WILLIAMSVILLE — Ever since I launched a website, I've become the daily recipient of a certain kind of e-mail spam that I find somewhat charming.
The subject line usually reads, “Dear Beloved,” and the e-mail itself begins, with great politeness, “I will be very glad if you do assist me.”
The writers then go on to tell me who they are and how they come to be in possession of millions of dollars, euros, or gold which they need my help to reclaim.
Charmed as I am, I don't believe a word of it, and I find it hard to believe that anyone who receives one of these e-mails would be so foolhardy as to reply, let alone provide the personal identification information that the spammers are after. The millions these spammers seek are not gathering dust in some Swiss safe deposit box, but lie in the fraudulent uses of successful identity theft.
Then I received an email that didn't ask for my help, and wasn't polite or charming in any way. It was a direct appeal for my money or my life.
Instead of deleting it, I read it through.
* * *
I don't know which appalled me more: the writer's massacre of English grammar or her demand that I exchange a mere eight grand for my life. The subject line read, “Some one you call your friend, want's you dead.”
I don't doubt this is true. I imagine I have even more enemies than I'm aware of, but I'm pretty sure that they all know better than to use “w-a-n-t-apostrophe-s” - a possessive noun - when they mean “wants,” a verb used with an object meaning “to wish, need, crave, demand, or desire.”
Worse than the almost ubiquitous misuse of the apostrophe, the writer of this death threat has committed the cardinal sin of separating the subject of the sentence, “Someone,” from the verb, “wants,” with a comma - a signal, grammatical no-no.
Not the sort of thing my friends - or likely enemies - would do.
* * *
But the plot thickens.
The writer offers me a chance to “spear” my life. I'd rather a chance to spare it, frankly. It turns out she's just the executive whose “boys” are tracking me down.
She writes, “my men are monitoring you and your every steps.” She says, “my eyes is on you, i am every were, even the place you think's safer to hide, trust me, might be my den.”
If the author of the e-mail does to me what she's done to the English language, it's not going to be a pretty death.
Grammar aside, this is a bit creepy, so I called the State Police, who maintain a Computer Crimes Unit. I don't in a million years think they'll be able to track down the author, or that there really are guns hired to off me.
Nevertheless, I don't think anyone should get away with murder - not even of English.