I Do Not Like Mean Words in Spam

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You've Got Too Much Mail

I grew up hearing my elders fume about junk mail; then, as an adult, I felt the same irritation: “Who could possibly think I’d be interested in a free hearing test or discount coupons from a feed store?”

I discarded a letter offering a free night in a condo in Vegas for a few minutes of my time and a flyer advertising slippers that baby bunions, not knowing an eruption of something called spam would soon make supermarket flyers and circulars from used-car dealers seem inconsequential.

In the first three months of 2013, almost 100 billion spam emails were sent every day, and blog spam was increasing rapidly.

I appreciate WordPress for sniffing out spam sent to Aunt Beulah. My great-aunt — who knew Spam as a canned meat not even her skilled cooking and fresh vegetables could improve — wouldn’t have wanted to be the titular head of a blog bombarded by unsolicited messages that make no sense and are up to no good. Were she alive, she’d snort, “Ridiculous!” and probably add a bad word or two.

White conceptual keyboard - Spam (red key)

So when I read there are eleven messages in my spam queue, safely corralled, waiting for me to permanently delete them, I do so with a vengeance, snickering when senders tell me they are “reading views of all friends eager to getting known how;” that I should “read this or else, fun diptart9;” and that “asking questions are trulyy god thing if you are underfoot.”

The other day I deleted an unintentionally amusing bit of spam; but first I copied it for your enjoyment:

Definitely believe that which you stated. Your favorite reason appeared to be on the
net the simplest thing to be aware of. I say to you.
I definitely get irked while people consider worries
that they plainly do not know about nothing. You managed to hit the nail upon the
 top and defined out the whole thing without having side effect, people could take a signal. Will likely be back
to get more maybes thank you.

I was so happy to learn I had hit the nail upon the top.

If I were to reply to this convoluted inanity, my message would read, “I won’t beat around the shrub. You certainly bit upon more than you can gnaw here; and, furthermore, you’re woofing along the wrong tree.”

50 thoughts on “I Do Not Like Mean Words in Spam”

    • I guess it’s the price we pay for the quickness and availability of our various forms of communication. And you are so correct, nothings seems to deter or even semi-control them.

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  5. The filters on blogger appear to work fairly well, however I still get an occasional comment that doesn’t make any sense at all. Usually I delete them after reading only a couple words. But from this post I can see that some of them are both annoying and amusing!
    I suppose spam—how did it get that name, anyway?—has always been with us and always will be.

    Janet, my surgery is coming up on Thursday. I suppose I’ll be typing with only my left hand (if at all!) for awhile.

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    • Good luck with the surgery, my friend. I’m going to assume everything will go well, but I’ll be relieved when I hear from you again. I, too, think spam will be our constant companion and have no idea how its name originated.

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  9. Have a scar on my left hand from an errant Spam Tin…to the inter-web kind I say- Slibber sauce begone, poop noddy magsman, you are mere Mawg-wallop. Great post Janet, well said.

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      • That ‘un scared me into the closet, where a black dust mop was equally terrifying, Ma, sick of changing wet pants switched me to Edward Lear, “The Jumblies”, “Owl and Pussycat”, still love them, he had a sad, lonely life. Teachers gave me the odd whistersneet for being spiss and sloomy, but you probably had a few in your iswonk- cheers!

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  11. It is obvious that English is not the first language of many spammers. I am sometimes amused at the convoluted manner in which they try to convince you that they honestly care about your post. My first clue that a comment is spam is when I see that the comment is on a post I wrote 6 months ago. Fun post.

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    • I feel the same cynicism about “likes” I receive on old posts from hot hunks or beauties who blog on topics of little interest to me and, in turn, would find little of interest to them in my posts.

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  13. Sadly funny and true. I also get telemarketers who sound like this. They usually say “Hi, my name is Dave, Bill, etc..” when it is painfully obvious from their accent there is no way that would be their name.
    I will also add that there are certain lawyers who shall not be named who write court briefs like this. I know I am in good hands with my attorneys because their writing skills are impeccable.

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  16. “get irked while people consider worries that they plainly do not know about nothing” Uh-oh. That kinda describes comments I’ve made: I’ll scrub-up at my act.
    Delightful reading, Aunt Beulah.

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    • Thanks, Mercy, but I must tell you I see no relationship between the “get irked” comment and any that you have written, but it tickled me that you are going to “scrub-up” your act.

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  18. My Dad would entertain himself by occasionally replying to the odd bit of spam. It would usually be to someone who had insisted he had won some large amount of money! He died in November last year. We found amongst his papers a small file named ridiculous letters. My sister read them out and we listened and laughed. Thanks for the reminder!

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