One of the great pleasures of life, I feel, is receiving a letter in the post. I mean a friendly letter of course, not a bill, a speeding fine or a sales catalogue. When I first arrived in Australia, many moons ago, phone calls were only used in case of emergencies and the post played a huge part in communicating with my family back home. My mother wrote frequently, with long letters full of news about the family and the neighbourhood. They made me laugh and cry and generally feel less lonely.

The postal service plays an important role here at Lovatts. Although emails are becoming ever more popular, we still receive regular sacks from the Post Office containing competition entries and letters. One of my favourite tasks is reading the letters, because it keeps me in touch with readers. And one reader recently asked: Why do we have two words, post and mail, meaning the same thing?

In the 19thC, mail referred to correspondence going out of the country and post meant incoming letters. So, you sent mail and received post. Mail comes from male, Old French for a bag or wallet and then went on to mean a bag of letters. Today’s French word malle, meaning box or trunk, is from the same source. Post comes from the Latin ponere ‘to place’ from the idea of placing riders at intervals along a road to convey letters at speed by relay system. The word ‘post-haste’ comes from this direction on letters.

Another reader recently claimed that we were using American words in our crosswords, such as ‘mail’ and ‘jail’. Yet both words are of Old English origin. The American version of our Royal Mail is the United States Post Office. Perhaps the confusion comes from our postman being called a mailman in the USA, and our postbox is their mailbox. Very few words used in America haven’t had a British history, and we are very careful to use the correct meaning. The main difference is spelling, and we never use American spelling in our crosswords.

However, with cinema and song lyrics popularising American expressions, I would be amazed if anyone in Australia or New Zealand didn’t know that closet, cookie and sidewalk meant wardrobe, biscuit and footpath.

While on the subject of post, please be aware that if you have any difficulty finding Lovatts titles on the shelves of your newsagents, you can receive them in the post by subscription.

Happy Puzzling!