# English letter order - what's never seen? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 1, 2003, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610 "2003-07-01T17:23:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 5\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Askance](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/askance/32/8281_2.png) [@Askance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Askance)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610/21 "2003-07-02T02:45:29Z")
It’s pointless. As soon as any conceivable filter became effective the spammers would change the spam to work around it. Eventually spam will become statistically indistiguishable from genuine mail, by a sort of Darwinian process. As pointed out in the current New Scientist, nothing but legislation will do it (as it did with pirate radio staions in ships off Europe in the 70s), and as most spam originates in the US good ol’ Bushie has to do it. As if. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610/22 "2003-07-02T05:40:33Z")
If spam WERE turly indistinguishable from normal mail, then it wouldnt be a problem. The very fact that we want to filter out spam means that there is some distinguishing feature. At the very least, it has to try and SELL you something (Im neglecting email harvesting spam since it will wither and die if for-profit spam dies). How exactly can you pitch a pre-approved credit card without using the words “credit, preapproved, money, card, free” etc. ---
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610/23 "2003-07-02T14:05:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Shalmanese \* > \*\*If spam WERE turly indistinguishable from normal mail, then it wouldnt be a problem. The very fact that we want to filter out spam means that there is some distinguishing feature. At the very least, it has to try and SELL you something (Im neglecting email harvesting spam since it will wither and die if for-profit spam dies). How exactly can you pitch a pre-approved credit card without using the words “credit, preapproved, money, card, free” etc. \*\* But how many valid emails do you want to risk losing if they contain just those terms? How long do you want to spend wading through a list of suspected emails if your filter picks up on about as many valid emails as invalid ones? Filtering isn’t the whole solution. But laws aren’t, either: Email knows no nationality. For something that has a chance of actually stemming the tide, look at hashcash. ---
**Author:** ![Belrix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ed655f/32.png) [@Belrix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Belrix)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 5:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610/24 "2003-07-02T17:41:36Z")
Just an update. I narrowed the list to the following by running it against all my email (over 3000 messages) & tossing out false positives. This narrows the list to 83 items: ```auto bx bz cb cj cw dx fq fv fz gv gx hj hx hz jb jf jg jh jk jl jm jn jq js jt jw jx jy jz kx kz mj mz pq px pz qc qd qe qf qg qh qi qj qk qm qn qo qp qq qr qs qv qx qy qz sx sz tq uw vf vh vj vk vn vq wj wq wx xj xk xv xz yy zc zd zf zj zp zq zr zx ``` It doesn’t take long to type them in, although the process leaves me wishing that Outlook supported regex. The results were that 39 email of the 2000 mail test set were filtered for content (“pen1s”, “gold card”, “phent”, etc.). 13 email were rejected for “random letter inclusion”. There was a number of false positives in the random letter filter that were related to a number of technical email with Unix commands in the (“chmod”) but I can put an exception to the rule for mail from specific addresses like those list servers to prevent that. I get false positives from my content filter, too. On the surface, the random letter filter works. It’s especially safe since I’m just sorting to another folder rather than automatcially discarding matches. The other filter patterns were rejected for these false matches & abbreviations (some of which are specific to applications I use): bq subquery cf sendmail.cf cg centigram cv curriculum vitae cx cx600 (emc) fx special fx gq gentlemans quarterly jc jesus christ jd jack daniels jj hajj jp japan jv junior varsity kq blockquote mg milligram mx mx missle pv pvcs qa qatar qb quarter-back ql sql qt quick time qw qwik (Sun Micro “Qwik” Seminars) tx texas vb visual basic vc pvcs vd veneral disease vg volume group (veritas) vl servlet vm volume manager (veritas) vp vpn vt vermont vw volkswagon vx veritas wv west virginia xx strikeout,xxx zb buzzbomb zm hazmat ---
**Author:** ![photopat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e95f7d/32.png) [@photopat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/photopat)\ **Post date:** [July 2, 2003, 7:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610/25 "2003-07-02T19:18:55Z")
zr “Ezra” as in “Pound”, or “better than.” mj = Micheal Jordan or Jackson. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/english-letter-order-whats-never-seen/185610.md?page=1)