What’s Happening to this Poor Man?

September 1st, 2005

Filed under:
Internet

What’s Happening to this Poor Man?

I recently received this image in a spam email. What’s going on here? Is that his hand on the back of his neck, or somebody else’s? Why is he pressed against the floor (or a wall, I suppose)?

Two related notes:one, if you’re going to comment, don’t use the V word. You’ll get spam-blocked for sure. Two, I was just observing how ’spam’ has come to mean ‘one or more emails containing spam’. So, one might say ‘I’m receiving so much spam since signing up to that feral donkey porn site’. With this in mind, is the first sentence of this entry correct? Or should it be ‘I recently received this image in some spam’? Or perhaps ‘I recently received this image in a spam’?

Comments: 7 Responses so far

Lisa
September 1st, 2005
12:28 am

I agree with your assessment how we use spam, but not in the definition.

Since we say “so much spam,” we’re not really using it to describe a discrete unit or two.

That would be “so many spams”…which sounds pretty ESL to me. Which might explain why the last example you gave sounds off for my ears.

Er…so much email? so many emails? Both sound okay, but the second sounds better to me.

Thinking weirds words.

Lisa J

[Reply]

Andrea
September 1st, 2005
1:58 am

Just say you received it “in spam” and skip the grammar problem. :)

As for the invisible hand that guides the V market, I think this is an ad for a medication for the digits of polydactyl massage therapists.

[Reply]

Gwen
September 1st, 2005
5:11 am

While it’s used by most people when talking about unwanted email, spam comes in many forms. Essentially, anything you receive that you don’t want and didn’t ask for that was sent out en masse is spam, whether that’s bulk emails, IM messages, blog comments, SE spamming, etc. So, your first sentence is OK. :-)

[Reply]