Benjamin Franklin’s Phonetic Alphabet

It’s the last Thursday of the year—somehow—and as usual, I’m doing something slightly different. This year I’m sharing the phonetic alphabet Benjamin Franklin came up with (which you should have realized by looking at the title of this post).
 
Apparently I’m the only one who finds it much easier to read and pronounce. I was able to get the hang of it in a few seconds. It isn’t perfect, since the letters he uses for both “th” sounds and the “sh” sound look like other variations of h, making things kind of confusing to tell apart. I also think it needs the “juh” sound as its own letter, while he uses the combination of Z and the sh letter, because seriously, I’m not spelling my name with a Z. Although that might make it cooler...

Still, I like the elimination of the letter C, which is completely useless when we have K and S. Overall, I think it’s much easier to understand. Unfortunately, no one else agreed, though it did inspire Noah Webster, the guy who shaped American English, to eliminate extraneous letters from several words, and I have a hard enough time figuring out the spelling of words like paleontology without an extra A being in there.

 
What do you think? What would you change about the alphabet and spelling if you could?

Reflections 2021

Oh man. This was definitely… a year. Frankly, it’s like looking into a mirror and seeing a monster standing behind you. And that monster is 2021. If I was better at drawing, this would be a comic.
 
Anyway, what was I supposed to do this year? Because I sure as hell don’t remember.
 
Resolutions
1. Finish the book I’m working on and get it edited.
Hey, I did this. It still needs work, but I am making progress. Not sure what will become of this one, but I’m not ready to give up on it.
 
2. Work on the other WIP idea I have and maybe even write it.
Totally did this. It’s actually pretty good, in my opinion, but of course there’s no way it’s nearly as good as I think it is.
 
3. Actually query last year’s WIP. Yes, I am terrified.
Ended up deciding not to do this. It just didn’t seem like an interesting enough story.
 
4. Possibly work on the sequel WIP I said I’d do last year.
Also decided not to do this, figuring that writing a sequel when the WIP itself wasn’t ready probably wasn’t the best idea. I decided to write something completely different instead, because of course I did.
 
5. Not die from the illness that’s killing hundreds of thousands of people in my country because people are dumbasses who refuse to wear masks or accept that it’s a dangerous disease.
Hey, I didn’t die! Or even get sick! Avoiding people at all costs is finally paying off.
 
6. Try to engage more with social media. I know, that seems crazy. Who would want to? I certainly have no idea how to do it.
Ha ha no. Not even a little. Social media is way too depressing, you know, with all the awful.
 
7. Not let 2021 be anything like 2020. Shudder.
Definitely failed on this one. But can you blame me?
 
Meh. 2021 was certainly an ordeal. Not really looking forward to 2020, 2 next year. Some things just don’t need sequels.

How was your 2021? What did you get done?

Book Wish List

Some people are hard to shop for. Others are just weird. Which one do you think I am?

See you next week for my end of year whatever the hell I’m going to do!

Forgot To Mention

My brother lives in Japan, though he did come home for a few weeks last March. And you know how during a big trip across the globe, little things can slip your mind.

Yes, that is seriously how he told us.

Worried

One panel comics this week! Can I be that succinct? Maybe! But probably not!

Present And Accounted For

True story from this year’s shopping season.

 
No real posts next week. I’ll probably just throw up some old comics. But they’ll be holiday themed! Probably. Anyway, I’ll still be lurking on blogs.
 
Later!

Language Of Confusion: Can You Tell I’m Cold?

I’ve already gone over several words related to ice and the cold. How about some more?
 
Glacier
Glacier is relatively recent since they have an actual year for when it showed up: 1744. It’s from the French glacier, which, you know, means glacier. That’s from the Old French glace, from the Vulgar Latin glacia, from the classical Latin glacies, which literally means ice. That word can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European gel-, cold or freeze. That is indeed where gel comes from, in addition to being the origin for jelly, cold, chill, and congeal, which is just gel with the con- (with) prefix in front of it.
 
