“Your writing taste has been surprised me…”
Not too long ago, I wrote about comments I get on the blog.
I love getting those comments, but some of them don’t appear to be sincere commentary on what I’ve said. They look like they are just ways to link to another site.
I got some great responses to that post, and I have not been approving comments that really appear to be irrelevant.
However, I still get them. 
I’ve gotten a few recently that amused me.
First, they will typically be on a post that I did some time ago: that’s a good tip-off. Yes, people do legitimately find my older posts and comment on them, and that’s fine, but it is a red flag.
Second, they are vague: they don’t mention anything specific.
Third, they sometimes say that they just stumbled across the post in some way,
Fourth, the posting name is usually the name of a business or a website, not a person.
Fifth, they are often complimentary: that seems like a new trend.
Sixth, they may be in fractured English (although they can also be in another language entirely). It makes me wonder if machine translation is being used, since they can really mess up the idiomatic expressions.
As you know, I like making up neologisms, and I think I’m going with “Eddiecoms” for these. The Eddie part is for Eddie Haskell, because they tend to be so ridiculously flattering. I hesitated with that, because Eddie was actually very articulate when speaking with Mrs. Cleaver (see my parody, Beaver and the Kindle). I considered Eddielinks, but “Eddiecoms” (short for “Eddie Haskell Comments” just sounds better to me.)
Here, then, are some Eddiecoms. I’m not going to include who sent them, so the linking part will be unsuccessful. I believe it’s legal for me to publish them, since they posted them for publication. Generally, also, my understanding is that an e-mail belongs to both the sender and the recipient, unless the sender indicates it is private.
“I do not even know the way I finished up here, however I assumed this submit was once great. I do not know who you might be but definitely you’re going to a well-known blogger when you aren’t already. Cheers!”
“This blog was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I have found something which helped me.
Thanks!”
“Usually I do not read article on blogs, however I would like to say that this write-up very compelled me to take a look at and
do it! Your writing taste has been surprised me.
Thank you, very nice post.”“excellent post, very informative. I wonder why the other specialists of this sector don’t notice this. You should continue your writing. I am sure, you have a huge readers’ base already!”
“What i don’t understood is in reality how you are not really a lot more neatly-liked than you might be now. You’re so intelligent. You know thus considerably with regards to this matter, produced me in my view imagine it from so many varied angles. Its like men and women don’t seem to be involved except it is something to accomplish with Lady gaga! Your individual stuffs nice. Always take care of it up!”
Let me know if you’d like to see more of these in the future…
This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog.
July 3, 2012 at 4:47 am |
I always assume when I get those messages on my blog that it is some sort of “bot” or something trawling blogs in order to drive web traffic at their site. Or some sort of phishing scam tied to the same type of deal. For those things, I would imagine they would log your address and try harder. Or know it’s a live blog and try to hack your WordPress admin account or something.
Be very wary of those things. You have enough readers & subscribers that perhaps there are genuinely people who would post like that. Or maybe English isn’t the primary language for those. But I get a lot of the same thing and it never has anything whatsoever to do with whatever topic my blog post covers. For me, I just trash those comments. That probably isn’t a good option for ILMK.
Keep the posts coming, BC. Good site.
July 3, 2012 at 1:07 pm |
Thanks for writing, Jason!
I appreciate the advice.
I did ask my readers about it in that post I referenced, and the response suggested not posting likely what is likely irrelevant advertising.
I have been trashing the comments, but if I make an error one way or the other, it will be to approve. If something fits the elements I put into the post (including it being an older post, irrelevant, non-specific, and so on), I will trash it.
One of my readers pointed out to me that having discretion in which comments appear is why I moderate them in the first place.
July 3, 2012 at 1:22 pm |
I love reading these “things” in a compilation as you have done, but appreciate that you moderate the blog carefully and delete it from the topical posts. When I read these my first thought was that they sound like a combination of the writings of the “official” trapped in Nigeria trying to wire us money and spoken language of George Bush.
July 3, 2012 at 1:24 pm |
They sound like they are translated by the same program that they must use to translate appliance instructions from Chinese to English, they are always worded that badly. But you should be proud, you’ve been compared to Gaga! LOL
July 3, 2012 at 2:11 pm |
Thanks for writing, Zebras!
I’m honestly not sure if I was being compared to Lady Gaga or not…I couldn’t quite parse that sentence. I think it might have had something to do with how men and women might have different viewpoints, and Lady Gaga might combine the two? I couldn’t tell.
I wouldn’t make fun of somebody who actually spoke a second language incorrectly. One of the strange things is that I think these folks may be paying somebody to do this for them…which makes the odd construction even more notable. I asked my linguist relative about the construction of “Your writing taste has been surprised me”, and my relative didn’t think it fit a direct translation very well. “…has been surprised me” is definitely odd.
July 3, 2012 at 7:40 pm |
In 2008, Blog was begining.
“What happen?”
“Somebody set up us the link.”
“We get comment.”
