Perhaps my financial worries are over for good. I received an e-mail this morning from Mr. Nelson Umbakuya, who happens to be the consulate of health from Nigeria. He respectfully informs me that he would like help in getting some $14 million out of the country and he thinks I'm the man for the job.

All he needs is my bank account numbers, Social Security number, mother's maiden name, driver's license and the deed to my house, just for security purposes, of course.

I know the mailbox will be filling up soon with those checks from Nigeria, but if that doesn't work out, I've still got the checks from AOL and Microsoft coming. I'm supposed to earn money every time Iforward an e-mail, so I figure I should have a nice sum built up there, too.

I just hope that check doesn't get lost like the coupon for a national restaurant that was supposed to ‘pop up on my screen' last week.

What am I talking about, you ask? These are actual e-mails that I have indeed received just in the past week.

The first is a scam that attempts to get credit card, bank or personal information by offering to give the e-mail's recipient a vast amount of cash. The scam is known as ‘phishing' and involves promises that sound too good to be true. There's a reason for that. They are.

There are several varieties of these e-mails that go out, but rest assured, there is no one out there just dying to give away $14 million to some perfect stranger, just for the privilege of being able to filter the cash through your bank account.

The second one is like a page out of some book, like "Internet for Idiots 101." However, it would seem that the hopeful and naive are far outweighing the shrewd and intelligent in these cases.

There is no possible way to track an e-mail and, even if there were, no one is going to pay you for forwarding some message.

It really just proves that you are not very savvy if you forward such things. But don't feel bad, most everyone tried it at least twice. There are many other such things to talk about, but it is worthy of note that many, if not most, e-mail forwards are either outright falsehoods or at least partially false.

Often what happens is someone sends a picture or two out to friends and family, who then forward it to their friends and family, and on and on. Eventually, the picture falls into the hands of numerous people with no knowledge of the original event.

Those folks then make up captions to go with the pictures and send them out. It's like a form of entertainment, for the most part. One recent message showed a young man crushed by a large truck and purported that he was a dangerous gang member killed while trying to rob a truck driver. The truth? The picture was real, but he actually was a mentally disturbed man who was begging for money at a gas station and tried to stop one of the trucks by leaning against the tire with his shoulder.

Other examples target political enemies on both sides of the aisle and even promote myths about the uses of popular products from WD-40 to Coca-Cola.

I've taken to looking into claims sent to me on personal e-mails by searching for them on the Web and then trying to figure out what percentage of the claims turn out to be true. Sometimes debunking something can lead to quite a bit more education than one might want to acquire in an evening at home.

However, one quick and easy source for me has been Snopes.com, which provides pretty good information about e-mails and scams that typically circulate around the Web. One point here—the stuff needs to be either true or false before it can be proven as such.

If I say, "Blue is the most beautiful of all the colors,"one can't prove whether or not that statement is true. However, if I say, "Barack Obama is a militant Muslim,"that can be proven true or false. I mention that one since I actually received an message making a claim of something similar to that, but found out upon research that Obama is a Christian.

I would encourage everyone to check the validity of e-mails before sending them out so that they don't tie up necessary bandwidth and uneccesarily waste the message recipients' time. If these reasons aren't enough, if you only forward that which is true, you won't be guilty of disseminating falsehoods.

I've been guilty of sending on a few bad forwards, but Inow resist hitting the ‘send' key until Ido a little research. No standard exists for opinion, so feel free. But be advised, I came to the conclusion several years ago that the only people who really care what I think probably already know what I think. The rest of the people either agree with me or they don't, but they can feel free to change their minds at any time.

Anyway, over the years I have received several e-mails about our president's lack of mastery of the English language. It is quite well-known that some of his words, like "misunderestimate," and phrases like, "I think we agree, the past is over" have become the stuff of humor legend.

I must admit that I sometimes can connect with the president in a personal way on this matter. I thought of an example just now. I've found that there are several words that I don't pronounce well when I read them, even aloud. Paradigm is one of those words. I recently read that word and incorrectly said "pair-uh-dig-um" instead of "pair-uh-dime." Oh, I know the right pronunciation, but

I still always think of the wrong one—and sometimes say it and then correct myself.

I also find myself repeatedly misusing some words, like lay and lie and pondering the usage of words like affect and effect.

As for the 'Bushisms', I recently looked up a slew of those and found many to be things he actually said in 2000. In this age where every word by a candidate is recorded, I'd say I'd be in trouble if the shoe were on the other foot. However, since it isn't, I'd rather chuckle at his grammatical mistakes than figure out a way to educate myself to prevent my own.