My friend Andy and I like to swap examples of wretched grammar, spelling, and punctuation. For example, I just saw an ESPN+ graphic that read as follows: “Coleman Bennett, 3000 carrer all pupose yards.” For hilarity’s sake, let’s pronounce the second misspelling “poo-puss.”
If you’re not great at the written word and feel insecure about this, feel free to come to my house, turn on the cold water in my bathroom sink, and watch nothing come out—because it started leaking six months ago and I don’t know how to fix it, so I shut it off. Brushing my teeth with hot water is fine. Laugh away. So if you feel I judge you, judge my plumbing.
Yesterday morning, I was scrolling Facebook and saw that our friend Dan had just started a small food truck as a side gig. Then I saw a comment Lauren had left on his post, and the day went to hell. The following text conversation between Lauren and me ensued.
Me: I’m gonna have to report you to Andy Stone. You wrote on Dan’s post, “You’re food is amazing.” I might file for divorce.
Lauren: His guacamole was good. I did not say better than you’re [sic: “you’re”!] cooking.
Gordon: You don’t even understand the problem.
Lauren: I don’t. Why to Andy?
Me: “YOU ARE food is amazing!”
Now I was forced to text Andy and his wife Heather.
Me [pasted the screenshot of my conversation with Lauren]: Andy and Heather, can I crash at your place? Lauren and I are going through something here.
Lauren quickly corrected her Facebook comment and pasted it in the chat as follows.
Here’s the rest of the conversation.
Me: I can’t unsee it, though.
Lauren: I made a huge mistake. Hopefully gordon can get past it.
Andy: I don’t know if I want to end up in the middle of that! Those are high stakes.
Lauren: I got wooed by the bad grammar gods. It’s a very public embarrassment. I would love to blame autocorrect. Because I am so careful with that. But it’s better to just take responsibility.
Heather: I would blame autocorrect. It’s more work to type you’re than your. You clearly typed your and autocorrect framed you.
Nice try, Lauren. How can it be innocent when you repeated the mistake? Or how about the use of the adverb hopefully when you really mean “I hope.” Or making your because phrase a “sentence.” Think I didn’t notice the lowercase “g” in my name? Passive aggressive, you think?
Pray for us, friends. Meanwhile, I will not be fixing the bathroom sink anytime soon.
His Smile Lit Up a Room and Other Things to Say at My Funeral 