Editing Letter (message) (section)

==Delivery process==
{{main|Mail}}
[[File:20160728MessageInBottleComposite.png | thumb | upright=1.5 | An unconventional delivery method is shown by this [[message in a bottle]]. This bottle and its contents (sample postcard and insert shown above) were launched into the Atlantic Ocean in 1959 by the [[United States Coast and Geodetic Survey]] and were found in 2013 at a beach on [[Martha's Vineyard]].<ref name=NEFSC20140314>{{cite web |last1=Dawicki |first1=Shelley |title=Drift Bottle Found on Martha's Vineyard Has Quite a Story to Tell |url=http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/news/features/mv_bottle/ |publisher=NOAA's Northeast Fisheries Science Center (NEFSC) |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150210235757/http://www.nefsc.noaa.gov/news/features/mv_bottle |archive-date=February 10, 2015 |date=March 14, 2014 |url-status=live }}</ref>]]
Here is how a letter gets from the sender to the recipient:
# Sender composes and writes letter and may fold the letter so that it fits in an envelope. For bulk mailings, a [[folding machine]] may be employed.
# Sender places the letter in an [[envelope]] on which the recipient's address is written on the front of the envelope, or often is visible through a transparent window of the envelope. Sender ensures that the recipient's address includes the ZIP or Postal Code (if applicable) and historically often included their return address on the envelope.
# For small volume private letters, the sender buys a postage stamp and attaches it to the top right corner on the front of the envelope. (For most commercial letters, postage stamps are not used: a [[postage meter|franking machine]] or other methods are used to pay for postage.)
# Sender puts the letter in a postbox.
# The national postal service of the sender's country (e.g. [[Royal Mail]], UK; [[United States Postal Service|USPS]], United States; [[Australia Post]] in Australia; or [[Canada Post]] in Canada) empties the postbox and transports all the contents to the local sorting office.
# The sorting office then sorts each letter by address and postcode and sends the letters destined for a particular area to that area's local sorting office (sometimes called a delivery office). Letters addressed to a different region may go through more than one stage of transmission and sorting.
# The local delivery personnel collect the letters from the delivery office and deliver them to the proper addresses. In some areas, recipients may need to collect the letters from the local office.

This process, depending on how far the sender is from the recipient, can take anywhere from a day to 3–4 weeks. International mail is sent via [[trains]] and airplanes to other countries.

In 2008, Janet Barrett in the UK received an [[RSVP]] to a party invitation addressed to 'Percy Bateman', from 'Buffy', allegedly originally posted on 29 November 1919. It had taken 89 years to be delivered by the Royal Mail.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Guinness Book of World Records 2014|last=Glenday|first=Craig|year=2013|isbn=978-1-908843-15-9|pages=[https://archive.org/details/guinnessworldrec0000unse_r3e7/page/127 127]|url=https://archive.org/details/guinnessworldrec0000unse_r3e7/page/127}}</ref> However, Royal Mail denied this, saying that it would be impossible for a letter to have remained in their system for so long, as checks are carried out regularly. Instead, the letter dated 1919 may have "been a collector's item which was being sent in another envelope and somehow came free of the outer packaging".<ref name="tele1">{{cite news|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3683828/Royal-Mail-delivers-letter-89-years-late.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170413195911/http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/3683828/Royal-Mail-delivers-letter-89-years-late.html|archive-date=13 April 2017|date=8 December 2008|access-date=13 April 2017|title=Royal Mail delivers letter 89 years late|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]}}</ref>