Cringe! Worst emails ever

[IRiSHMaFIA]

Email ... what's in your Sinbox?

BELIEVE it or not, the email has just turned 35.

IT programmer Ray Tomlinson sent the first message in late 1971.

"The test messages were entirely forgettable and I have, therefore, forgotten them. Most likely the first message was QWERTYUIOP or something similar," he says.

And now, 35 years on, we'd be completely lost without the joys of emailing - just imagine actually having to work all day!

That said, for all the advantages of knowing your buddies are just a few clicks away, incessant emailing has also been known to backfire. How many of us have clicked 'reply all' by accident? And remember Claire Swires? Lucy Gao? Richard Phillips?

Let us jog your memory with the top 5 embarassing emails.


Yummy yummy yummy I've got love in my tummy


In 2000, Claire Swires cemented her place in email history by sending a saucy email to her then boyfriend while working at the London law firm, Norton Rose.

The email alluded to her love of a very specific, and often debated, (gulp) sexual practice, which was obviously very private indeed. So her boyfriend decided to forward it to a few of his closest chums - albeit 'by mistake'.

They then forwarded it to their pals, who sent it to their pals, and on and on and on. It wasn't long before Claire was a global talking point, and the word 'yum' had a whole different connotation.

Her then-boyfriend, Bradley Chait was cautioned but not sacked, and word has it she has since married and put the crippling shame behind her.


Putting on the Ritz


For her 21st birthday party, Lucy Gao, who worked for Citygroup in London's Canary Wharf, suddenly morphed into a diva-ish Jennifer Lopez type, demanding that her 39 guests adhere to numerous ridiculous demands.

Via email invite, Lucy insisted that guests contact her through her PA "between 8.30pm and 10pm" if they have any questions, announcing to hotel staff "I am here for Lucy's birthday at the Rivoli Bar" on their arrival, and dressing "upper class".

"I will be accepting cards and small gifts between 9pm to 11pm," she continued.

The only problem was that Lucy wasn't Jennifer Lopez, she was a lowly trainee at a city firm and clearly somewhat deluded - a fact not lost on the millions of people the ridiculous email was forwarded on to by one of her colleagues.


Four reddies and a funeral


Richard Phillips ended up leaving his job as a senior associate with the world's biggest law firm, Baker & McKenzie, after an embarrassing email made him a laughing stock among suited business folk.

Jenny Amner, a secretary in her 50s had accidentally splashed ketchup on his trousers, so the ?100,000-a-year city boy thought he'd email her demanding ?4 for the dry cleaning.

And on returning from her mother's funeral, Jenny thought she'd take some action, replying to his email, with all the 250 staff on their floor CC'd in.

"I must apologise for not getting back to you straight away but due to my mother's sudden illness, death and funeral I have more pressing issues than your ?4."

"Having already spoken to and shown your email to various partners, lawyers and trainees in ECC&T and IP/IT, they have kindly offered to do a collection."

Unfortunately it didn't end there. The email was then pinged around the whole business world leaving tight-fisted Richard more than a little red in the face.


Smile though your heart is breaking


Poor Joseph Dobbie thought he'd spill his heart out to a pretty girl over email, blissfully unaware that his warm words would soon be a thing of online legend.

He'd met Kate Winsall at a party, and rather than just casually asking her out, he insisted on working some gentlemanly magic as well.

"Your smile is the freshest of my special memories," he gushed. "I will hold it in my heart when I need inspiration. I will keep it with me when I need to find a smile of my own."

It goes on. "I know that it makes me feel good to believe that maybe, if you are ever upset, knowing that I will be keeping your smile alive might help you through."

It must have been some smile, but unfortunately for Joe, it seems that the person behind it decided to show his email to a few choice buddies. And then the whole world.

Poor bloke.


World's worst boyfriend


Trevor Luxton, a clerk at Credit Lyonnais, made a big mistake when he thought he'd boast about his cheating ways over email with his mates. The office worker bragged about how he'd got down and dirty with a girl called Laura while his doomed girlfriend Jo was bored at an airport.

