". Nonetheless, earlier examples of acronyms exist. The early Christians in Rome used a fish as a symbol for Jesus in part because of an acronym—fish in Greek is ΙΧΘΥΣ (ichthus), which was said to stand for Ιησους Χριστος Θεου Υιος Σωτηρ (Iesous CHristos THeou (h)Uios Soter: Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour). Evidence of this interpretation dates from the second and third centuries and is preserved in the catacombs of Rome. Initialisms are known to have been used in Rome dating back even earlier than the Christian era. For example, the official name for the Roman Empire (and the Republic before it) was abbreviated as SPQR (Senatus Populusque Romanus), showing a clear precedent. Acronyms have been widely used in Hebrew since at least the Middle Ages. Several important rabbis are referred to with acronyms of their names. For example, Baal Shem Tov is called Besht. The word Tanakh is also an acronym. Acronyms and initialisms often occur in jargon or as names of organizations because they often serve as abbreviations of long terms that are frequently referenced, so a shortened form is desirable. Militaries and government agencies frequently employ acronyms and initialisms, perhaps most famously the US Government and the so-called alphabet agencies of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal. The correct meaning of an acronym is frequently domain-specific knowledge, and many acronyms have different meanings in different domains. This has led some to use them to obfuscate meaning from those without such domain-specific knowledge.

Written usage

Abbreviations have been traditionally written using a full stop/period to mark the part that was deleted. In the case of most acronyms and initialisms, each letter is its own abbreviation, and in theory should get its own full stop/period. This usage is becoming less common as the presence of all capital letters is sufficient to indicate the word is an abbreviation; nevertheless some influential American style guides still insist on the many-periods treatment, such as the one used by The New York Times (which recommends periods after unpronounceable abbreviations such as "K.G.B." but not for pronounceable ones (acronyms), such as "NATO" [http://www.nytimes.com/2004/02/07/opinion/07KRIS.html?ex=1391490000&en=f887afd296d59e2f&ei=5007&partner=GOOGLE]), but other style guides, such as that of the BBC, no longer require this. Larry Trask, American author of the Penguin Guide to Punctuation, states categorically that, in British English, "this tiresome and unnecessary practice is now obsolete"[http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/doc/punctuation/node28.html]. Some acronyms undergo assimilation into ordinary words, when technical terms become commonplace with non-technical people: often they are then written in lower case, and eventually it is widely forgotten that the word was derived from the initials of others: scuba (Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) and laser (Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation), for instance. The term anacronym has been coined as a portmanteau of the words anachronism and acronym to describe acronyms whose original meaning is not known to most speakers. While typically abbreviations exclude the initials of short function words (such as "and", "or", "of", or "to"), they are sometimes included in acronyms to make them pronounceable. Numbers (both cardinal and ordinal) in names are often represented by digits rather than initial letters; e.g. 4GL (Fourth generation language) or G77 (Group of 77). The traditional style of pluralizing single letters with "'s" ("there are two Q's in that word") was naturally extended to acronyms when they were commonly written with periods, and is still preferred by some people for initialisms. It is, however, very common to inflect them like ordinary words; thus the usual plural of "CD" is "CDs," with "CD's" being reserved for the possessive. When an acronym is part of a computer function that is conventionally written in lowercase letters, it is common to use an apostrophe to pluralize or otherwise conjugate the token (in computer lingo, it is not uncommon to use the name of a computer program, format, or function, acronym or no, as a verb, e.g., "John zipped the files" or "John zip'ed the files" means that John used the program zip on the files to conglomerate them), resulting in sentences like "be sure to remove any extraneous dll's after the program finishes uninstalling." In some languages, the convention of doubling the letters in the initialism is used to indicate plural words, for example the Spanish acronym EE.UU. for Estados Unidos ("United States"). This convention is followed for a limited number of English abbreviations, such as pp. for "pages". In some cases, an acronym or initialism has been turned into a name. The letters making up the name of the SAT college entrance test, for example, no longer officially stand for anything. This trend has been common with many companies hoping to retain their brand recognition while simultaneously moving away from what they saw as an outdated image: American Telephone and Telegraph is now simply AT&T, the company formerly named Kentucky Fried Chicken changed its name to "KFC". British Petroleum changed its name to "BP" to emphasize that it was no longer only an oil company (captured by the motto "beyond petroleum"); and Silicon Graphics, Incorporated changed its name to "SGI" to emphasize that it was no longer only a computer graphics company. DVD, curiously enough, has become bereft of official meaning, as some of its advocates decided the original "Digital Video Disc" moniker was too limiting and wanted to change it to "Digital Versatile Disc" yet were unable to bring all members on board. The initialism now has "no official meaning." Initialisms may have advantages in international markets; for example, some national affiliates of International Business Machines are legally incorporated as "IBM" (or, for example, "IBM Canada") to avoid translating the full name into local languages. This rebranding can lead to RAS syndrome, as when Trustee Savings Bank became "TSB Bank." A few high tech companies have taken the redundant acronym to the extreme such as ISM Information Systems Management Corp. and SHL Systemhouse Ltd.. Another very common example is RAM memory. This is redundant since RAM already stands for Random Access Memory. Sometimes, the initials are kept but the meaning is changed. SADD, for instance, originally Students Against Driving Drunk, changed the full form of its name to Students Against Destructive Decisions. YM originally stood for Young Miss, and later Young & Modern, but now stands for simply Your Magazine. When initialisms are defined in print, especially in the case of industry-specific jargon, the words forming the abbreviation are often capitalized for clarity. While this would be perfectly acceptable for proper nouns like Kentucky Fried Chicken, some usage writers have argued that it is technically incorrect for other terms like storage area network. Correct or not, such usage is widespread in English publications.

