Transcription
Humans, hominids, homo sapiens: America. Thank you for having me for this asisshus, auspicious (how the hell do you say it? Have I been saying it wrong? Auspicious? Whatever, sounds like you’re trying to say “suspicious” and saw an adorable cat).
Case in point: Have you noticed lately you can’t remember how to talk? Like for no reason at all, suddenly you can’t remember the word, or take an extra second finding the one you want. Yesterday I tried to say “rural” and got exhausted, so I just pointed and said “there’s no wi fi over there.” Lately it seems, or at least you’ve seemed, humans, as if your brains have been pulled like your calf muscle that time you tried mounting an E-Scooter for the first time (which btw: out of all the personal transportation devices you could make readily available, how did the scooter make it through? Like a buncha governors were like “Our citizens are too cool, we need a dorkier form of transportation! I know! What would an absent-minded professor ride on his way to test Flubber? That’s it, except no helmets, we don’t wanna look like nerds!)
There’s too much to do, too much to think, too much to say as we close out the year. I shoulda been here three hours ago but I crashed hard last night, snoozed my alarm so many times it stopped ringing and called the police thinking I’d been kidnapped. I rolled outta bed hard enough to take the entire bedspread with me, inchwormed to the kitchen where I lay on the floor like a toasty quilt flavored croissant from the Target bedding section before willing myself to apply my core and escape into the morningfternoon 'cause it was like 1 o'clock already.
Is it depression? Probably. Have you been up lately? In the landscape of your day to day, I don’t blame you for being so fracked in the skull your inner thesaurus is ruptured to the point where you can’t remember if it’s effect or affect— not like ya knew anyway. What I’m saying is: Thankfully you can write shit down.
Hummus (fuck, sorry that’s supposed to be “Humans”). Humans, thank you for having me on this auspicious occasion; whatever it may be doesn’t really matter, you can make anything auspicious. It just means “favorable” or “conducive to success.” You can make a successful occasion outta anything from a company meeting to a solid dump after a wedding where you weren’t sure if the appetizers were gonna fight you on the way out— they were so dry. The hell is with y’all and wedding food? Y’all never nail it. It’s simple: Try the food first, keep the courses simple and the bar open, that’s all you gotta do, the minimum so bare it should close the blinds if it's gonna walk around.
But I get it, you’re in a hurry, you got shit to do and stuff to think about, not enough room to be efficient or correct but you got a rule, a golden one, one of the few golden rules you have like golden buzzers on the Americans Got Talent of General Humanity and that is “Check your fucking work.”
Proofreading! It’s just as sexy as it sounds: A “proof” is the first draft of something, called a “galley proof” back in the Before Times (the “galley” being the tray the letters were set in and tightened into place in the hand-set letterpress printing days of Yore). So a “Galley Proof” was the first try at getting the sentences right and you figured out pretty fucking quick that y’all are shit at it, so you needed better eyes on 'em and so you created the “proofreader” to check the typesetter. I’m sure they both got along fine 'cause humans love being corrected.
BTW, the phrase “The proof is in the pudding” is wrong—it’s actually supposed to be “the proof of the pudding is in the eating,” and that pudding was actually a kind of sausage. You kinda didn’t know the hell was inside the sausage and kinda had to just dive in and hope it wasn’t mostly buttholes and feet meat. But it morphed into “The proof is in the pudding” in 1867 and got popular in America in 1950 'cause Americans hate being corrected and there, now you know.
If you’re annoyed, imagine being a typesetter in the 1600s having to listen to a proofreader explain where you fucked up after spending a whole ass day on a few sentences, and you’ll get why a lotta Bibles are wrong.
Cock in paint (sorry that should be “case in point”): “The Sinner’s Bible”— what’s that? Aka the “Wicked Bible,” aka the “Adulterous Bible,” aka the “Fun One,” printed in London 1631. During said printing, the publisher skipped a word writing out the Ten Commandments and instead it was printed: ‘thou shalt commit adultery’ and the parties ensued. There is some debate amongst academics (when isn't there? And that’s the point) about whether that was a for real mistake or sabotage by a jealous publishing rival. But don’t get all holy; it’s not the only Bible that biffed an adjective: a Bible from 1653 accidentally decided ‘the unrighteous will inherit the kingdom of heaven,’ and a 1702 King David complained of persecution by “printers” not “princes.”
