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PaperclipPerfector  16hr ago (text post)   673 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 25, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Field notes from the usage wars:

Wife and I recently got new phones. She had a cracked screen and mine was so ancient it couldn't run tiktok without crashing so it was time. We gathered up the kids, promised ice cream afterwards, and headed to the phone store. I hate the phone store. It's completely soulless and full of mind-and-social-fabric-destroying devices. I would rather be at the bead store than the phone store (IYKYK).

I was helped by a nice younger dude with a man bun. As he was tapping away at his iPad he tells me I might be eligible for an upgrade. "Great!" I say. He keeps tapping away as I watch my kids run around the store touching things they shouldn't be touching while my wife tries to wrangle them. This trip better not take more than an hour. Man bun tells me his wife is an elementary school teacher, neat. More time passes. I'm getting irritated. I ask, "So... uh, can I get an upgrade?"

Man bun: "May I."

Me: "Come again?"

Man bun: "It's 'May I get an upgrade?'"

I think it's a universal human experience to feel a twinge of irritation when you are corrected, but man o' man it's doubly worse when you're right and they're wrong. I normally would have dropped it but since I was in the phone store, and I was primed for some confrontation.

"No. I'm not asking you for permission to get an upgrade, I'm asking if it's possible. Therefore, 'can' is the correct word."

Man bun thinks for a second, then says, "Yeah I guess you're right." I'm glad he cares about the state of the English language but damn guy at least be right about it. I imagine his wife regales him about owning 8-year-olds asking to go to the bathroom and he got the wrong idea. "I dunno, CAN you???"

This is an example of HYPERCORRECTION. I'm certainly guilty of this; it's probably my worst tendency with language. People usually overcorrect because of something they learned in primary school, like ending a sentence in a preposition (totally fine btw). Take this example:

The IRS is after my wife and I.

Sounds correct, right? I kinda vaguely remember thinking that "I" was a more posh way to refer to yourself than "me". But all you have to do is remove the other person to realize you're wrong:

The IRS is after I.

Clearly deranged. "I" is a subject pronoun, "me" is an object pronoun. If you're the one doing the verbing, it's "I"; if you're the one getting verbed it's "me". Thus:

The IRS is after my wife and me.

Or the slightly better (imo):

The IRS is after me and my wife

At the moment he corrected me I would have gone full Karen and asked to see his manager, then corrected him in front of his manager, then explained why I would never be returning to his store (presumptuous assholery by staff). Then left. Fuck that asshole. Maybe I've been in Japan too long where the service is almost always exemplary. What an insufferable twat.

Maybe I've been in Japan too long where the service is almost always exemplary.

I would have to rack my memory to recall any exemplary service I've gotten. Generally the best one can hope for is pleasant and competent enough. Often it's insufferable or incompetent.

The exact same thing happened to me once at a car rental place, upgrade and all. Or maybe that was Bryan Garner; I can't remember.

Or the slightly better (imo):

The IRS is after me and my wife

You are only a babby grammar Nazi if you think that "me and my wife" is acceptable.

The IRS is after I.

Clearly deranged.

That's right, it should be "The IRS is after I and I".

Explain my babby status because I want to be a good grammar nazi :3

Quod licet Jovem non licet bovem? (This is a joke about verb objects.)

Having knowledge of another language that has a somewhat different structure can help one to understand one's own language. See also sentence diagramming.

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