Flurry
Flurry is another word that is quite recent. In relation to snow, it showed up in 1828, though the word did show up in the early eighteenth century meaning commotion, and then even earlier in the late seventeenth century it meant a gust or squall. Yes, that means it went from meaning weather, to a less literal usage, and then back to weather again. As to where it’s from before that, it’s uncertain. It may be imitative—so people named the word because of how it sounds, which is weird because I don’t think flurries sound like flurry—or it’s from flurr, to scatter or fly with a whirring noise. Yeah, sure, why not?
 
Iceberg
Now, I’ve already gone over what ice means, but what about the -berg part? Iceberg showed up in… 1774. Okay, I swear, it’s a coincidence that all these words are from the same time period. Anyway, it meant a “glacier humped like a hill”, and then by 1820 meant a glacier at sea. It’s actually from the Dutch ijsberg, which if you break it up, means ice mountain. Berg is actually from the Proto Indo European bhergh-, high. Icebergs look like ice mountains.
 
Avalanche
Finally today, avalanche showed up in… 1763. Did we just see snow for the first time or something??? Anyway, it’s from the French avalanche, means the same thing, from the Romansch avalantze, meaning descent. That certainly has to be the first time Romansch has appeared on this blog. It’s not a huge language, as only about seventy thousand people speak it in the Swiss canton of Grisons, and it’s made up of a bunch of closely related dialects. And apparently it gave English the word avalanche.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Encyclopaedia Britannica

From The Spamfiles

Spam!!!

Getting $15,000 really would have made Thanksgiving amazing.

I’m a hard fellow to find. Good thing they did otherwise I would’ve missed this overture of great financial benefit.

Okay, first of all, this post was from years ago. Next, it was about spam, and thus had NOTHING to do with being fat (both mentally and physically). But apparently all the tips mean they’re now showing improvements.

You’re being a little confusing here. First it’s telling me I have a fat loss organ (sure), but then the body of the email is about getting rid of skin tags. Unless getting rid of skin tags is the fat loss. Is that how fat loss works?

I do love when they say that to unsubscribe I have to write an actual letter to their address. Can you imagine if that’s how unsubscribing worked? Do you think there’s someone out there who has actually written to this place asking to unsubscribe???

Do post more.

Driving Force

Gee, I can’t imagine why I hate driving.

“What idiot taught you how to drive?”
 
“You.”

Secret Origins: December

It’s been a long time coming. I’ve done days of the week and now all the months. What am I going to etymologize next???
 
December comes from the Old French decembre and classical Latin December, so no major changes in spelling except for the French insisting on reversing the R and the E. Decem is classical Latin for ten, from the Proto Indo European dekm-, which also means ten, and is part of pretty much every word related to ten in some way. As for why December means ten when it’s actually the twelfth month, that’s because the Romans had their year start in March, which did make December the tenth month.
 
Now, December wasn’t always the name used for this particular month. In Old English, it used to be aerra geola, which meant something like Before Yule—December was the month before Yule. January was actually aefterra geola, After Yule. I kind of prefer December and January. But I think we can all agree that the best Old English name for a month is Three-Milk, AKA May.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary

December Goals

Oh right. I was supposed to do things this month, wasn’t I?
 
November Goals
1. More beta reads, obviously. I need a lot of help figuring out how to improve this one.
Did get some feedback, though I can still use more.
 
2. Find something to work on to recharge my creativity. I’ve been feeling very blah about working on my WIPs lately.
I actually did do this, and now I’m working on writing something completely different than usual, because of course I am.
 
3. Thanksgiving. Ugh. Remember when this holiday used to be fun? Because I don’t.
Relatively, it wasn’t bad.
 
I guess you could call November mildly successful. Let’s see what I won’t be working on for December.
 
December Goals
1. Add 40K to new project. Will that finish it? Maybe, maybe not. We’ll see.
 
2. Keep working on those beta reads. I need more, as for some reason people have lives that don’t revolve around me.
 
3. Christmas. I’m already mentally preparing myself. Shudder.
 
This is the plan for December. Let’s see how it gets derailed. What do you want to do this month?

Warning

And this was on silent mode.

This kind of thing doesn’t happen very often around here.

Language Of Confusion: Jewelry

It is the season where gifts are being bought, and jewelry is a big one. So let’s look into it.
 
