A promise from the writer to reply to everyone who writes back.
| Type | Modern abbreviation |
|---|---|
| Stands for | All letters answered |
ALA belongs to the era of print personals answered by mail, when replying cost a stamp and an evening. We have not found a reliable date for its first use. Its spirit is old: nineteenth-century writers sometimes promised that all answers would be treated in confidence, and ALA made a different promise, that every letter would get a reply.
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