And that’s how Office Max was created probably. The label, the toner, and the hole punch we pray, in Clippy’s name, amen. Textual flubs are all over your history, humanity; it’s not a surprise 'cause none of you can spell for shit 'cause who has the time?
So niche is the ability to form words using the correct phonemes that only the most mutantly hyper-intelligent of kids can do it and you make ‘em fight for sport and your entertainment like gladiators with inhalers. But proofreading does matter 'cause it can affect (that’s correct) history:
Back in 1870, a chemist called Erich von Wolf misplaced a decimal point measuring the iron content of spinach, writing down that the spinach had 35 grams of iron rather than 3.5 grams. Because it took 67 years to discover that decimal was in the wrong spot, you still say spinach is an iron-rich superfood, which it isn’t. Popeye’s a Sail-liar man (nailed it)!
The Tax Cuts Job Act of 2017 (yeah, remember then?!) was supposed to give mom and pop stores and eatin’ spots (’cause I can’t spell restaurant) a tax break when they remodeled, but because of a typo, the tax break would not take effect (that’s correct) for 39 years. It wasn’t until 2020 that it was fixed with the CARES Act. So if you’re wondering why everything’s fuckin closed for remodeling, it’s 'cause they can now and they woulda if some fuckin nob checked their work back in 2017 when you had an all-Republican house and senate and president (Just sayin’!).
But perhaps the most egregious—'cause it’s recent—an example of a total proofreading whiff that ended up punting a company straight in the dick parts comes from MATTEL. Target, Walmart, and Macy’s started carrying some limited edition Barbies based on the new film WICKED (ya mighta heard of it) from Mattel. These dolls are Elphaba and Glinda’d out, all ready to be pop-u-lar, and they are, but for a reason that Mattel didn’t anticipate.
So turns out, on the back of the packaging, there’s a website for the film WICKED that you can send your kids to to learn all about the film and see all the wonders that await them, except that website is WickedtheMovie.com. On the back of the packaging, it was printed simply wicked.com, which is an easy mistake to make except wicked.com is a fuckin porn site. So instead of hitting up wickedthemovie.com, the kids hit up wicked.com and learned a much more practical way of defying gravity through the film’s KENZIE LOVE GIRLS, THE HUNGER, THE 66TH DAY, and the subtle as a fisting train: SUNNY GOLDMELONS (Fisting Train coming, hehe, soon this holiday season).
“Mattel was made aware of a misprint on the packaging of the Mattel Wicked collection dolls, primarily sold in the U.S., which intended to direct consumers to the official WickedMovie.com landing page," Mattel told NPR in a statement. "We deeply regret this unfortunate error and are taking immediate action to remedy this,” but what of the unfortunate error that are those actual kids unfortunate enough to accidentally click that link to meet Madame Morrible and instead wound up at Dear Old Jizz University in Garglekin with Dr. Didadik (Guys, WICKED is gonna be great)?
The damage is done, the kids are not alright, and now their parent’s browser history is either gonna be really fucked up or really fucked up. It’s up to you; either way, it’s wicked fuckin stupid Mattel didn’t take a damn proofreading minute to check the fuckin website they were about to print on the back of one of the most popular toys for one of the most popular movies droppin at the most popular time of the fuckin year!
Does no one care anymore? Did you ever? I get it; we’re busy, it’s the holiday season, there’s a lot goin on, but that’s why whatever god made you gave you fuckin hands to write shit down and thankfully you got spellcheck—even though you never meant DUCKING. But maybe you should. It’s almost Christmas, maybe take it down a notch, think of the children!
Humans, hominids, homo sapiens: Americans. You may be too busy, but time has time to wait. Words have meaning, spelling counts, and history sticks. So for the sake of your money, your life, and your family this holiday season: take the time to make sure you’re saying what you mean 'cause society is a little, well, complicated. There's a kind of a sort of cost. There are a couple of things get lost. There are bridges you cross you didn't know you crossed until you've crossed, and no one mourns the wicked, so check your fuckin work.