Jewel
Jewel showed up in the late thirteenth century, coming from the Anglo French juel and Old French jouel. Its origin before that isn’t certain, but one theory is it’s from the Medieval Latin jocale, which is from the classical Latin jocus. You know, the origin word for joke. But that’s crazy, you might be saying. Well, the other theory is that it’s from the Latin gaudium, which means rejoice. I guess that makes slightly more sense.
 
Ring
As in the one you put on your finger, since a ring like a bell is not related. It comes from the Old English hring, ring or circle, which is from the Proto Germanic hringaz. Now that’s from the Proto Indo European sker-, to turn or bend, which does make sense for something that’s essentially a circle. No idea what happened to the K though, or why they threw an ng in there.
 
Necklace
Now, obviously neck is a word and lace is a word, but why are they combined like that? Necklace showed up in the late sixteenth century, literally just a combination of neck and lace. As it turns out, this is because lace, when it showed up in the early thirteenth century, meant a cord made of braided silk. It wasn’t just lace as what we know it as until the sixteenth century, and before that it could mean a net or snare, or a noose. So a cord that goes around your neck is a necklace.
 
Bracelet
This one’s a bit similar to the above. -Let is a common diminutive suffix, and brace is related to arms—the word originally meant armor for the arms. A bracelet is a diminutive thing for the arms. It showed up in the mid fifteenth century from the Old French bracelet, and that’s from the classical Latin bracchiale, an armlet. Bracelets go on the arms!
 
Brooch
Now this word I find annoying because the pronunciation makes no sense with the spelling. Brooch showed up in the early thirteenth century, coming from the Old French broche, which meant a long needle. Makes sense since a brooch is a pin. Broach is actually from the same place, since it means to pierce, like you would with a long needle. But since a brooch was specifically a piece of jewelry, they altered the spelling to something stupid.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University

From The Spamfiles

Time for some post-Thanksgiving spam. Because we haven’t had enough of that.

I don’t think these people know how to use question marks.

No, no, it’s an Amzon card. You’re thinking of the other place.

I got to admit, the tongue emoji really freaks me out.
 

So many questions on this one. First of all the “felicidades” is kind of a weird opening. Next is the fact that saying you’re from “California, USA” is not how humans talk. Finally, they’re a “Crypto trader” and we can all agree that this is the scamiest scam that ever scammed.

Oh, yes, this is super legit. All I ever do is share “fitness resources” on this blog. My audience would definitely find it valuable, that’s why you guys come back here, isn’t it? My fitness resources?

Spamfiles Classics 3

I should be back Tuesday! Probably!

First of all, those things aren’t mutually exclusive. Second of all, way to prey on people’s insecurities, spammers.

You go ahead and enjoy all that tasty knowledge. It’s been deep fried.

When you’re telling someone off, obviously you open with a “Hi” and their email address name.

Yeah, if you want your family to survive, definitely go building an assault rifle yourself. Smart!

It just wouldn’t be spam if there wasn’t at least one cancer widow. I love how she specifies that his “brief illness” lasted five days, because that’s an important detail. Somebody has to help her before her adorpted son steals all the money away from her!

Spamfiles Classics 2

I’m reminded of spamming trends long since replaced by other, more obnoxious spamming trends.

Anyone else alarmed at what they’re doing in my stomach???

If it can’t blind a bear, it’s not a flashlight. Also, does anyone else think blinding a bear isn’t an impressive measure? They’re strong, but it’s not like they’re renowned for having amazingly powerful eyes or something.

She’s a native of France, that’s why her justified ball moves currently in her brain cage.

Ride together with my pet dog? Where? Why???

The number one heart attack myth is dufour bardette rachel hip.

Spamfiles Classics 1

It’s Thanksgiving week, so I’m off doing other stuff. How about some spam?

One of the first pieces of spam I put on here. I still have no idea what it’s supposed to be saying.

Oh wow. I forgot about the era when I kept getting spam with random phrases in the body of the message, such as “Saturday morning charlie hung up her head”. They really knew how to make spam back then.

Protect your family from Sex Offenders! And stop the ringing in your ears and fall asleep naturally! Of course those two things are related!!!

