# What do you make of this eBay message?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [June 25, 2010, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427 "2010-06-25T00:29:02Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 2

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**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 7:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427/21 "2010-06-27T19:46:44Z")

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> [@Superhal](#):
>
> ESL speakers don’t make that type of mistakes, but people who are faking it tend to. I’m surprised he didn’t spell “I” as “Eye.”
> 
> Fakers tend to change everything to (interestingly, the correct) phonetics, but keep correct punctuation and prepositions. Real non-native speakers will make mistakes on punctuation and prepositions, and misspellings will seldom have the correct phonetics (e.g. Pay Pal might become Paye Pale.)

Just this afternoon I was playing a game with an Italian girl, that involved one person drawing something and the next person writing a description. I drew a man running towards a ship, and she wrote “a man running towards a sheep”. Hilarity ensued.

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**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\
**Post date:** [June 27, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427/22 "2010-06-27T21:04:37Z")

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> [@Superhal](#):
>
> ESL speakers don’t make that type of mistakes, but people who are faking it tend to. I’m surprised he didn’t spell “I” as “Eye.”
> 
> Fakers tend to change everything to (interestingly, the correct) phonetics, but keep correct punctuation and prepositions. Real non-native speakers will make mistakes on punctuation and prepositions, and misspellings will seldom have the correct phonetics (e.g. Pay Pal might become Paye Pale.)
> 
> One of the real dead giveaways of a faker is correct use of articles (a, an, the.) Fakers seldom remember to fake the “small” words.

This was basically what I wanted to say. That message was written by someone who speaks English fluently and is for some reason trying to pretend like they don’t. I’m not sure what the advantage would be in this situation, but I’m guessing there’d be some “delay” with the payment coming from “overseas”, an issue with exchange rates, or some other bogus “problem” that this person would be unable to explain or resolve in a timely manner because they supposedly can’t speak English well.

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**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427/23 "2010-06-28T06:18:15Z")

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Out of idle curiosity, what kind of item are you selling that has gotten their interest?

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**Author:** ![Nobody](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@Nobody](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nobody)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 6:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427/24 "2010-06-28T06:21:46Z")

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> [@DMark](#):
>
> Out of idle curiosity, what kind of item are you selling that has gotten their interest?

I already sold it, but it was a used Rayovac 15 minute battery recharger for Rayovac AA rechargeable batteries with 4 used rechargeable batteries.

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**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2010, 3:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-do-you-make-of-this-ebay-message/544427/25 "2010-06-28T15:11:59Z")

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Bet that’ll be _really_ useful in Europe, where he’d need an adapter that probably cost more than the charger anyway.

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