Thursday, March 13, 2008

Finally, an Explanation for Nigerian Spam

Who hasn't received one of those odd Nigerian spam emails asking for help in claiming a lost inheritance or other such crap? Ever wonder why the language in them was so... well... odd?

It seems that Nigerians have allowed English to go it's own way, with words that survived from early Victorian-era colonists mixed with the syntax and grammar of indigenous African languages.

It's either linguists nightmare or doctoral study dream!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes!!

Remember my creepy Craig's List poster? I did some research and it came from Nigeria! Talk about lazy. They copy and past from a template to scam people. Where's the creativity? Where's the LOVE?!?!

GeekGoddess said...

Truly creative scams are a lost art, Marie. What's wrong with today's youth?