Saturday, March 03, 2012

Spam Grammar

"Can you remember me, my name is Clarissa , At last here is found thy email"

Oh wow! I don't think anyone has ever used "thy email"—not even the Amish. It wasn't translated by a bot. It came from someone whose knowledge of English involves the King James Bible (or possibly, but much less likely, Shakespeare). (Or a bot programmed to create 17th century sermons.)

For the benefit of any spam translators who might come across this post, it should be "thine email," as email starts with a vowel sound. Otherwise the 16th century recipients whose servants read it aloud to them might think it's simply thy mail.
This one is correct, though "shalt" doesn't need two "l"s.

This one isn't correct, but as it's humor based on a bad translation, it's fun that it's not quite right.


Mayhap the creator of this graphic felt that "thy own self" was more modern than "thine..." or perhaps didn't think Shakespeare's Polonius was supposed to be using it correctly. It seems to me that quoting Shakespeare would work better by ... you know ... quoting.

The top part is okay, but the bottom is screwy.

The second line would only be slightly less jumbled if "whilst thou ridest thine steed" had been used (rather than "while your rides" thy steed).

What's the original of this one? I don't get the joke.


Except that the spam e-mail was somehow baffling sincere in its intent to be communicating in e-mail-appropriate English, I would figure it was just more of the mountain of "Ye Olde Thiseth and Thateth" godawfully pseudo early-modern English.

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