Ah, what has the world become, I ask myself as I check my email account each day. So many people trying to sell me something, or solicit support for their causes, or assure me that they are doing a wonderful job of whatever it is they are doing. And that's not the worst of it! The scammers are the most blatant. Most suspicious emails are caught in the spam folder, but a few slip by every week and appear in my inbox. The Internet is indeed a dangerous place!
Lately I have been challenging myself to spot a piece of spam mail using language analysis skills. Granted, a good dose of common sense and a watchful eye will recognize most spam messages, but I have decided to do some linguistic sleuthing as well.
One day recently I saw an email from a unknown person that began, "Hello, dearest..." Are you kidding me? I have never been called "dearest" in my whole life. I'm trying to imagine the type of person who thought up that salutation.
And then there was this recent message: "I have a legal business proposal for you, reply if interested." Why did the writer feel the need to add the adjective "legal"? Could it be that the business proposal is, in fact, just the opposite? And what's with the run-on sentence? Didn't the writer have a strict eighth grade English teacher who made students correct run-on sentences by using a semicolon or a new sentence?
One sentence can tell so much about a writer. " I wait to hear from you as to give you more details." Way too formal and a bit awkward. And "as to" is a synonym for "regarding" or "concerning," neither of which would fit in this sentence.
And then there are the lengthier messages, which provide more opportunities for language missteps. Some questionable language is italicized below: three run-on sentences, an incorrect verb form ("she have") and an expression that struck me as unusual in this context, "I guess."
Hello,
In a brief introduction, I am a doctor by profession, Dr. Thomas Brown, my patient asked me to send you this email. Her name is Anna Maria Cahill, she had a surgical operation that resulted in the removal of her left breast. From the diagnosis report, she will not live longer than two months. I guess her reason to contact you is about her legacy, she said she saw your profile on a social network. Please contact her directly via email to hear what she have for you. She is passionate about donating her wealth to charity.
Kindly contact her via this email address: (email address provided).
Best Regards
Dr. Thomas Brown
The challenges of writing a believable spam message remind us of the difficulties involved in communicating in writing, especially if the language you are writing in is not your native language. I wouldn't even attempt to send out an unsolicited message in a foreign language - it would end up in the spam folder every time.
Have you received any spam messages with language that arouses suspicion? I would enjoy hearing about them.
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