Nomenclature

Initialism originally referred to abbreviations formed from initials, without reference to pronunciation, but during the middle portion of the twentieth century, when acronyms and initialisms saw more use than ever before, the word acronym was coined for abbreviations which are pronounced as a word, like "NATO" or "AIDS". The term initialism is now typically taken to refer to abbreviations which are pronounced by sounding out the name of each constituent letter (e.g. HTML). In general usage, the term acronym is commonly used to describe all abbreviations made from initial letters, regardless of pronunciation. Many writers and speakers do not observe any difference between acronyms and initialisms. There is no agreement as to what to call abbreviations that contain single letters, but can otherwise be pronounced as a word, such as JPEG (Jay-Peg). These abbreviations are sometimes referred to as acronym-initialism hybrids, although they are grouped by most under the broad meaning of acronym.

Examples

- pronounced as a word, containing only initial letters:
- NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organisation
- FIFA: Fédération Internationale de Football Association
- laser: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
- scuba: self-contained underwater breathing apparatus
- RAM: random access memory
- pronounced as a word, containing non-initial letters:
- Interpol: International Criminal Police Organization
- Gestapo: Geheime Staatspolizei ("secret state police")
- radar: radio detection and ranging
- CONMEBOL: Confederación Sudamericana de Fútbol (South American Football Confederation)
- pronounced as a word or names of letters, depending on speaker or context:
- FAQ: (fack or ef-ay-kyu) Frequently asked questions
- SQL: (sequel or es-kyu-el) Structured Query Language
- VAT: (vat or vee-ay-tee): Value added tax
- IRA: (ira or eye-are-ay): When used for Irish Republican Army, always pronounced as letters; when used for Individual Retirement Account, can be pronounced as letters or as a word.
- pronounced as a combination of names of letters and a word:
- OPEC: (OH-pec) Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries
- JPEG: (JAY-peg) Joint Photographic Experts Group
- IUPAC: (AYE-YOU-pac) International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry
- UEFA: (You-EE-fa or You-AY-fa) Union of European Football Associations
- CPU: (cee-pee-you) central processment unit
- pronounced only as the names of letters
- BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
- DNA: DeoxyriboNucleic Acid
- DNS: Domain Name System
- ICBM: Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles
- pronounced as the names of letters that also sound like words
- YRUU: (WHY-are-YOU-YOU?) Young Religious Unitarian Universalists
- pronounced as the names of letters but with a shortcut
- AAA: (triple-AY) American Automobile Association
- IEEE: (AYE-triple-EE) Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
- NAACP: (EN-double-AY-SEE-PEA) National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
- NCAA: (EN-SEE-double-AY) National Collegiate Athletic Association
- shortcut incorporated into name
- 3M: originally Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Company
- W3C: World Wide Web Consortium
- E³: Electronic Entertainment Exposition
- recursive acronyms, where the acronym itself is the expansion of one initial
- VISA: VISA International Service Association
- GNU: GNU's Not Unix
- WINE: Wine Is Not an Emulator
- GOD GOD Over Djinn, from Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach

