When writers get together, the conversation immediately moves to the vicissitudes of publishing: which house treats authors well; who never issues checks on time; what kind of publicity is offered. And in these days of social media madness, the subject of blogging is always high on the list of topics.

If you’re a writer, you have to have a blog. And if you have a blog you live for comments. But you are always lured into disappointment by Spam. “You have 162 comments!” your blog site tells you. Eagerly, you check in, only to discover that your comments are 100 percent spam.

Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t understand how spam works. The majority of the come-on attempts are so patently false, and–at least on my blogging system–so completely separated out from the genuine, that I almost feel sorry for the perpetrators. Almost.

Remember Mad Libs? It’s a party game in which you are instructed to come up with a list of words: a noun, a verb, another noun, an adjective. And then your words are inserted into a previously unknown paragraph, with hilarious results.

Spam comments always remind me of this. And this is why I am puzzled.

Somewhere in the world, someone has provided a list of English synonyms to be inserted into standard sentences for the express purpose of permitting miscreants to invade your website and computer. Maybe the mastermind behind it played Mad Libs games as a child. Or maybe he has an unwarranted confidence in the intellect of his minions. And not incidentally, he may be underestimating the intelligence of the average blog writer.

To wit:

(All errors below are as written by senders.)

“I’ve been browsing online more than 3 hours today, yet I never found any interesting article like yours. It is pretty worth enough for me.”

“Personally if all web owners and blogrrss made good content as youu did, the net will be much more useful than ever before.”

“i’ve read this put up and iff I maay desire to suggest soke fascinating issues of suggestions.”

“Ahaa, its good conversation not he topic of this article here at this website, I have read all that, so now me also commenting here.”

“Thank you for the auspicious writeup. It in fact was a amusement account it. Look advanced to more added agreeable from you!”

One fellow (non spam) writer confessed to me that she was so fearful of contamination from these comments that she was afraid to even look at them.  She was missing the opportunity for some fine comedy.

But all the same, I am deeply grateful for spam filters. And I look advanced to your comments.