Confessions of a Word Police Imposter

I been noticing a serious problem in society, and I figure I’m the only one brave enough too point it out. People today are getting more and more unedukated. It’s like the whole word woke up one morning and decided proper English was optional, like socks with sandals.

Now, I ain’t no genius or nothing, but I know what I’m talking about. I read words all the time. On signs. On cereal boxes. One time on a shampoo bottle when I forgot my phone in the kitchen. So I consider myself pretty knowledgable.

But some folks? Wow. They take the cake. Then they eat it wrong.

Take the people who axe a question. Every time I hear it, I wanna hand them a dictionary and a helmet. Or the ones who type “you’re welcome” when there trying too say “your”. I don’t even respond anymore. I just sit their, shaking my head like a disappointed Jim teacher.

And don’t get me started on the ones who say stuff like supposadly with a “d” instead of a “b”… Irregardless, they toss those words around like their selecting snacks at a buffet. Grab whatever looks shiny and hope nobody notices you don’t know what it actually is. It’s like watching a goat wander into a ball room, except the goat probably has better diction.

Than their’s the folks who loose everything. I loose my patience reading them complain about how they loose there keys, loose there temper, loose they’re minds. I picture pants falling down somewhere. Which, to be fair, matches the energy.

Pronounciation? Oh boy. That’s its own circus. People confidently firing off words like liberty instead of liberry, espresso instead of expresso, and specific when they mean pacific. I heard a guy bragging he needed an escape (instead of exscape) from his job. I nearly called for help. Not for him. For the hole word, the intire planet. It didn’t deserve that kind of violent ending.

And yet, somehow, these same people think there smarter then me. Me, a man who has read every single instruction manual for every appliance I never fully learned too use. Me, who once corrected someone online by telling them they used the wrong their, even though I didn’t actually know which one was the right one but felt spiritually confident about it. Me who listens too the U.S. Prasident speek every single day!

But here’s the funny part. I’ve been catching myself slipping too. The other day I wrote definitely instead of defiantly and didn’t realise till someone pointed it out. And last week, someone axed me if I meant then or than, and I had too pretend my phone autocorrected it. My phone did not. Autocorrect abandoned me years ago.

That’s when it hit me like a snow shovel to the forehead. Maybe I ain’t just the pot calling the cattle black. Maybe I’m the whole cookware set.

See, we all mess up. We all say things wrong, right things wrong on paper, forget rules we swore we learned in grade fore. Some of us climb the hill of grammar like a proud climber. Others slide down it like a kid on a cafeteria tray. And sometimes, weir both.

The real joke isn’t that people misuse words. The real joke is how quick we are to judge everyone else’s mistakes while ignoring the parade of our own. It’s human nature. And it’s funny in a way that makes you laugh and cringe at the same time.

So the moral? Keep smiling, keep learning, and don’t take yourself two serious. Language isn’t a weapon. It’s a tool. And like any tool, sometimes it gets used backwards, sideways, or on the wrong project entirely… or types in ALL CAPS on social media.

And if you catch someone saying specific instead of pacific, try not to loose you’re mind. Just remember that somewhere, quietly, you’ve probably been doing the same thing.

Or wurst.