Superficial Intelligence

We have all seen them. Those email addresses that seem to have been put together by throwing Scrabble tiles all around the floor. You just hate it when someone gives you their address and it looks something like ax34hj5ooo@hotmail.com. (I hope this isn't a real one by the way.) Here are a few ways to tell if your email address falls into the "lame" category:

1. Long Numbers - Any number at all should be used with caution. And the longer they are, the more annoying they get. Just try to remember an e-mail address with a 28463 in it. At my undergraduate university, our e-mail addresses actually had five numbers in it. I still have to think hard to remember the numbers in my own address.

2. Nonsensical Combinations of Letters and Numbers - This applies to addresses with just letters and to addresses with a combination of both letters and numbers. As with long numbers, this makes e-mail addresses very hard to remember. ah2ut83nr@yahoo.com is an example of this. Another common case is when using only your initials for your email address. I could use fetg@gmail.com, but would that make any sense to anyone else?

3. Celebrity References - This does not require much explanation. It is simply lame to have an e-mail like iloveshakira@somemail.com or tonyshalhoubismyhero@someothermail.com.

4. Extremely Repeated Letters - Do not repeat a letter more than twice unless necessary. Emails like grrrrrreat@mail.com or fernaaaaaando@gmail.com just make it harder for people to type or even remember your address.

5. Jokes That Were Funny in the Fifth Grade - These may be fun with friends, but they just look lame in email addresses. Just think of how much i_fart_when_i_type@mail.com says about a person.

6. Very Long - Once again, tedious to write and hard to remember. By the time you write icouldntthinkofagoodemailaddresssoijustwrotethisdown@mail.com your friend or date will have already left.

In this increasingly Web-aware world in which we live in, email addresses are becoming part of our identity. When selecting an address, try to think of what it will say about you. Don't settle for something lame simply because you couldn't think of a good address. Believe me. It will be worth it to put some effort into it.