The Trouble With Cryptic Email Names
Fri Aug 31, 2007 12:45PM EDT
See Comments (165)
Do you have friends and family with bizarre email names like Glyptal, Styx1000, Dude5? Me, too. I can understand using these names for the incognito web activities in your life like commenting on blog posts and e-shopping. But why make people who know you have to perform a mental matching test every time they get your email?
This Labor Day weekend I'm in serious trouble thanks to cryptic email names. We're throwing a family party and, truthfully, I'm not sure who's showing up. I'm convinced that because they were email names saved in my "Family" list on Evite we'll recognize and be able to put a name to an email name when they show. My mom is convinced that a few absolute strangers are going to turn up—maybe a work colleague of mine or an old boyfriend of one of the kids who should have been purged from the family list.
I'd love to blame Evite for making it too easy to send out invitations. I should probably blame myself for not clearing out my lists every now and then. But I'm going to blame people who think their email name is some sort of cipher. Can't wait to meet you, Glyptal and Styx!
To the rest of you, stay safe and enjoy your weekend.
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67 Posted by bignaps on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:07PM EDT Report Abuse
Does anyone know the number at Yahoo! where I can call to get the minute of my life back that I wasted reading this pointless article?
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68 Posted by xentius1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:53PM EDT Report Abuse
Learn to label and not be a poor writer, please. I think most people are smart enough to recognize that if they have dozens of e-mail addresses, they might want to try to at least group them and not try to memorize every single web nickname.
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69 Posted by retasuika on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:36PM EDT Report Abuse
My name is a combination of 'Retasu' and 'Suika', both of which are Japanese words, so does that count as 'cryptic'?
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70 Posted by rhythmkiss on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:38PM EDT Report Abuse
You don't sound very organized. Well, I hope someone interesting shows up at your party!
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71 Posted by titus417 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:12PM EDT Report Abuse
mostly it's your fault, anybody who knows how to use a computer will edit a personal name for each address they keep. so don't blame ppl's e-mail blame the fact that you don't learn enough about computers to comment on it
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72 Posted by bcb2k5 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:03PM EDT Report Abuse
oh please, dont they realize its you by now? Plus if they were really your friends or family in REAL life, and not cyberworld, they'd probably already know what the nickname is reffering to..obviously allowing them to know who you are.
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73 Posted by androidgeoff on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:54PM EDT Report Abuse
THIS WAS VERY INFORMATIVE AND I AM HAPY I HAVE READ THIS SSORY FOR ENGLISH I AM FROM CROATIA
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74 Posted by menelik2323 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:16PM EDT Report Abuse
perhaps we should also change our street adress and telephone number to our proper name, you know, to decrease confusion.
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75 Posted by neoluv4lee on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:35PM EDT Report Abuse
I dont think that each time you get a weird email you shouldnt have to look the person up.It is kind of immature to only care about what chat name or IM name you have instead of caring about how hard it is for friends and family to identify or type the name.
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76 Posted by nyone469 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 7:42PM EDT Report Abuse
"the boomer" seems too confusing to me. Dont know if i would ever remember if it was you. Thanks for wasting my time reading this. Do speeddials confuse you too?
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77 Posted by kaotik_1ne on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:46PM EDT Report Abuse
this was the sorriest excuse of a topic i have ever read in my life. u know how many people there are in this world? my real name has been taken over a bazillion times!!! by now, everybody has 2 have a number in their name somewhere by now. have some common "nettequite" and deal with it.
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78 Posted by kayellen2 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:48PM EDT Report Abuse
If the people were important to your life you would know who was waho. You should have their home or cell number at the very least. Why? Because not everyone checks their email daily and because if they are like me, they would rather have a personal invite instead of some lazy generic crap via an online address book. I am a "Boomer" too but a little old fashioned care sure couldn't kill you!
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79 Posted by quman5 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 8:24PM EDT Report Abuse
If you weren't lazy you would know who all of the people you "Evited" are. Instead of going through a list and selecting the people you know, you just selected a whole group and invited them. SOMEHOW this is someone else's fault? Either add their names next to their email, or delete the ones of which you aren't sure. Its YOUR list. YOU made it. YOU selected who to invite. Get a clue. The majority of people use free web based mail like yahoo or hotmail. It's pretty difficult to create an account using your first and last name these days with one of these sites. Find something important to complain about next time. And how did this end up on the front page of Yahoo anyways? Someone needs to be fired.
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80 Posted by wakkolover4ever on Thu Sep 3, 2009 10:39PM EDT Report Abuse
I hate boring email addresses. I like complicated ones. Your name and then the address is sooooo boring. like, "PhillBerstain@kidzap.com" or Rodriguezfamily@sbcglobal.net" BORRRING!
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81 Posted by frieste on Thu Sep 3, 2009 4:03PM EDT Report Abuse
This was a total waste of space.....would have been better just posting blank space and telling me it was kryptonite. I'm now dumber for having read this post.
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82 Posted by owlmanitou on Sun Sep 2, 2007 1:32AM EDT Report Abuse
It isn't easy to find simple emails anymore due to the large number of people who have already registered what this author considers more "normal" email names. It also seems like she may be suffering from extreme PMS... and is prudish to say the least. Live and let live.
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83 Posted by crimsonbolt187 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:31PM EDT Report Abuse
Here is an idea. When you get their email address in the first place, you have the option of putting personal information with it to associate the handle with the actual person. That way roxxormyboxxor012304@yahoo.com shows up as Joe Smith.
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84 Posted by chrisalbertson90278 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:24PM EDT Report Abuse
Let me summarize the article for you: "Man am I dumb. I made a list of email addresses and didn't think to fill in the space for the person's real name and now I've forgotten them. I can't figure out what to do."
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85 Posted by daseining1 on Thu Sep 3, 2009 3:37PM EDT Report Abuse
people are crazy. why on earth should anyone care about what anyone elses email address is? are we really THAT lazy and braindead that we can't be bothered to note what email address goes with what person? pathetic.
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66 Posted by adjectiveplusnoun on Thu Sep 3, 2009 2:46PM EDT Report Abuse
Wow! I can’t believe they call you an “expert”. You get PAID to write lame rants like this??? Instead of posting some idiocy about being upset about the handles people choose for their email addresses, you should probably be telling people something useful, like how to add an email to your address book with the user’s actual name. I hope you get fired.