Trivia

The longest acronym, according to the 1965 edition of Acronyms, Initialisms and Abbreviations Dictionary, is ADCOMSUBORDCOMPHIBSPAC, a United States Navy term that stands for "Administrative Command, Amphibious Forces, Pacific Fleet Subordinate Command." The world's longest initialism, according to the Guinness Book of World Records is NIIOMTPLABOPARMBETZHELBETRABSBOMONIMONKONOTDTEKHSTROMONT. The 56-letter initialism (54 in Cyrillic) is from the Concise Dictionary of Soviet Terminology and means "The laboratory for shuttering, reinforcement, concrete and ferroconcrete operations for composite-monolithic and monolithic constructions of the Department of the Technology of Building-assembly operations of the Scientific Research Institute of the Organization for building mechanization and technical aid of the Academy of Building and Architecture of the USSR." Sometimes an acronym's official meaning is crafted to fit an acronym that actually means something that sounds less "official." For instance, the Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon recently developed in the United States is popularly called the "mother of all bombs" since it is the largest conventional bomb in the world; it is widely assumed that the "mother of all wars" phrase was the true inspiration for the MOAB acronym. During the 1960s trend for action-adventure spy thrillers, it was a common practice for fictional spy organizations or their nemeses to employ names that were acronyms (or more accurately, backronyms). Sometimes these acronyms made sense but most of the time, they were words incongruously crammed together for the mere purpose of obtaining a catchy acronym, traditionally a heroic sounding one for the good guys and an appropriately menacing one for the bad guys. This has become one of the most commonly parodied clichés of the spy thriller genre. Some of the most popular were:
- C.O.N.T.R.O.L. and K.A.O.S. from the Get Smart series.
- F.I.R.M. from the 1980s TV series Airwolf
- M.A.S.K.: The Mobile Armored Strike Kommand, the mask-wearing cohort from 1980s saturday morning cartoon M.A.S.K.
- V.E.N.O.M. : The Vicious, Evil Network Of Mayhem, the evil mask-wearing cohort from 1980s saturday morning cartoon M.A.S.K.
- H.A.R.M. from the No One Lives Forever (NOLF) series of computer games, which were released in the 1990s, but were based in 1960s pop culture. What H.A.R.M actually stands for is never revealed, and speculation about its true meaning is the subject of several jokes in both games. (However, in the 1966 spy film Agent for H.A.R.M., it stands for Human Aetiological Relations Machine.)
- S.H.I.E.L.D. from the Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. Marvel comics.
- S.P.E.C.T.R.E. from the James Bond series.
- U.N.C.L.E. and T.H.R.U.S.H from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (The meaning of T.H.R.U.S.H. was never revealed on the series, but in the novelizations, T.H.R.U.S.H. was stated to be "Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity.)
- P.A.G.A.N. (People Against Goodness and Normalcy) from the film Dragnet.

External links

- [http://www.initialisms.com initialisms.com]— Acronyms, Abbreviations & Initialisms Directory
- [http://www.noslang.com Online Acronym Dictionary & Translator]— Lookup or translate slang and acronyms
- [http://www.acronymfinder.com Acronym Finder]— searchable database of acronyms and abbreviations (over 400,000 entries)
- [http://www.acronymsearch.com Acronym Search]—searchable acronyms and abbreviation database (over 50,000 entries)
- [http://lethargy.swmed.edu/argh/ARGH.asp Biomedical Acronym Database]
- [http://coombs.anu.edu.au/WWWVLPages/AsianPages/Acronyms.html Acronyms Used by Asian Studies' Scholars: a Dictionary]
- [http://www.siglas.com.br English and Portuguese acronyms searchable database (over 200,000 entries)] Category:Abbreviations Category:Types of words ko:두문자어 ja:頭字語 simple:Acronym

Mail

]] The postal system is a system by which written documents typically enclosed in envelopes, and also small packages containing other matter, are delivered to destinations around the world. Anything sent through the postal system is called mail or post. In principle, a postal service can be private or official. Restrictions are generally placed on private systems by governments. Since the 19th century, national postal systems have generally been established as government monopolies with a fee on the article prepaid, often in the form of adhesive stamps. Government monopolies generally do not extend to delivery of parcels or to courier services, which provide express delivery. Postal systems often have functions other than sending letters. In some countries, the postal system also has some authority over telephone and telegraph systems. In others, postal systems allow for savings accounts and handling applications for passports.

