Good news! Your compulsive need to correct everyone has finally resulted in becoming universally beloved! At long last — and without any warning whatever — your habit of beginning sentences with “Actually,” has brought you total acclaim. Former lovers and Internet acquaintances alike have joined together to celebrate your heroic habit of never letting a slightly incorrect statement go unchallenged.
The cousin whose eyes swam with hurt last Christmas after you unceremoniously tore apart her muddled-but-workable understanding of the dissertation process understands now just why it was so important you could not allow her to live in partial ignorance for even one second. It was because of your deep and abiding commitment to truth, and not your congenital need to display your intellectual superiority even when it hasn’t been challenged, that led to her correction, and she’s grateful to you now.
“It’s the way the corrections always come first,” one of your friends you’ve long since lost touch with after years of slowly chipping away at her affection for you with your constant, low-level criticism breathlessly explained in an interview. “So you always know what’s the most important: that small detail that isn’t quite right but doesn’t really have anything to do with the topic at hand, and making sure that you always know — always, and right away — just how incorrect you were.”
The sweet, hardworking coworker that you’ve always hated for her failure to worship your particular brand of intellectual sophistication has finally come to appreciate the curtness of your one-sentence emails and the imitation you give of her in the break room when you think she sits too far away to hear you.
The way you constantly prioritize making sure everyone knows at any given moment just exactly how mistaken you believe that they are over any form of closeness or human connection or just giving it a goddamn rest-ness has at long last resulted in universal acclaim.
“Thank you,” a grateful world roars, and you sit back on your heels, basking in the knowledge that you have fully demonstrated your commitment to always being a little bit more right than the next person. “Thank you.” You nod sheepishly. “It’s nothing, really. Nothing at all.”
It isn’t small in the least, you finally realize, this love-ruining, patience-shredding, neither-as-helpful-nor-as-charming-as-you-think-it-is conversational tic of yours. They weren’t the thousand petty cruelties that finally drove the world away from you. Everybody wants you around now. They need you. You’re not alone, nor isolated, nor pushed aside because of it. You’re surrounded by friends, and all of them are smiling warmly at you. Everyone’s smiling, and everyone’s happy, and everyone’s finally right, because of you.
[Image via Dorothy Dandridge Forever]
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No, it hasn’t.
You forgot to put a period at the end of the last sentence.
*basks in adoration*
AT LAST
I said everyone would appreciate me eventually, and as always, I was right.
That’s because being right is just so much more important than being happy
You’re wrong – being right *is* being happy.
How can one be happy without being right?
My family and friends can’t see a Snopes.com link without thinking warmly of me.
Snopes.com does god’s work.
I have never heard of snopes.com!
*becomes 1000% more insufferable*
HER UNDERSTANDING WAS MUDDLED I HAD TO ACT
I’m going to print out ~1000 copies of this and gleefully hand them out to anyone who tries to come at me with an “Actually…”
ETA: Perfect timing – my office Christmas party is this weekend. Bless you, Mallory!
I knew I’d be right about this someday.
So I’m just supposed to let it slide when someone trots out the ol’ “There’s no J Street in Washington, DC because Pierre L’Enfant hated John Jay” fallacy? I’ll be dead first.
Why is it, then?
The letter “j” was pretty much indistinguishable from the letter “i” in the English alphabet until quite recently, historically speaking. To Pierre L’Enfant, “i” and “j” were essentially the same letter.
See also: that bit in Indiana Jones. (It’s amazing what a range of things that sentence can apply to.)
like today’s fire ant article
Okay but that’s actually interesting.
I like to think I’m a bit better than the pedant of this article, but I certainly cannot sit idly by while people spread falsehoods under the guise of “interesting facts”. No, the IPA style of beer was not invented to survive the voyage to India (though they were shipped there from England, porters also survived just fine). Yes, tomatoes are fruit, but it doesn’t mean what you think it means – all squashes, for example, are also fruit, because it’s a botanical distinction, not a nutritional one, so everyone calm down.
I know these things, and accept and bless you for sharing your knowledge.
My favorite quote about the tomato fruit thing: Knowledge is knowing that the tomato is a fruit. Wisdom is knowing not to put it in fruit salad.
What?? Tell me more about the *actual* origin of IPAs! Your thirst for detail and correctness is appreciated today!
*seconded!*
Some guy has been blasting a lot of this around the internet recently (Martyn someone) in trying to sell a book on beer history. However, he makes claims like this, and then when you actually read what he writes, the contradictions are apparent.