This man’s deeply held religious beliefs won’t let him be a party to stealing my lottery funds, but apparently they also don’t make him feel the urge to do anything besides tell me about it.

Access to this information is privileged! You guys better not tell anyone about this, or Oaks Chambers will get you!

Just Give Me Five Minutes

With my mom.

Every. Single. Time.

Language Of Confusion: Guest Hosts

It’s almost that time of year, when we’re inundated with guests. Not me, though. Thankfully. Anyway, etymology.
 
Guest comes from the Old English gaest/giest, which just means guest or host. That’s from the Proto Germanic gastiz, which is from the Proto Indo European root ghos-ti-, stranger, guest, or host, and in spite of looking like ghost, no, they’re not related even a little.
 
But you know what is related? Host, which showed up in the thirteenth century. Except that came to us through the Old French oste/hoste, guest or host, from the classical Latin hospitem, a guest or stranger, from the word hospes, host. That one’s thought to be from the Proto Indo European ghos-pot-, literally “guest master”, which is derived from gos-ti-. So basically, Latin dropped the G and now we have host.
 
And I’m sure you noticed how hospitem looks an awful lot like hospital. Hospital itself showed up in the mid thirteenth century meaning a shelter for the needy, probably because there weren’t any hospitals back then. It’s from the Old French hospital/ospital, a shelter or hostel, and also the origin word for hotel. And yes, that’s where hostel comes from, too, and weird fact of the day, use of hostel died out in the sixteenth century only to be revived in the early nineteenth century. So the Old French hospital is from the Late Latin hospitale, an inn, and that’s taken from the classical Latin hospitalis, which is from hospes, like host was.
 
Next, how about a negative word from the same place. Hostile showed up in the late fifteenth century, coming from the French hostile, and before that the classical Latin hostilis, a hostile or enemy. That’s then from hostis, stranger or enemy, another word from ghos-ti. I guess because strangers were generally considered to be enemies?
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

It’s spam day! Since I’m not doing regular posts next week, maybe I’ll do some spam posts? Best of the spam I’ve gotten over the years. Yes, that sounds easy like something people would enjoy.

Did she get tossed in a pit of acid? Because I imagine that would melt a lot of fat away.

This one seems very unsure of itself. I suppose having all those question marks helps with liability. Also, the quotes around ‘free’ there. Because we all know it isn’t free.

Okay, about the random English words in this language I don’t know: obviously it’s supposed to attract people (gamblers, I suppose, based on the words “win” and “poker”). But why though? Why random English in some other language? Does that actually work on people? Oh my god. That actually works on people.

Is the unusual activity putting spaces in between each letter of Google? Because I do find that suspicious.

They were so close to sounding like a real human, and then they ruined it with that “Disclaimer: Note:” and claiming to have found my email through “manually” efforts. Also the fact that they say they’re not a spammer is a huge red flag. No idea why they’re mentioning “The CAN-SPAM Act of 2003” either.

Better Off In The Garbage

Some things are better off forgotten.

It’s the reverse of all those comics where I have a funny idea, don’t write it down, and then am cursing myself when I can’t remember it.

Language Of Confusion: Totally Radical

Not sure what prompted me to look at this word, but it seems fun. Especially when you actually look at all the words related.
 
Radical showed up in the late fourteenth century, though back then it meant either something originating in a root/the ground or body parts or fluids vital to life. Sometime in the mid seventeenth century it started to mean essential or originating, and then in the late eighteenth century it was used to refer to radical reform—as in, change at the roots. Then some time in 1921, a hundred years ago now, people started using it to mean unconventional. Anyway, radical comes from the classical Latin radicalis, from radix, which means root. That’s from the Proto Indo European wrad-, which means branch or root and is the origin for many other surprising words.
 
Eradicate at least makes sense for being related to radical. It showed up in the early fifteenth century from the classical Latin eradicatus, uproot. The verb form of that, eradicare, is a mix of ex-, out, and radix, meaning this word is “root out”.
 
