Mail Poll

[radcliffe]

Poll Mail

Comments

[lil_m_moses]

I think the answer to the question depends on context. The batch is email, just like the stack of stuff you remove from the mailbox is mail. However, if you're talking about multiple individual messages (as when a specific person is pestering you about something), the paper version would more likely be described as letters in order to distinguish the plurality of them. In that case, I'd call them emails or notes (as we rarely refer to electronic correspondence as letters).

[radcliffe]

What I think is interesting is the varied answers!

[mckitterick]

Just what I was going to write. Several individual emails vs. a lot of email. Kind of like many grains of sand vs. sand (when referring to an entire beach).

"I got a lot of email today."

"Three separate emails informed me that I had won the lottery."

[queza7]

I'm not 10% sure on the pluralization, but e-mail is definitely spelled with a dash (according to my AP Stylebook).

[mckitterick]

Well, the silly Associated Press also says not to use serial commas, even when it introduces confusion. Feh on the AP, I say! *g*

[queza7]

You leave the standards of my chosen profession alone! *g*

[mckitterick]

*g*

(Most tech writers use Chicago...)

[diermuid]

You don't say you have 'a' mail, you say you have mail.

But, you DO say you have 'an' email. which means you can use it in the singular rather than plural, which you can't do with mail. Although I'll admit, it gets funny as we analyze it more.

[mama2jude]

That bunch of things sitting in your in-box is collectively, email (e-mail is so ye olde fashioned). "I logged into my account and had a ton of new email."

However, since each message is an email, you would pluralize it by adding an s. "I had 26 new emails this morning!"

Plural: emails
Collective: email