Brewers were, in fact, told in the 18th century that it was “absolutely necessary” to add hops to beers meant to survive warm climates. Whether this was actually true is, for the historical record, beside the point .
highfives is, alas, a negative-one-upper, spreading both misinformation and misery.
You’re assuming we do this because we want to be liked and think this will get us there, and that we are completely blind to how the behavior is perceived. No, it’s because it physically pains us to see ignorance. I compulsively bite my nails too, but I don’t do it thinking it makes me pretty.
OMG I wondered if starting my comment in the “Different Animals Who Are Not Friends” article with “actually” was obnoxious but decided to go ahead with it I’M SORRY I JUST WANTED TO TELL PEOPLE ABOUT THE CUTE DOMESTICATED FOXES
Never apologies for linking to articles with pictures of cute animals. NEVER.
Actually, it’s “apologize”, not “apologies”.
BRB buying full-age ad in every fan con guidebook ever
[waiting for a dude to breathlessly explain to me why this is so funny]
It’s funny because it’s true?
*hangs head* Lo the snark of Her Toastessness hath opened mine eyes and I shall go and be obnoxious no more!
(Not gonna lie, though: my carefully concocted scheme for attaining Middle School popularity was to show that I knew more about whatever topic the ‘cool’ group of nerdy, fantasy-reading girls were into that week than they did. I honestly thought it was a good plan, and it took me a long long time to realize that it wasn’t.)
My dad is this person. Also, my worst nightmare is turning into this person. Also also, I’m afraid to have kids because I’d hate to pass on my own crippling sense of inadequacy in everything I do to any human being.
…too honest? tmi? LOOK I JUST HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS ABOUT THIS OKAY. TRY NOT TO DO THIS TO YOUR CHILDREN.
I like you, person.
Finally.
THIS IS ABOUT ME I CAN TELL
Yeah, this is too close, Mallory. Too close.
Sending this to my dad and all of my brothers. The question is; will they catch the fact that it’s satire, or will I get to correct them?
I like being right more than I like being liked, so. Luckily all of my friends are also insufferable know it alls, but on different subjects, so, actually (!!) we complement each other nicely.
Raise your hand if you feel personally victimized by this post but you also know that it is 100% accurate so you can’t even say “Well, actually…”
(hand up)
This is about every member of my family. The rest of humanity is so WRONG most of the time. It is our civic, nay, MORAL duty to correct them and set them back on the path of righteousness. You’re welcome.
I wonder how many words I’ve mispronounced because people were being nice and just letting it slide. Please, correct me if I say a word too français-style or whatever, I’ll be grateful. (I say vase and not vaaaz but I then I say oh-maaashj and not homage.)
As a child (by which I mean maybe a 13 year old?) I pronounced “coup d’eat” as “coop de tat,” fortunately only in front of my parents, and I am so grateful that they corrected me.
Nobody told me it was bona fide and not bonified until three years ago. Three years ago! I had only ever head it spoken. I was an English major, dammit, I am supposed to know these things.
I try really hard not to be this guy but my approach is not as much a need for things to be right but to share the right knowledge with others. Knowing things is awesome!
How is this both exactly me, and not? I’m perpetually nervous that I do not posses enough, or precise enough knowledge to ever be like these people. With their grammar corrections and historical facts?
I am a fount of trivia, which leads to impromptu etymology explanations, and a deafness to the idea that everyone else won’t find it as fascinating as I do. :-/
One, short emails are the digital version of how I do all things. Two: all of my bff Virgos out there, I would like to send you this but you will then murder me, so…. keep on keepin’ on.
Bff Virgos already reading.
Why? Because if we don’t know about everything, we won’t be able to correct people properly.
through ignorance of one's ignorance
Have you considered that such an unnecessarily judgmental & harsh action would be another version of the finger-wagging disguised as constructive criticism that this article shed light on?
This is outrageous ! How can you speak of my wife in that manner ?
It might be true but I can never tell her that…
I wish I could find a way for her to send her the link anonymously !!!!!
Some guy has been blasting a lot of this around the internet recently (Martyn someone) in trying to sell a book on beer history. However, he makes claims like this, and then when you actually read what he writes, the contradictions are apparent.
Brewers were, in fact, told in the 18th century that it was "absolutely necessary" to add hops to beers meant to survive warm climates. Whether this was actually true is, for the historical record, beside the point .
highfives is, alas, a negative-one-upper, spreading both misinformation and misery.
I don’t know, hyphens.
My God this is beautiful. I’ve been waiting for this for the past year. I’m tempted to recite it.