Now we might as well look at root since it is related. Root comes from the Old English rot (it was pronounced with a long o, so it was basically still just root), from the Proto Germanic wrot, which is then from wrad-. Basically, it’s what radical used to mean, but it came to us through Germanic instead of Latin. Wort has a similar origin, coming from the Proto Germanic wurtiz, and then wrad-. I don’t even know why they bothered differentiating the words.
 
Now we’re getting into the fun ones. Licorice—the plant and thus the candy—showed up sometime around the thirteenth century as licoriz. It’s from the Anglo French lycoryc and Old French licorece, from the Late Latin liquiritia, and that one is from the classical Latin glychyrrhiza, from the Greek glykyrrhiza. No, a cat didn’t walk across my keyboard, those are words. The first part, glykus, means sweet (it’s related to glucose) and the rhiza means root and is also from wrad-. Licorice is sweet root. But we dropped the G for some reason.
 
The last one’s really going to seem weird: ramification. Really! It showed up in the late seventeenth century from the French ramification, branching out. Apparently a ramification as in a consequence is considered to be an outgrowth, or literally a branching out. The word is from the Old French verb ramifier, the origin of ramify, and that’s from the Medieval Latin ramificari, to form branches, from the classical Latin ramus, branch. And if you haven’t already figured it out, ramus is from wrad-. Crazy how using a word figuratively can cause it to radically change its meaning.
 
Heh, radically.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

Let’s see how people are trying to scam me this week.

Yes, because Sisters are always handing out “over Five million Eight hundred thousand dollars”.

The best solution to paying down your high interest credit cards is to take out a high interest loan. It’s just common sense.

Wait, isn’t that the hitman from the Godfather? Uh-oh. This might be bad.

Okay, I’m instantly suspicious of the name Jennifer only being spelled with one N.

Now this is a delicious piece of spam. Corrupt government officials have kept my fund to themselves for their selfish reason!!! But not to worry, they’ll send it to me via Visa ATM Card and I can get it from any ATM with a MasterCard logo.

As Usual

Are all moms like this? I’ve only ever had the one so I can’t be sure.

It would be a lot easier to not tell her I had an appointment if I didn’t need to use her car to get there…

Language Of Confusion: Sponsors

Wow, an actual new word etymology! It’s a miracle!
 
Sponsor showed up in the mid seventeenth century, making it relatively young in word terms. It comes from the Late Latin sponsor, which specifically meant a sponsor in a baptism, and in classical Latin, the word is from spondere, to guarantee. A sponsor is a guarantee, I guess. Anyway, it can be traced all the way back to the Proto Indo European spondeio-, to libate. I actually had to look that one up and it means to drink alcohol or to make an offering of alcohol. And for some reason that’s how we got sponsor.
 
Response and respond are much older than sponsor, having shown up in the fourteenth century, and while they’re closely related, they actually got to English through slightly different paths. Respond is from the Anglo French respundre, from the Old French respondere, while response is from the Old French respons and classical Latin responsum, reply. Both those words are from the Latin verb respondere, to reply, which is a combination of re-, back, and spondere. To respond is to guarantee back, apparently. Correspond of course is from the same place, though it showed up a bit later than respond (in the sixteenth century). In Medieval Latin, it is correspondere, which means to correspond, and adds the prefix com-, together or with. It kind of makes sense. To correspond is when both are acting at the same time—to respond together.
 
Next is despondent, which showed up in the late seventeenth century from despondence, which I don’t think is used much anymore. Despondence is only a few decades older, coming from the classical Latin despondentem, despondent, from the verb despondere, which meant to give up or resign, or… to pledge marriage. Yeah. There are a ton of jokes that could be made about this one. The de- means away, and with spondere, to guarantee, the word was to guarantee something away, as in marriage, and frigging hell, this is a standup comedy routine.
 
And that leads us to our final word for today: spouse. It showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old French spous, and that’s from the classical Latin sponsus, which means bridegroom and is derived from spondere. This doesn’t really dissuade the whole standup comedy routine thing.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Fordham University
Orbis Latinus

November Goals

I know I say this every month, but how did this happen??? It’s already November! That can’t be right…
 
October Goals
1. Beta reads for WIP 1. Any volunteers?
It’s getting done. Finding beta readers is hard!
 
