你有多久沒有收到過紙質(zhì)的信件了？那些騎著自行車走街串巷送信的郵遞員也不知道還有多少在崗。網(wǎng)絡(luò)、手機(jī)讓我們的信息傳送越來越便捷，也難怪大家要把人工投遞的信件稱為snail mail了。

Snail mail refers to a letter or package physically delivered by a postal service, suggesting that the service is as slow as a snail. People would like to use this term especially when the object mailed could have been sent electronically via e-mail and arrived at the destination instantly.

“蝸牛郵件”指通過人工郵政投遞的信件或包裹，snail在這里暗示這種投遞方式的速度跟蝸牛一樣慢。當(dāng)某件郵品本可以通過電子郵件即刻送達(dá)收件人卻沒有這樣做的時候，人們就用會snail mail來表達(dá)兩種投遞方式的區(qū)別。

For example:

Paranoid about "hackers" spying on him, my boss insists on sending all correspondence via snail mail, which means I can't use my spam filter to ignore him.

因?yàn)槔蠐?dān)心有黑客監(jiān)視，我老板堅(jiān)持所有的函件用郵政投遞，這就意味著我沒法用垃圾郵件過濾器把他的郵件給過濾掉了。

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（中國日報網(wǎng)英語點(diǎn)津 Helen 編輯）

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