How not to be mistaken for a spammer

I nearly marked a genuine mail as spam today and I wasn't even on my first peg.

Well, what does one think when one sees a message with a subject like, "From Frangle Golpnash"?

That wasn't the actual subject line, of course, but it was close, considering I'd never heard the name before - or I'd heard and lost it in the network of sewers that masquerade as my memory - and was therefore wary about hitting the "Read" link.

Good thing I did hit "Read". It was a genuine business opportunity, engendered by a speech I'd made a few years ago to a bunch from an organisation. One of the bunch had written down the email address I'd added automatically to my name on the blackboard and thought to contact me now.

Thing is, I get about a gazillion "From So-and-so" emails a day. One was from Kate Morris, even. They're all spam, except the one that came from Frangle Golpnash.

I'm a diligent kinda guy and if a mail doesn't look like spam, even if it's in the spam folder, I tend to give it the benefit of the doubt and open it, provided it has no attachment. If it has an attachment and is "From The Pope", even, I'll delete it unread.

Probably Frangle Golpnash's spam filter never lets him see the "From So-and-so" mails and deletes them automatically, so the poor guy doesn't know he's speaking Spamlish.

So, one of the rules to remember so you're not mistaken for a spammer is, "Never have 'From &yourname&' as the subject". You're not that famous and if you were, you'd still be eliminated on suspicion of impersonation.

More to come as I reveal the grammar of Spamlish.

Deepak