Today I learned that during World War II, the American government committed German mail fraud. 

Part of Operation Cornflakes, as it was called, air-dropped bags of correctly-addressed propaganda mail that the US Office of Strategic Services had created into areas where German trains with mail cars had been bombed.  The idea was that the Germans would collect all the mail bags that had been thrown from the train and put them back into the mail system.  They forged the German stamps at the time, and included a Cinderella stamp inside for the receiver that had Hitler's head drawn as a skull, with a slight rhyming alteration to the words: "German Empire" was turned into "Destroyed Empire." 

It totally worked; 3800 of these propaganda mailings were air-dropped and picked up by the Germans in January of 1945, and subsequently delivered to their intended recipients.

Wikipedia doesn't say if it happened more than the one occasion, but I can't imagine the OSS went through all the effort of forging German postage, making their own Cinderellas, acquiring accurate German addresses, typing or hand-addressing all those addresses, and stuffing the envelopes with their propaganda newsletters just to test it out once.

I also found this site, which talks a bit about different propaganda campaigns the Allies had in various European countries.  According to their article, the OSS got the addresses from the German public death notices of Nazi soldiers, and sent propaganda to the grieving family members.  Harsh, but probably pretty effective.  It says they sent hundreds of these by "clandestine means" every two weeks from 1942 on, so that would make it a larger-scale operation than the Wikipedia entry would lead one to believe.  Possibly they got the mail into Germany by means other than air-dropping it before 1945.

Coining a word is nerdy work.

I've always been curious about what to call myself as a lover of all things postal. While I enjoy Donovan's colorful "postal pervert" moniker, I didn't want to be too high on the Google search results for that one. "Philatelist" is the perfect word for postage stamp aficionados, but its popular meaning is too specific. I like stamps, but I also like mail art and letters and envelopes and stationery and post office buildings, which aren't understood to be covered under "philatelist."

As someone who majored in English, I have often claimed that I am qualified to make up words if I wanted. Usually they're of the "ricockulous" variety, but after I complained about the lack of a word for postal love one too many times, Dan told me to put that claimed-expertise to work, and then helped me look some etymologies up.

I liked the idea of keeping the love of all things postal-related to the already recognized love of postage stamps, which, as I said above, already has a word: philately. Turns out that since the postage stamp didn't exist until 1840, the word was coined by Georges Herpin in 1864 who was having the exact same problem I am in wanting a better word to describe his hobby. He joined the Greek "phil," meaning "brotherly love or affection" to the closest word to stamp in Greek that he could come up with, "ateleia," meaning lack of taxes, since stamps at the time were used for both postage and as proof of payment of duties.

Georges Herpin, that sexy, word-coining bastard.

Of course, since an official, government-sanctioned postal service wasn't invented in ancient Greece, there isn't exactly an ancient Greek word for it, either, so I'm back to where our friend Georges was, and needed to find something that fit the general idea I was going for.

I started translating mail-related words into Greek to see what popped up as possible fits. "Mail" transliterated roughly into "taxidromeio," which seemed too close to the literal translation of "philately." Once I transliterated the translation of "letter," though, I knew I had my answer. I had no idea that "epistle" was already based in Greek ("epystol"), and I already have affection for the word since it relates to a form of literature; an epistolary novel is one of my favorite genres.

So.

Phil*e*pist*list (fil-ih-pis-list)
noun
One who enjoys writing and receiving letters & postal mail.

No longer shall we have to describe our hobby as "well, I really love mail and mail art and pen pals and pretty stationery and making my own envelopes." We have a word! Go forth, my fellow philepistlists, and proliferate our new moniker!

Edited to add:
The incredibly smart Ashley came up with adding a resting syllable in there to make it "philepistolist." I like it being easier to say, but then the T will be pronounced instead of silent like in "epistle." What are your thoughts?

50+ and counting!

I was so happy to watch my hearts climb upward last night, reaching 50 shortly after midnight (Eastern time, that is). I went to bed super-excited.

So imagine how thrilled I was to wake up and see that people had continued adding me to their faves even after the goal was reached! I'm currently at 52 -- and of course, always welcome more hearts! Thank you so much for your support.

As promised, to celebrate I'm going to host a giveaway of a handmade product of mine. I have been getting feedback about the Recycled Stationery Letter Sets --people love the maps and want more of them in the package. The map envelopes are time consuming to cut, so to keep costs down for customers, I had only included one map envelope in each packet, and used reclaimed envelopes for the rest of the set. But so many people have found the letter sets while searching for maps that I am going to split the product line. There will be a set with all map envelopes and blank labels, and then a set with all reclaimed envelopes with handmade map stickers at a lower price point. This will more accurately reflect the skill and time that go into making each letter set.

I'll be repackaging all of the letter sets this weekend to reflect the change, and I'll post here once they're live in my Etsy shop. However, one lucky commenter will be able to get the very first revamped set! If you want to play, leave a comment here with either a) your re-use resolution for 2009, or b) why you like something in my Etsy shop, along with a bot-proof email address to reach you. (While not required, you are more than welcome to pimp my giveaway on your own blog, linking back to this post.) To celebrate the United States' new beginning along with the new beginning of the Recycled Stationery Letter Sets, comments will have to be received by 11:59pm EST on Tuesday, January 20th. I'll use the scientific method of putting the entries in a box on Wednesday and pull one out. The winner will be posted here (maybe along with some pictures I take at Inauguration?), so tune in!

And, of course, if you want to heart craftgasm you are still more than welcome to do so. ;)