Early postal systems

courier Communication via written documents which an intermediary carries from one person or place to another almost certainly dates back nearly to the invention of writing. The development of a formal postal system occurred much later, however. The first documented use of an organized courier service for the diffusion of written documents is in Egypt, where Pharaohs used couriers for the diffusion of their decrees in the territory of the State (2400 BC). This practice almost certainly has roots in the much older practice of oral messaging and may have been built on a pre-existing infrastructure.

Assyria

The first credible claim for the development of a real postal system comes from Persia, but the point of invention remains in question. The best documented claim (Xenophon) attributes the invention to the Persian King Cyrus the Great (550 BC), while other writers credit his successor Darius I of Persia (521 BC) Other sources claim much earlier dates for an Assyrian postal system, with credit given to Hammurabi (1700 BC) and Sargon II (722 BC). Mail may not have been the primary mission of this postal service, however. The role of the system as an intelligence gathering apparatus is well documented, and the service was (later) called angariae, a term that in time turned to indicate a tax system. The Old Testament (Esther, VIII) makes mention of this system: Ahasuerus, king of Medes, used couriers for communicating his decisions.

China

The next credible claimant to the title of first postal system is China. Claims concerning the origins of this mail system also conflict somewhat, but it is clear that an organized postal infrastructure is put in place during Qin Dynasty (221 BC–207 BC) and that was substantially expanded during the subsequent Han Dynasty. The origins of a Chinese mail system may go back to the Zhou Dynasty (1122 BC–256 BC), when Confucius (551 BC–479 BC) says "news of deeds travels faster than the mail." It may also build on a pre-existing messaging infrastructure started by the Shang Dynasty. Whatever its point of origin, the Chinese Postal Service has clear title to the world's oldest continuously operating mail system. Today's Chinese mail system is continuous with one that was probably formalized under the Qin Dynasty.

Rome

The first well documented postal service is that of Rome. Organized at the time of Augustus Caesar (62 BC–AD 14), it may also be the first true mail service. The service was called cursus publicus, and was provided with light carriages called rhedæ with fast horses; additionally there was another, slower, service equipped with two-wheels carts (birolæ) pulled by oxen. This service was reserved to the government's correspondence; another service for citizens was later added. By the name of the stations in which mail was distributed and messengers' routes crossed, derives the Latin name of mail, Posta (originally posata or pausata = place of rest) because in these stations messengers used to rest during their voyages. The English term "mail" is instead supposed coming from the Teutonic name for the bag used by messengers.

Other systems

Another important postal service was created in the Islamic world by the caliph Mu'awiyya; the service was called barid, by the name of the towers that were built in order to protect the roads by which couriers travelled. Well before the Middle Ages and during them, homing pigeons were used, taking advantage of a singular quality of this bird, which when taken far from its nest is able to find his way home due to a particularly developed sense of orientation. Messages were then tied around the legs of the pigeon, which was freed and could reach his original nest. Mail has been transported by quite a few other methods throughout history, including dogsled, balloon, rocket, mule, pneumatic tubes and even submarine. Charlemagne extended to the whole territory of his empire the system used by Franks in northern Gaul, and connected this service with the service of missi dominici. Many religious orders had a private mail service, notably Cistercians' one connected more than 6,000 abbeys, monasteries and churches. The best organisation however was created by Teutonic Knights. The newly instituted universities too had their private services, starting from Bologna (1158). Popular illiteracy was accommodated through the service of scribes. Illiterates who needed to communicate dictated their messages to a scribe, another profession now quite generally disappeared. In 1505, Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I established a postal system in the Empire, appointing Franz von Thurn und Taxis to run it. Von Thurn und Taxis's family, then known as Tassis, had operated postal services between Italian city states from 1290 onwards. Following the abolition of the Empire in 1806 the Thurn und Taxis postal system continued as a private organisation, continuing to exist into the postage stamp era before finally being absorbed into the postal system of the new German Empire after 1871. Study of the mails is also known as postal history.

