How big is a letter?

The answer to the question of how big a letter has to be is, as Goldilocks with the three bears put it, not too long and not too short but just right. It is nonetheless a question that has much preoccupied letter-writers, anxious to do it right in the eyes of the people they are writing to.

What has become the world’s most famous correspondence is the recent exchange of letters between Donald Trump of the US and Kim Jong Un of North Korea. Trump sent a strange letter to Kim, with its text published in a photographed as well as transcribed form adding up to a rather petulant brush off, saying there would be no meeting between them. It is full of phrases seemingly culled from a speak-formal etiquette manual and has Trump’s gigantic signature in thick black ink dominating it. But Kim has outdone Trump by sending him a very big letter, delivered by a rather small official envoy, with the envelope dwarfing the 6 foot 3 Trump as well as the envoy. Kim’s text remains unknown so far. Trump said it was an interesting letter, but a bit later added he hadn’t read it. But it doesn’t matter, does it, for the envelopes says it all. Gotcha!

Last updated:  7 June 2018