2. Finish working on my notes for WIP 2. This one’s actually possible.
I actually did this, yay.
 
3. Update my etymology page. There are so many of them, I think it’s time to create a few separate pages up in the header there. It might make formatting them easier, too.
As you can see, there are now three pages with all the words I’ve etymologized. And a god damn mother$%*&@#$ space in between every paragraph that I can’t get rid of no matter what I try.
 
So mostly successful, which is pretty good considering how hard it was to trudge through the month. Now for this month…
 
November Goals
1. More beta reads, obviously. I need a lot of help figuring out how to improve this one.
 
2. Find something to work on to recharge my creativity. I’ve been feeling very blah about working on my WIPs lately.
 
3. Thanksgiving. Ugh. Remember when this holiday used to be fun? Because I don’t.
 
That’s what I want to do this month. What are you up to?

Still October

Fun fact, I actually know someone who works in a pharmacy, and I had to go in there last week.

It’s not even Halloween yet!!!
 

Language of Confusion: Crimes

Eh, these are kind of scary. At least, if you’re not the one committing them.
 
Crime
Crime showed up in the mid thirteenth century, although at first it meant a sin, like an offense to god, before it started to mean breaking the law in the late fourteenth century. It comes from the Old French crimne and classical Latin crimen, crime, but its origin before that is debated. One theory has it coming from cernere, to sift or to decide—yes, sift, from the Proto Indo European krei-, to sieve, and I have no idea how that works. The other theory is that it’s from cri-men, cry of distress, which makes slightly more sense. If you look at something like discriminate, the sift/sieve one makes more sense. Discriminate showed up in the early seventeenth century, from the Latin discriminare, to discriminate, which is actually from discernere, to distinguish, and yes that’s the origin for discern. Sift makes a lot more sense with that one.
 
Thief
Thief comes from the Old English þeof, thief, and that’s then from the Proto Germanic theuba-, and that has an unknown origin. Well, that was certainly a lot easier than crime. Couldn’t really find an explanation for the -f to -v thing that pops up in a lot of words. I guess F and V are just so close in pronunciation no one cares.
 
Robbery
Robbery showed up in the thirteenth century from the Old French roberie. To rob showed up a bit earlier, in the late twelfth century, from the Old French rober, West Germanic rauba, and Proto Germanic raubon, to rob. And that one’s thought to be from the Proto Indo European runp-, to break. To rob: strangely consistent over the centuries.
 
Assault
Assault showed up in the late fourteenth century in its current form, but it also appeared earlier as asaut. It comes from the Old French asaut/assaut, from the Vulgar Latin adsaltus, a mix of ad-, to, and the Latin saltus, leap. Assault is to leap to.
 
Arson
Arson is fairly recent, having shown up in the late seventeenth century—before that, it was the Old English baernet, which is related to burnt. Arson comes from the Old French arsion, from the Late Latin arsionem, a burning, and that’s from the classical Latin ardere, to burn. That’s from the Proto Indo European root as-, to burn or glow, the origin word for ash.
 
Sources
Online Etymology Dictionary
Google Translate
Omniglot
University of Texas at Austin Linguistic Research Center
University of Texas at San Antonio’s page on Proto Indo European language
Tony Jebson’s page on the Origins of Old English
Old English-English Dictionary
Dictionary of Medieval Latin
Encyclopaedia Britannica
Orbis Latinus

From The Spamfiles

What? This again?

A lot to enjoy about this one. The “Valentime” thing, first of all. Is the misspelling deliberate or are they just that stupid? With spammers, it’s impossible to tell. Especially since they say “No credit card requires”.

The “Director for International Banking Supervision Office of the Comptroller of the Currency”. The longer the title, the more legit they are.

Uh oh, the Federal Bureau of I. wants me. Because I’m a beneficiary. Also the UN is thrown in there for some reason.

They are no longer happy with my delay and silent over my fund! Whatever will I do???

Got these comments just last week—apparently one banal comment indicating they clearly didn’t read the post isn’t enough, they need two. The cherry on the cake was William informing me that said commenter has been making the rounds on blogs lately, leaving similar replies on a post talking about cancer. I’d say they have no conscience, but we already knew that.