Modern mail

Modern mail is usually organised by national services (that in recent times are increasingly being replaced by privately owned companies), reciprocally interconnected by international regulations (some of which still in their original 18th-century form, many others of which are set out by the Universal Postal Union), organisations and agreements.

Organization

Universal Postal Union and UPS compete with the United States Postal Service, particularly in package delivery. Different mailboxes are also provided for local and express service.]] The world-wide postal system comprising the individual national postal systems of the world's self-governing states is co-ordinated by the Universal Postal Union, which among other things sets international postage rates, defines standards for postage stamps and operates the system of International Reply Coupons. In many countries a system of codes has been created (they are called ZIP Codes in the United States and postal codes in most other countries), in order to facilitate the automation of operations. This also includes placing additional marks on the address portion of the letter or mailed object, called "bar coding." Bar coding of mail for delivery is usually expressed either by a series of vertical bars, usually called POSTNET coding, or a block of dots as a two-dimensional barcode. The "block of dots" method allows for the encoding of proof of payment of postage, exact routing for delivery, and other features. two-dimensional barcode The ordinary mail service was improved in the 20th century with the use of planes for a quicker delivery (air mail). The first scheduled airmail service took place between the London suburbs of Hendon and Windsor on 9 September 1911. Some methods of airmail proved ineffective, however, including the United States Postal Service's experiment with [http://www.usps.com/history/history/his2_75.htm#MISSILE guided missiles for international mail transport] (external link). Receipts services were made available in order to grant the sender a confirmation of effective delivery. Mail going to naval vessels is known as the Fleet Post Office.

Payment

Worldwide the most common method of prepaying postage is by buying an adhesive postage stamp to be stuck to the envelope before mailing; a much less common method is to use a postage-prepaid envelope. Franking is a method of creating postage-prepaid envelopes under licence using a special machine. They are used by companies with large mail programs such as banks and direct mail companies. In 1998, the U.S. Postal Service authorised the first tests of a secure system of sending digital franks via the Internet to be printed out on a PC printer, obviating the necessity to license a dedicated franking machine and allowing companies with smaller mail programs to make use of the option. The service provided by the U.S. Postal Service in 2003 allows the franks to be printed out on special adhesive-backed labels. In 2004 the Royal Mail in the United Kingdom introduced its SmartStamp Internet-based system, allowing printing on ordinary adhesive labels or envelopes. Similar systems are being considered by postal administrations right around the world. When the pre-paid envelope or package is accepted into the mail by an agent of the postal service, the agent usually indicates by means of a cancellation that it is no longer valid for pre-payment of postage. The exceptions are when the agent forgets or neglects to cancel the mailpiece, or for stamps that are pre-cancelled and thus do not require cancellation.

Rules and etiquette

Mail is quite generally protected by the secret of correspondence (secretus epistulae), meaning that no letter or other document can be read by other than the receiver (under U.S. law, this only applies to First Class Mail). This right is usually guaranteed by most national constitutions, such as the Mexican Constitution, and is alluded to in the European Convention of Human Rights.[http://www.echr.coe.int/Convention/webConvenENG.pdf] Usually, special procedures are required in case correspondence has to be, openly or discreetly, controlled by police. The operations of control of private citizens' mail is called censorship and concerns social, political and legal aspects of civil rights. While in most cases this censorship is exceptional, military censorship of mail, particularly of soldiers at the front, is routine and almost universally applied. In the United Kingdom, once the sender places a letter in a postbox or hands over a parcel to the Post Office to be delivered, they belong to, and are protected by The Crown, until handed over to the recipient. The use of mail is subject to common rules and a particular etiquette. After the discovery of new communicating systems and vehicles, mail lost most of its special charm in favour of more quickly connecting systems such as the telephone, and remained as a vehicle for commercial or formal documents. It is however still widely in use in more cultivated classes for personal communication; in particular, wedding invitations are customarily sent by mail.

