Posts tagged ‘canada’
Punctuation is Not Allowed in Mailing Addresses
Whether it’s a personal or business letter, every piece of mail I receive has the address formatted differently. Some even have the return and destination addresses formatted differently.
Since the post office has very strict requirements for addressing a letter, they should all be exactly the same. The post office guidelines are recommended for fastest delivery and I’ve compiled a list of rules that are the most surprising or commonly abused.
Since most of my readers are in North America, I’ve compared the requirements from the US Postal Service and Canada Post — they’re very similar and they contain good practices that are applicable to sending mail in most places.
Mail is typically sorted by a machine, but if the machine can’t determine the address then it will be dropped in a bin for a human to sort it. Most of the requirements are design to make it easy for the machine to understand where you’re trying to send your letter.
No Punctuation Allowed
One rule that will surprise most people: no punctuation is allowed. I know your third grade teacher said you should put a comma between the city and the state, and maybe she was right at the time, but that’s not right anymore. Don’t use periods either, using punctuation will only slow the mail down. It’s going to be a tough habit to break, I know. There is one exception, and that is when the name of the City, Street or Town contains punctuation, such as an apostrophe (for example: St John’s). (more…)
The Origin of Boxing Day
December 26th (today) is Boxing Day.
If you’re American, you might see it on your calendar every year and wonder what it is. If you live in the UK, Canada, Australia or most other commonwealth countries, then you probably get the day off and don’t really know why.
It is a popular day for sporting events in these countries, but its relation to the sport of boxing is only legend. In fact, the name is derived from an old tradition of servants and housekeepers collected their gifts (boxes) on the day after Christmas, in exchange for reliable service throughout the year.
In Europe, it dates back to the Middle Ages, although the exact origin is not known. It was traditionally a time when wealthy people gave seasonal gifts to less fortunate people. Today, the holiday is almost entirely secular and for most people it identifies the start of after Christmas sales and shopping sprees.
BrokenSecrets.com
Big thanks to Chris and Jeanne for sharing this secret!
