Other Englishes, # 4

I’m guessing that the writer of this spam email is not a native speaker of English, but I can’t decide quite how this range of mangles, spanning subject line to sign-off, has arisen:

you get new tax refund from GOV, You'are, An payment, King Regards

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 94

There seems to have been a confusion of concepts in this scam email. At least it says ‘message’:

Electric Message Center

Other Englishes, # 2

Following on from yesterday’s scam email, here is a second, showing another familiar set of errors, such as stilted syntax, the omission of direct and indirect articles, or use of an incorrect article, and the omission of a letter at the end of a word that results in a spell-checker appeasing preposition instead of the intended noun:

missing/incorrect articles (Natwest Online Banking team; introduce new much secured …] process; you are the member of our online banking); simple for filling procedure; you can get advantage

Other Englishes, # 1

The first of two days of lovely scam emails. Such scams are another reason (if one were needed) to teach, learn and use good English, and to read properly instead of skim, so that recipients can determine when they are being scammed; this is especially important when scammers’ offerings are made to look convincing with logos and apparently official email addresses:

As is often the case, the key errors in this email are verb tenses and grammatical number, although there are some odd prepositions here too, and ’prevent’ has been used as if it were a direct synonym of ’protect’.

by for from [x2]; introduce for [has] introduced; prevent for protect; restore for restored; remove for removed; field for fields

Apostrophe catastrophe, # 85

Dr Faustus is now receiving mangles by SMS:

Its for It’s; punctuation

Now Try It In English, # 4

While we’re on the subject of scam emails (see yesterday), try this one:

your cognizance is in great necessity

Double-take, # 152

This appeared in my inbox last week:

a render; Seniour

Not Washed or Cooked, # 175

As I’ve said before, the more sloppy professional use of English spelling and grammar becomes, the easier it is for second-language scammers to be convincing. Today’s example, extracted from a longer email, should be simple to distinguish as a fake, but I’ve seen worse spelling and grammar in correspondence from government agencies and national companies, so that isn’t necessarily a good guide, while the inadequately-taught might not be equipped to spot the difference at all:

cann’t make the delivery of parcel

Multimangle, # 5

Another less-than-believable email from my inbox:

companys courier, the delivery of parcel, you address, at 26th June, Print your label and show it in the nearest post office to get a parcel

Not Washed or Cooked, # 145

Another unconvincing scam from my mailbox, this one a fail from its subject line:

Today is the Feast of Corpus Christi in the Christian calendar, and we have a bonus: some mangled Latin. This unfortunate error is found in a misrepresentation of the title of a section of a hymn, ‘Sacris solemniis’, written for the occasion by St Thomas Aquinas:

Link: YouTube, ‘C Franck Penis angelicus Ave Maria Archikatedra we Fromborku’

The penis here is clearly misplaced: Aquinas is not concerned with angels’ genitals, but with their bread (panis).

recived + Penis angelicus

Not Washed or Cooked, # 134

I usually let these go by, or post snippets from them on the Mangling English Facebook page. However, in addition to the usual syntactical singularities, this has a few spelling oddities worth sharing:

fallowing for following; recentely; instantely; syntax

Spellchecking Is Never Enough, # 108

Source: supposedly personalized page from email link

Hmmm… No, I think I’ll just blacklist you.

The Wrong Word Entirely, # 30

A not very unprofessional scam attempt via email: