Effective Addressing - How To Address Your Mail

International Mail

Link to a site with lots of good info (current) and also links to maps and other data.

http://www.columbia.edu/kermit/postal.html

Good info. I don't do too many international mailings, though.

Nevertheless, I am always intrigued by the US Postal Service preference identified in your link that states you put the entire address all in CAPITAL LETTERS and not to use a comma between the city and state name. This goes against everything I was ever taught in school about how to correctly address a business envelope and if you cut and paste an address from a computer's word processor to print an envelope, that means you either have to type the address in upper case letters in the body of the letter or re-type it for the envelope.

We are always cautioned about NOT doing this on the computer as it is as if we are "screaming" the words to the recipient.

So do we follow the school teacher's guide? The computer etiquette guide? Or the U.S. Postal Service who are making their own rules?

P.S. By the way, it's getting late, so to conclude with the joke of the day, let me respond to the title of your post "How to address your mail" ... and suggest that the answer is "Hello, Mail!"

It is late!

Canada Post is the same in regards to no punctuation. I thought it was odd and my letter would not arrive at its destination as no one would understand it without proper punctuation; commas and such.

But then I thought, well, it is mostly the sorting machines that this is for, and since they are mostly responsible in many places for the mail getting to where a human would take it and deliver it I had best use the correct form as per Canada Post.

Not for human consumption apparently.

Also use Courier New font type at maximum size of 12 point for the address and I use 10 point for the return address. As for placement I try to copy the windowed envelopes placement of their addressing. People who mail a lot of stuff know how to do it right. Oh no, it is getting late!

In Word go to the Format drop-down menu and choose Change Case to change to all capital letters.

wt1,

I have no idea as to why those instructions for the U.S. are saying that. Like you, I was taught the proper way of addressing an envelope including all the proper capitol letters, periods, and commas. That was if it was handwritten. I have seen business envelopes addressed in caps sometimes and I do remember being taught that in typing class in high school.

Now, with filing out forms on the internet and lets say I was sending for something free. I have typed it in the way it's supposed to be and have noticed that when I get the item in the mail the address is all in caps and no punctuation.

I think it has something to do with HTML (hyper text mark-up language). When the computer is reading back something to be printed out, like an address label, there is no code for periods, commas, apostrophe's and so on. The PC doesn't understand it so just translates it in the code that it was pre-programmed with.

Hope this made some sense.

It probably has to do with optical character recognition software used in reading the addresses and processing the mail. Caps are relatively uniform and easy to block print, and punctuation isn't needed.

My Mum's postie, being in a small village, often just open the front doors and shouts "MAIL!" as he he leaves the pile of letters inside. He told me one day he has been waiting in vain for years for someone to call back the reply, "FEMALE!".

On an item I mailed to Canada, I took it to the Post Office already addressed. The Postmaster whited out the country (city, too if I recall right) and re-wrote them in all capital letters. Said it was a USPS rule. Didn't seem there was too much room for compromise.

Quite the sense of humour he has, your postie!

In the instructions to properly request a USPS pictorial postmark it says to write the address in all CAPITAL letters and do not use punctuation. This can be read in the biweekly USPS POSTAL BULLETIN in the philately section showcasing the current FDOI and event postmarks. It seemed strange to me when I read it. Now I have an idea as to why. Thanks.