As most of you probably know, the e-mail address I use for submissions to the Proofreader’s Hall of Shame (and yes, I realize it drastically needs to be updated) is shame@zone38.net.

However, when spammers get a hold of that particular address, hilarity quite often ensues. I received a spam today with the subject line of:

“shame,Now – Powerful Anti-Aging Breakthrough”

I don’t know why, but for some reason, I find that oddly amusing…

Oh, and a note to spammers: For reasons of security, many of us geeks either use e-mail clients that cannot display images at all or set our mail clients’ preferences so that they will not display any images. I do both; I use Pine frequently while telnetting into my school account, and I have Mozilla set not to display hotlinked images in e-mails. If you really want to sell something to us, try including some actual readable text in your messages; it’s generally a lot more persuasive than a lone string of incomprehensible gibberish.

Found via the grammar_whores community on LiveJournal:

‘Yo, can u plz help me write English?’

Carl Sharp knew there was a problem when he spotted his 15-year-old son’s summer job application: “i want 2 b a counselor because i love 2 work with kids.”

That night, the father in Phoenix removed the AOL Instant Messenger program from the family computer and informed both his children they were no longer to chat with friends online.

Granted, I can understand where Sharp is coming from— such writing is the result of the explosion of text messaging among my generation— yet at the same time, it does seem a bit unfair, as some of us do try to write instant messages in something resembling proper English.

It’s all a matter of style, and it seems that far too many children these days don’t understand the difference between formal and informal writing (remember the SMS-speak essay I blogged about a month ago?). Sure, one can write in an abbreviated, “netspeak” style in one’s personal journal, in letters to one’s friends, and the like— but one simply should not turn in a formal essay or a job application littered with abbreviations like “u” and “r”. Argh.

Edit 2003/04/03: I just noticed something even more disturbing in that article. It’s not just middle-schoolers who have difficulty distinguishing between proper English and netspeak; apparently even college freshmen have trouble with it:

English instructor Cindy Glover, who last year taught a section of freshman composition at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, says she spent a lot of time unteaching Internet-speak. “My students were trying to communicate fairly academic, scholarly thoughts, but some of them didn’t seem to know it’s ‘y-o-u,’ not ‘u,’ ” Glover says. “I wanted to teach them to communicate persuasively, but I couldn’t get past the really horrific spelling or grammar.”

Apparently it’s not just locally-made flyers that have sloppy proofreading mistakes. I just noticed a Smithsonian-sponsored poster here in the music building which reads, in huge letters:

JAZZ APPRECIATON MONTH

If you want proof, here’s a photo I took while in the building. Oops.

Heh. Shows you how much I have to talk about lately; I haven’t posted anything for a week, and my blog’s index page has actually been blank for several hours. Go figure…

Anyway, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend lately around Mercer’s campus. It seems that the people who make and post flyers around the various buildings on campus can’t be bothered to actually proofread their work. In the past few days, among other proofreading atrocities, I’ve seen ads promoting a late-night showing of the “lasted” movies (my friends and I suppose that the guilty party originally typed “lastest”, intending to have written “latest”, and hastily chose the first option offered by the spelling checker) and a party “sponsered” by several fraternities with food catered by “El Sombero”.

Today at dinner, I discovered yet another badly proofread delight sitting on many of the tables in the dining hall. It seems that yet another of the local fraternity chapters is going to be having a bachelor auction. The only problem is that they apparently can’t spell it.

Let’s just hope the responsible parties learn to omit that pesky “t” before they graduate with their bachelors’ degrees…

I’ve gotten about seven or eight copies lately of a spam which begins: “DOES EMAIL ADVERTISING WORK? It just did.”

OK, so e-mail advertising may indeed work; I’ve several times clicked on ads in e-mail newsletters that I did sign up for. When you send the same ad to the same person repeatedly, without permission, and with a subject line written in Old High Gibberish, however…it gets a little annoying, to say the least.

And of course, it’s an ad promoting an e-mail marketing service. If it’s run anything like this, you’re discouraging potential customers from using it!

<mutters at clueless marketing types>

Ironic Zone38 search request of the day: “proofreader’s of america”. One would think the group in question would know how to use an apostrophe…

And I’m the #1 search result on Google/Yahoo, at that. Go figure.

<snort> Heh. I just got a great piece of spam in my mailbox.

No, it wasn’t all that extraordinary as a piece of spam. What was especially strange about it was that it was addressed to my friend, kat@mindspillage.net, and CC’ed to two of my addresses. How unusual, indeed.

Even better, though: one of the other addresses to which it was CC’ed was in the form [username]@nospaam4me.[domain].com. Y’think the addresses might’ve been collected by a rather clueless spambot?

Shame on you, ZipCodeWorld.com. Have you no better way to promote your website than to spam the comment pages of random blogs with your address?

Apparently you neglected to realize that I receive e-mail confirmation of every comment posted to my weblog, and that I can remove your completely irrelevant spams from my site at the click of a button.

Next time, try promoting your site via reputable means. That way, you won’t end up being humiliated by bloggers who actually maintain their sites…

Updated 15 April 2002: Apparently a lot of people have fallen victim to these guys. A Google search for “zipcodeworld.com” turns up some rather interesting spam in guestbooks and comment threads, among other things— most of the victims, of course, having nothing to do with postal codes whatsoever. Sigh.

Similarly, here’s a Google search for “keep up the good work lookup zip code”, a key phrase found in these spams. The results are quite shocking, to say the least.

And now for some good news: apparently quite a few other bloggers have retaliated against these clueless marketers. Yay.

I’m not normally the type to spread such memes as the Friday Five, but this week’s questions relate to a subject about which I’m quite frequently found griping:

1. Do you like talking on the phone? Why or why not?
Not really. I’m a horrible listener, especially given the distortion that a cheap telephone speaker provides (yes, there’s even a neurological reason for it). On top of that, I’m not exactly the greatest at speaking my thoughts either; I’m quite eloquent in writing, but my speech is typically littered with pauses, hesitations, and all the typical signs of shyness.

2. Who is the last person you talked to on the phone?
If I recall, it was my dad telling me he was ready to drive me back home for spring break. I told you I don’t talk on the phone much…

3. About how many telephones do you have at home?
Four at my actual house, generally answered by the parents; only one in my second home, better known as my dorm room, and it’s generally answered by the voice-mail service.

4. Have you encountered anyone who has really bad phone manners? What happened?
Well, I’ve been told by a number of people that my own phone manners are rather lacking. Nice way to build one’s self esteem, eh? <g> And if you’re talking about other people, I’d nominate any telemarketer who doesn’t understand the meaning of “I’m not interested” and who acts as if not wanting a credit card is some act of blasphemy.

5. Would you rather pick up the phone and call someone or write them an e-mail or a letter? Why or why not?
E-mail, by far. It’s pretty much instant, just like a phone call; yet at the same time, it gives me the opportunity to express myself in writing, to edit my words before I send it, and in general, to not come off looking like a fool.

Really embarrassing typo of the day, found via a Google search: Check out the title bar on this page on a textbook publisher’s site.

And in case they ever fix it, here’s a screen capture of the title bar. D’oh!