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January 24, 2008

Fractured English has been a staple of non-U.S.-based spammers. I've seen variations of a particular message written under the auspices of the Roget's Thesaurus School of English Composition. I've seen content obviously translated from whatever to incomprehensible English via Babelfish. The subtleties of the English language are difficult to master, even for those of us who have used the language since graduating from "ga ga goo."

Thus, I admit to getting a chuckle from an erectile dysfunction medz spammer who combined his knowledge of the English language with a bit of American TV advertising culture. For a long time, TV ads for a paper towel brand used the tag line, "the quilted quicker picker upper," complete with one of those jingles that won't leave your head. The author of this Subject: line must have been exposed to this advertising, understood it, and made one simple substitution:

Subject: the quicker pecker upper

Although the spamvertised domain is (supposedly) registered to someone in China (created last week), this is just too American to think the true source comes from anywhere but the U.S.

UPDATE (25 January 2008) — Our punster is still at it, this time with a different spin on a well-known American advertising slogan:

Subject: It's driller time!