Rise of electronic correspondence

Since the advent of e-mail, which is usually faster, the postal system has come to be referred to in Internet slang by the retronym "snail mail". Occasionally, the term "white mail" or "the PaperNet" has also been used as a neutral term for postal mail. In modern times, mainly in the 20th century, mail has found an evolution in vehicles using newer technologies to deliver the documents, especially through the telephone network; these new vehicles include telegram, telex, facsimile (fax), e-mail, short message service (SMS). There have been methods which have combined mail and some of these newer methods, such as INTELPOST, which combined facsimile transmission with overnight delivery. These vehicles commonly use a mechanical or electro-mechanical standardised writing (typing), that on the one hand makes for more efficient communication, while on the other hand makes impossible characteristics and practices that traditionally were in conventional mail, such as calligraphy. This epoch is undoubtedly mainly dominated by mechanical writing, with a general use of no more of half a dozen standard typographic fonts from standard keyboards. However, the increased use of typewritten or computer-printed letters for personal communication and the advent of e-mail, has sparked renewed interest in calligraphy, as a letter has become more of a "special event." Long before e-mail and computer-printed letters, however, decorated envelopes, rubber stamps and artistamps formed part of the medium of mail art.

Collecting

Postage stamps are also object of a particular form of collecting, and in some cases, when demand greatly exceeds supply, their commercial value on this specific market may become enormously greater than face value, even after use. For some postal services the sale of stamps to collectors who will never use them is a significant source of revenue for example postage stamps from Tokelau, South Georgia & South Sandwich Islands, Tristan da Cunha, Niuafo´ou and many others. Stamp collecting is commonly known as philately, although strictly the latter term refers to the study of stamps. Another form of collecting regards postcards, a document written on a single robust sheet of paper, usually decorated with photographic pictures or artistic drawings on one of the sides, and short messages on a small part of the other side, that also contained the space for the address. In strict philatelic usage, the postcard is to be distinguished from the postal card, which has a pre-printed postage on the card. The fact that this communication is visible by other than the receiver often causes the messages to be written in jargon. Letters are often studied as an example of literature, and also in biography in the case of a famous person. A portion of the New Testament of the Bible is composed of the Apostle Paul's epistles to Christian congregations in various parts of the Roman Empire. See below for a list of famous letters. A style of writing, called epistolary, tells a fictional story in the form of the correspondence between two or more characters. A make-shift mail method after stranding on a deserted island is a message in a bottle.

Deregulation

- see also: New Zealand Post Several countries, including Sweden (in 1991), New Zealand (1998 and 2003) and Argentina have opened up the postal services market to new entrants. In the case of New Zealand Post Limited, this included (from 2003) its right to be the sole New Zealand postal administration member of the Universal Postal Union, thus the ending of its monopoly on stamps bearing the name New Zealand.

Types of mail

Universal Postal Union

Letters

Letter-sized mail comprises the bulk of the contents sent through most postal services. These are usually documents printed on A4 (210×297 mm), Letter-sized (8.5×11 inches), or smaller paper and placed in envelopes. While many things are sent through the mail, interpersonal letters are often thought of first in reference to postal systems. Handwritten correspondence, while once a major means of communications between distant people, is now used less frequently due to the advent of more immediate means of communication, such as the telephone or e-mail. Traditional letters, however, are often considered to harken back to a "simpler time" and are still used when someone wishes to be deliberate and thoughtful about his or her communication. Bills and invoices are often sent through the mail, like regular billing correspondence from utility companies and other service providers. These letters often contain a self-addressed, envelope that allows the receiver to remit payment back to the company easily. While still very common, many people now opt to use online bill payment services, which eliminate the need to receive bills through the mail. Bulk mail, often called junk mail, are commercial solicitations sent by advertisers. The senders of these messages sometimes purchase lists of addresses (which are sometimes targeted towards certain demographics) and then send letters advertising their product or service to all recipients. Other times, commercial solicitations are sent by local companies advertising local products, like a restaurant delivery service advertising to their delivery area or a retail store sending their weekly advertising circular to a general area. Bulk mail is also often sent to companies' existing subscriber bases, advertising new products or services. Many other things are also sent as letters through postal services, like wedding invitations and bank statements.