According to the hopeless lothario's email, Jo called him while he was fooling around with the saucy minx. She carried on doing whatever it is she was doing, while he smugly talked to the missus.

"Am I the worst boyfriend in the world or what?" he asked at the end of the email.

Presumably his mates thought so, as they forwarded it around so the dirty rat would be found out - as, of course, he was. No doubt Trevor didn't make the same mistake again ... using email that is.

[faceless]

The people who made those emails public should be the ones who are embarassed.

[Marcella-FL]

I do think the one with the ketchup on the pants was justified though ... JERK!

[Skylace]

Wow! Some of those are terrible.

[maycm]

Recently Unearthed E-Mail Reveals What Life Was Like In 1995
KNOXVILLE, TN?A 1995 e-mail extracted from the hard drive of a recently unearthed Compaq desktop PC offers a tantalizing glimpse into the day-to-day life of a primitive Internet society, said the archaeologists responsible for its discovery.

"We're very excited by this find, because only by understanding our e-mail past can we hope to understand our e-mail present and future," said Northwestern University archaeology professor Lane Caspari, who has been leading the dig through the equipment storage area of a Knoxville-area credit union since late April, on Tuesday. "The discovery also sheds new light on the 1990s?an era we know very little about."

Written by a "scully666@compuserve.com" and addressed to a "makincopeez@prodigy.net," the writer expresses the ancient equivalent of boredom, asks the receiver about his or her status in their primeval office environment, then refers to the act of sending the e-mail itself.

"Nothing going on," begins the e-mail. "What's up with you? Are you going to Mike's b-day thing on Friday? I'm thinking about it. I might go, but I'm not sure yet."

The e-mail continues, "Let me know if you get this e-mail twice. I'm still trying to learn the system. I think the managers know when we're on the Net, so I'll stay away from the web surfing and check my e-mail only once a day."

The e-mail is signed only "K." It contains no subject line.

"It shows that these forgotten people of the '90s had many of the same concerns as modern man, such as b-days, and slow periods at work," Caspari said. "The presence of the archaic slang verbalization 'what's up' appears to indicate that they cared about the immediate welfare of others in their closely knit community, much as we do today."

But the artifact reveals differences as well. According to Caspari, the find indicates that people from that era spoke a much earlier form of e-mail language alien to our own, employing the full spellings of most words, and lacking the versatility and advanced expression of smiley-face or frowny-face emoticons.

Researchers were hoping that "Untitled 1995," as they've dubbed it, would help fill-in the long-sought missing link between the ancient e-mail world and the modern era. The Compaq's hard drive crashed shortly after the discovery, a more thorough study of the early writing is impossible. Only a paper copy of the e-mail remains.

"It was heartbreaking to see that hard drive die, but there was a certain tragic poetry to it, as well," Caspari said. "Few have ever had the privilege of receiving, first-hand, a beacon from our distant past, calling out to us across the sea time."

Neither e-mail address is active any longer, but their names may provide clues to long-forgotten events or important rulers of the time.

"Scully666' was likely a figure from these people's pantheon of god-figures," Caspari said. "'Makincopeez' is a reference lost to the ages."

Only four known e-mails pre-date this one, including a 1992 ASCII drawing of Star Trek's Mr. Spock, found by a group of Indian laborers salvaging precious metals from computer hardware in a Mumbai dump in 2004.

Caspari said it was "extraordinary" that the early e-mailers showed an awareness of the importance of their new tool.

"This clearly points to a reverence for the technology, but also an intense anxiety about a power they could not have understood," Caspari said. "It's safe to assume that 1995 was a terrifying and confusing time, and they must have struggled to make sense of it all."

While much work remains before researchers can hope to illuminate the secrets of the ancient and mysterious period of the late '90s, they say the discovery itself is an important milestone in understanding human history.

"Listening to the whir of the disc drive and watching the blink of the cursor, we glimpsed, for a moment, life through a completely different set of eyes," Caspari said. "But, in the end, we realized have more in common with our shadowy ancestors than we might like to think