你有多久沒有收到過紙質的信件了？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。網絡、手機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。當某件郵品本可以通過電子郵件即刻送達收件人卻沒有這樣做的時候，人們就用會snail mail來表達兩種投遞方式的區別。

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.

因為老擔心有黑客監視，我老板堅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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（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

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