When referring to email in a business context (or any other) is it acceptable to say mail or should I always write email?
I have a secure email product for use on smartphones and would like to know if it is alright to market it as a Secure Mobile Mail product or if I should call it a Secure Mobile Email product.
Normally, I would think "mail" refers to "snail mail," while electronic mail is called "email."
That said, the two-word phrase "Mobile Email" almost sounds redundant - the word "mobile" connotes electronic mail. Hence, from a marketing perspective, I prefer "Secure Mobile Mail" to "Secure Mobile Email." It sounds less antiquated and more trendy.
The danger with a trendy name is that it may sound outdated in a few years. In this case, though, I think "Mobile Email" is more likely to sound antiquated before "Mobile Mail." Ergo, I'd recommend the more edgy title.
Im my world as a computer programmer on the net since the early 80s, a plain, unadorned “mail” means electronic mail. Snail mail means postal mail.
Huffman encoding says to use the shorter thing for whatever you use more often. Because all my mail is electronic, it requires some extra qualifier to indicate that it’s come through the post.
I can’t imagine people would get those confused.
I'd apply the "what's to lose" rule: If you say "email", there is no ambiguity. If you say "mail", people might be confused. What's the harm of including the extra "e"? There's the obvious gain of eliminating ambiguity, and the cost is ... what? Straining your fingers typing one extra character?
Just because a product is software running on a computer doesn't automatically mean that it must be about email and not snail mail. I have a software product I use all the time called "stamps.com" that prints hieroglypics on envelopes that the post office accepts for snail-mail postage. Many people use "mail merge" software to insert postal addresses into documents which they then print and snail-mail. Etc. Off the top of my head I can't think of anything particularly useful to do on a cell phone involving snail mail, but who knows? Why make people wonder? (Well now that I think about, I could at least imagine a potentially-useful app: You key an address and some codes into your cell phone and it sends a message to some mailing center to mail a letter or catalog or product samples or whatever to that address. I'm sure a sufficiently creative person could think of other possible apps.)
From context, the majority of users would probably be able to infer that 'mail' refers to electronic mail rather than the physical type. Insofar as just grammar goes, both are acceptable. However, I would personally use 'email' instead for one reason: it's clearer. If you mean to say email, then say email.
I think of mail as a general concept that can contain both snail mail and email. In contexts where only one specialization is relevant, it doesn't matter if you use the general concept or the specialization. But that doesn't mean that the generalization is synonymous with that specialization.
I can say "Have some fruit" and reach you bananas. This doesn't mean that fruit must always stand for bananas, but in this very situation it is as clear as saying "Have some bananas".
A Mobile is an electronic device. 'E' stands for electronic. It should be Email or E-mail.
Else why would people introduce it? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Email
Mobile here stands not for 'mobility' but for "smartphone" - a device. A device that sends email, not mail.
