72 - 'Later, as a janissary ...' plus 'never married once again'

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Good one, eh?

Being the author of a famous webcomic means you get tons of fan mail. For example, today I received a missive that opens:

"Hello Dear New Friend,
My name is miss Confidence, never married once again i am happy to contact you as my friend."

That is genius spam. A spinster named miss Confidence who gets up every morning, considers the lay of the land, and says to herself: 'never married once again'.

How does this stuff get generated? I really don't know. It's not as though it could fool anything. Why bother if you aren't going to do a better job of it?

Comments

[The Modesto Kid]

Yes, a good one. (Had to look up bashi-bazouk though -- I was all set to mistake Squid in this state of disarray for a hookah.)

You also get the bizarrely creative comments spam, e.g. Miss Eve Isk's comment on your page 68.

[Brock]

You seem to have misspelled "janissary", according to M-W online anyway.

[jholbo]

Aaarrgh! And I had just corrected 'passersby' and re-uploaded. Now I must re-re-upload. You'd think I'd spellcheck my own stuff, wouldn't you. What are there, roughly a dozen words per page on average?

[jholbo]

Hey Modesto, glad to enrich your word power. I know 'bashi-bazouk' because it's one of the many things Captain Haddock likes to call other people when he is in one of his whiskey-fueled rages. As a child I looked it up to see what it meant.

(I believe I have corrected all the typos now.)

[The Modesto Kid]

Yeah I remember bashi-bazouk from Tintin, I was however a less diligent lad than you (it would appear).

[Brock]

I must confess that the only reason I caught the mistake was that I didn't know what a janissary was, so I had to look it up.

[The Modesto Kid]

This episode of Squid and Owl just keeps getting better -- I had not been noticing the ethereal camel. The difference in shading between the flummoxed passers-by and their steed is really subtle, I'm looking forward to the hard copy to be able to appreciate it properly

[e julius drivingstorm]

Now if you'll just go back up there and correct the spelling in the post title...

Very interesting about the janissaries being compared to the unruly bashi-basouks. It seems undisciplined and unruly is exactly what they had become by the time of their demise.

[Noni Mausa]

About misspeleeed spam -- yeah, I'm not sure how that works. I RECOGNIZE spam by its bad spelling.

Scam artists, too.

Noni

[jholbo]

Triple-aaargh! Final typo corrected. On the upside, I've no found the secret of getting lively comments. In future I will be sure to include three stupid typos on every page.

[jholbo]

Not 'no'. 'Now found the secret'. That was a typo, obviously.

[ajay]

It would no doubt be worse by far
Had he been thought an iayalar.
(Owl meanwhile alone is left
And decides to play the klepht.
You don't have to feel alone
If you're dressed like an evzone.
Trousers don't suit every fella -
Best to wear a fustanella.)

[jholbo]

Thanks, ajay, I have no idea what you are talking about!

[jbd]

common markov error. "never married", "married once", and "once again" are all common enough phrases that a lazy markov script would easily string such a phrase together, no?

[ajay]

Thanks, ajay, I have no idea what you are talking about!

Well, allow me to enlighten you:

iayalar - another sort of soldier of the Ottoman army, normally more lightly equipped than the janissaries, and not as high status - more sort of cannon fodder (or rather Greek fire fodder)

klepht - a Greek rebel against the Ottoman empire in the 18th and 19th centuries

evzone - the ceremonial troops of the Greek state, who, like the klepht bands before them, wear

the fustanella - a traditional short kilt