Sunday, October 18, 2009

Do you really want to use that word?

As a writer, I tend to be amused by language. Today I recieved one of those notorious Nigera emails (though this one claims to be out of Hong Kong), and I just had to laugh at one of the words used. Here is the sentence:

I want to consumate a legitimate transaction of Thirty-Eight million Five Hundred and Ninety One Thousand Five Hundred and Ninety Five United State Dollars.

Consumate? Is it just me, or does that word conjure the wrong image for what this person is trying to convey? That word actually says what the sender of the message wants to do to the reciever of the message, and I am sure that the sender did not want to make it that clear.

1 comment:

Admin said...

Those letters crack me up. Not to make light of the victims obviously, but some of the linguistic gymnastics they perform reminds me of myself trying to write in mandarin.

-Luke Sidewalker