Spam I Am - Comma Chameleon

Trey Smith

Like everyone else who does email, I receive spam. Some of it is offensive. Some of it is annoying. And some of it is funny, though I don't think that is the intent. I've decided to share some of it with you periodically in a feature I call, Spam I Am.

One of the best ways to determine if an email is spam is through the misuse (or lack of use) of punctuation. In particular, the lowly comma (,) often is not utilized where it should be or, as in the case below, it is placed in sentences where it should not be.

Your ACH transaction abilities have been provisionally disabled in order to ensure your security, because your security version expired. Please save and install the most recent installations, by clicking this link.

As soon as update being installed, your account transactions will be entirely recovered.

In the first paragraph, there is no grammatical reason to place a comma before the words because and by. Not only is a comma not needed in these two instances, but it makes both sentences look strangely out of kilter.

This is not to suggest that non-spam email always is perfectly punctuated. Most of us have forgotten many of the lessons we learned in grade school. The difference, however, is that most of our punctuation mistakes aren't so glaring. In the case above, even if you were not an English major in college, it should be apparent that those two commas shouldn't be where they are!