“How are you polished person of honor.”
“It’s you?”
“All your penny stock and pharmacuticals are belong to us.”
July 3, 2012 at 9:23 pm |
jjhitt … that is superb! I will soon give you my mail credit card asked and await the check to post to my account to help you escape the poetic regime within your trap.
July 3, 2012 at 9:41 pm |
Thanks for writing, jjhitt!
In case people are wondering, jj is a regular reader and poster, and just having fun with this.
The last line is presumably a reference to “All your base are belong to us.” That’s an internet meme (a meme is sort of a cultural unit of information…that’s another complicated discussion). It was originally a poorly translated line in a videogame (it should have said something like, “We have taken over all of your bases”), but became a “thing” to quote.
July 4, 2012 at 8:37 am
I am a long time fan of ‘English As She Is Wrote’ by Pedro Carolino,
July 4, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Thanks for writing, Jj!
For those who don’t know,
English as she is spoke or, A jest in sober earnest
was supposedly an attempt to provide an English phrasebook for Portuguese speakers. However, the English phrases are not something a native English speaker would actually say. Part of the failure appears to have been from using a French translation dictionary as an intermediary, resulting in English translations of French idioms. The author also used Portuguese structures…which means that there are gender and plural uses that wouldn’t be appropriate.
Mark Twain was quite amused, and wrote an introduction. In part, it says:
“In this world of uncertainties, there is, at any rate, one thing which may be pretty confidently set down as a certainty: and that is, that this celebrated little phrase-book will never die while the English language lasts. Its delicious unconscious ridiculousness, and its enchanting naiveté, as are supreme and unapproachable, in their way, as are Shakespeare’s sublimities. Whatsoever is perfect in its kind, in literature, is imperishable: nobody can imitate it successfully, nobody can hope to produce its fellow; it is perfect, it must and will stand alone: its immortality is secure.”
Here’s an example from “English as She is Spoke”:
“Were you go to the theatre yesterday?
Yes, sir; I won’t to see the new play in which did owed to play
and actress which has not appeared on any theatre.
How you think her?
She has very much grace in the deeds great deal of exactness on
the declamation, a constitution very agreable, and a delightful
voice.
What you say of the comedy? Have her succeded? It was a drama;
it was whistted to the third scene of the last act.
Because that?
It whant the vehicle, and the intrigue it was bad conducted.”
If someone said one of these sentences to you, you would never suspect that person was a native English speaker, right?
July 3, 2012 at 9:04 pm |
I wouldn’t say that just being complimentary, or being on an older post would be a red flag. (People like me, who have far too much time on their hands and dislike offending people, might do it.) but when paired with confusing grammer and blantant spam… I think that’s where the warning signs start coming from.
Thanks for letting us see these though! I’d hate to wade through these on every post, but they’re amusing.
July 3, 2012 at 9:27 pm |
Thanks for writing, Bailey!
I’m using the “red flag” as in the sense of a warning alert, not a stopper. It’s the combination of all of them that get me to trash it…note that one of the reasons was that the poster says it’s from a company.
Just being complimentary is fine (sure, I like that). Just being a comment on an older post is fine…searching the internet will do that.
Eddiecoms will probably do all of this:
* Be on an old post AND
* Not mention anything about the post AND
* Say they stumbled across the post (they aren’t from a regular reader) AND
* Come from a business or website (“Free Software”, “Get Rich Quick”, “FreeKindleEBooksAndMoneyForMe.com”) AND
* They are complimentary AND
* They have fractured English
If someone was complimentary on an old post, but the posting name was a person’s name or they mentioned something specific in the post, I wouldn’t be inclined to trash it.
I wouldn’t say that fractured English happens all the time, by the way. They also don’t always say the stumbled on it. I still use judgement on each one.
Yes, it does take some time to read through the comments, sometimes…
July 4, 2012 at 2:42 am |
the one i copied below does seem legit to me. ur blog is relevant and very helpful…but the rest are ridiculous.
“This blog was… how do I say it? Relevant!! Finally I have found something which helped me.Thanks!”
July 4, 2012 at 2:55 am |
Thanks for writing, Morgan!
It might seem that way at first, but the posting link was to a commercial site. That’s one of my principles that suggests it. Another thing was that the post which was commented was one on recent Kindle releases…which had been published two years before the comment was made. It seems unlikely that a post about new releases really was relevant when found two years later.
I did do a Google search, and found 448,000 results. The first results are a variety of different types of blogs…with the same comment:
https://www.google.com/search?rlz=1C1TSNH_enUS438US438&sugexp=chrome,mod=2&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=%22how+do+I+say+it%3F+Relevant!!%22
July 14, 2012 at 2:02 pm |
[...] “Your writing taste has been surprised me…” (Have your own blog? I think you’ll find this interesting) [...]
August 12, 2012 at 4:21 pm |
[...] in July, I wrote a post about what I decided to call “Eddicoms”. These are comments that people make on blogs [...]