Repositionable Notes

The United States Postal Service has recently permitted "repositionable notes" to be attached to the outside of envelopes.[http://www.usps.com/communications/news/press/2005/pr05_028.htm]

Postal cards and postcards

Postal cards and postcards are small message cards which are sent by mail unenveloped; the distinction often, though not invariably and reliably, drawn between them is that "postal cards" are issued by the postal authority or entity with the "postal indica" (or "stamp") preprinted on them, while postcards are privately issued and require affixing an adhesive stamp (though there have been some cases of a postal authority's issuing non-stamped postcards). Postcards are often printed today to promote tourism, with pictures of resorts, tourist attractions or humorous messages on the front and allowing for a short message from the sender to be written on the back. The postage required for postcards is generally less than postage required for standard letters, although the United States Postal Service has imposed a surcharge for the purchase of postal cards, over and above the required postage. Postcards are also used by magazines for new subscriptions. Inside many magazines are postage-paid subscription cards that a reader can fill out and mail back to the publishing company to be billed for a subscription to the magazine. In this fashion, magazines also use postcards for other purposes, including reader surveys, contests or information requests. Postcards are sometimes sent by charities to their members with a message to be signed and sent to a politician (e.g. to promote fair trade or third world debt cancellation). third world debt

Other

Larger envelopes are also sent through the mail. These are often made of sturdier material than standard envelopes and are often used by businesses to transport documents that are not to be folded or damaged, such as legal documents and contracts. Due to their size, larger envelopes are sometimes charged additional postage. Packages are often sent through some postal services, usually requiring additional postage than an average letter or postcard. Many postal services have limits on what can and cannot be sent inside packages, usually placing limits or bans on perishable, hazardous or flammable materials. Additionally, because of terrorism concerns, the U.S. Postal Service subjects their packages to various security tests, often scanning or x-raying packages for materials that might be found in mail bombs. Magazine subscriptions are also sent through postal services. Many magazines are simply placed in the mail normally (but in the U.S., they are printed with a special bar code that acts as pre-paid postage - see POSTNET) but many are now shipped in shrinkwrap to protect the loose contents of the magazine.

Famous letters

- Rainer Maria Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet
- Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Letter from Birmingham Jail
- The Pauline epistles
- Samantha Smith's letter to Yuri Andropov
- Virginia O'Hanlon's letter to the New York Sun, replied to in a famous editorial

List of national postal services

famous editorial
- An Post (Ireland)
- Australia Post
- Canada Post
- China Post, 中国邮政 (People's Republic of China)
- Chunghwa Post, 中華郵政 (Republic of China)
- Correos (Spain)
- Correios (Brazil)
- CTT (Portugal)
- Deutsche Post (Germany)
- De Post, La Poste, Die Post or The Post (Belgium)
- Hongkong Post (Hong Kong)
- Indian Postal Service
- Indonesian Post - Pos Indonesia
- Japan Post
- Jersey Post, (Jersey)
- La Poste (France)
- Magyar Posta (Hungary)
- New Zealand Post
- PhilPost-Philippine Postal Corporation (Philippines)
- Post Danmark (Denmark)
- Poste Italiane (Italy)
- Posten (Sweden)
- Poşta Română</

ZIP Code

Background

Development

Postal abbreviations

ZIP+4

Postal bar code

Structure and allocation

By geography

Unmatching city limits with ZIP-codes & changes

By type/use

Other uses

Pop culture

See also

U.S. Postal Service codes

Postal codes in other countries

External links

United States Postal Service

Governance and organization

Monopoly status

Subsidized services

Types of postal facilities

Addressing envelopes

Mail sorting

Major products and services

First Class Mail

Standard Mail

Bulk Mail

Parcel Post

Media Mail

Library mail

Priority Mail

Express Mail

Postal Money orders

Global services

Airline and rail division

Add-on services

Delivery confirmation

Signature confirmation

Insurance

Certified Mail

Registered Mail

Collect On Delivery (C.O.D.)

Postage stamps

Copyright and reproduction

PC postage

Sponsorships

Employment in the USPS

Public reputation

See also

Unions of the U.S. Postal Service

External links

Acronym

History

Written usage

Nomenclature

Examples

Trivia

See also

External links

Mail

Early postal systems

Assyria

China

Rome

Other systems

Modern mail

Organization

Payment

Rules and etiquette

Rise of electronic correspondence

Collecting

Deregulation

Types of mail

Letters

Repositionable Notes

Postal cards and postcards

Other

See also

Famous letters

List of national postal services