- postman
- The man who collects and delivers mail is a postman in Britain, a mailman in the USA. In Somerset Maugham’s short story Episode a girl runs to catch a postman who has just emptied a box. ‘“Postman,” she cried, “take this letter, will you.”’ In the story she eventually marries the man concerned.A postman originally carried mail from post to post, from one post-stage to another, along the socalled post-roads. In former times, especially in rural districts, the postman could become a wellknown individual. In Lark Rise, Flora Thompson writes:There was one postal delivery a day, and towards ten o’clock the heads of the women beating their mats would be turned towards the allotment path to watch for ‘Old Postie.’ ‘No, I ain’t got nothin’ for you, Mrs Parish,’ he would call. ‘Your young Annie wrote to you only last week. She’s got summat else to do beside sittin’ down on her arse writing home all the time.’In The House with the Green Shutters, by George Douglas, which is set in a Scottish town, the postman is referred to in the third person as ‘Postie’, or ‘the Post’. At one time he is addressed directly as ‘Post’, a few moments after he discovers the bodies of three suicides: ‘Oh, my God, Post, what have you seen, to bring that look to your eyes? What have you seen, man?’
A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . Leslie Dunkling . 2015.