#@messaging@# (e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer networksand/or via modems over telephone lines. A message, especially one following the common RFC 822by a blank line, and the body of the message. An increasing different kinds rather than just one block of plain ASCIItext. It is conventional for the body to end with a sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get The message is "composed" by the sender, usuallya using a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another host. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using SMTP. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's mailbox - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same MUA as used by the sender). The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread) messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaining "to send (something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of "an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now (2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass noun. Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure", network. Also "email" is German for enamel. (2002-07-14)
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