Grateful if you would share with me a proper word/term to describe the period of time used for processing and delivering a mail.
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There's no such word.– OldcatCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 1:30
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1You might call the period between posting and receiving the transit time. In a suitable context where you're going to need to reference this quantity a lot, you could reasonably shorten it to just transit.– FumbleFingersCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 1:33
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@Oldcat - I wonder if the Postal Service has a name for it.– anongoodnurseCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 1:34
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They might, but it is still just jargon.– OldcatCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 1:35
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1I would call that the handling time, because it encompasses every second between the sender depositing their mail in a letterbox or at a post office, and the mail/postal carrier delivering it to its destination. But for authoritative answers you should really approach the mail delivery agencies/postal services operating in the country (or countries) in question. Especially today, when all kinds of efficiency-related metrics are being used in commerce and industry (including service industries), they will almost certainly have their own technical terms for this time interval.– Erik KowalCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 3:41
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3 Answers
By the way, you don't say "delivering a mail". It's "a piece of mail" or "a letter" or "a package". You might have gotten confused because people often refer to "an e-mail" or "[x] e-mails" when they mean "an e-mail message" or "[x] e-mail messages" respectively.
answered Dec 12, 2014 at 12:17
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What does this have to do with the question about the time period that it takes?– BarmarCommented Dec 12, 2014 at 23:34
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Nothing at all. It's an aside ("By the way,") addressing the OP's mistaken usage "a mail". And thank you for asking. Commented Dec 12, 2014 at 23:53
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Noted with thanks. "A mail" was used for letter, package, email and etc. in general. Grateful if you could let me know a more proper expression. Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 6:37
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say "a letter" if you mean a letter; "a box" if you mean a box. "A parcel" or "a package" could include any piece of mail other than a letter. And "a piece of mail" includes both letters and packages. As for e-mail, I prefer to call individual pieces of e-mail "messages", but most of the English-speaking world seems to think that "e-mail" is a count noun, even though "mail" isn't. I have never heard a good reason for this. Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 8:09
When a seller sends an item to me, and it has left the country but not yet arrived, it's listed as "in transit".
Delivery time
Googling for mail transit time shows that this is what postal services generally call it.