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Bored Panda

Entertainment

Aurelija Rakauskaitė

59 Times People Struggled With Words So Badly, They Cracked Others Up (New Pics)

Gold Police

People tend to get mad at the grammar police online. Yet, sometimes people's grammar and spelling skills are so atrocious that they're begging to be called out and taught a lesson. According to a 2015 Harris Poll, 80% of Americans considerthemselves good spellers.

However, after you scroll through this list, you may find that statistic questionable. Bored Panda has prepared a selection of funny and equally embarrassing posts where people either fell victim to autocorrect or skipped grammar day at school. See how a minor mistake can change the vibe of a whole sentence and deliver comedy gold instead of somber, serious news.

#1 They're Identical Or For Turtles?

#2 Are You Allergic To Crushed Asians?

#3 Disposable Thumbs

Bad grammar can certainly be funny. Just one comma out of place and a sentence like "Tables are for eating customers only" goes from instructive to ridiculously cannibalistic. It makes you think that people would put a lot of effort into spelling things correctly and putting punctuation marks where they belong. Alas, that isn't always the case.

Ironically, the younger generation is the most irked by grammar mistakes they see in the real world, online, or when texting others. According to the same Harris poll, 74% of people under 35 said that spelling mistakes on social media were annoying. This may seem surprising, since they're the generation most likely to use abbreviations and are typically associated with lax grammar online.

#4 Minstrel Cycle

#5 Someone Is Selling “Access” On Fb

#6 That's A Bold Tack Tick, Cotton

Interestingly, there's also a gender disparity when it comes to who notices grammar mistakes more. Women appear to be more perceptive when spotting bad spelling, with 75% of women saying they often find errors in things like ads, restaurant menus, and store signs. In contrast, 66% of the men in the survey said they spotted grammar mistakes often.

Yet one grammar peeve was consistent among all ages, genders, and professions. English speakers just can't stand it when people can't correctly spell and tell the difference between "their, they're, and there." I have to say, I'm right there with them – and English isn't even my first language!

#7 Do You Come Here Off Ten?

#8 Brexit Means Brexit

#9 Hippo Crips

Different rules apply to texting and messaging online, though. Although only a quarter of Gen Zers admit that they use full stops, capital letters, commas, and quotation marks on social media, 69% use correct grammar when texting. Perhaps it's who they are communicating with: texting is often reserved for parents and older people, and social media is how they communicate with peers.

#10 Does Anyone Else Struggle With Eggs Eye & Tea?

#11 Phosphorous

#12 The Ace Of Spade And Nutered

Good grammar matters in the context of dating, too. A 2016 survey from the dating site Zoosk showed that 48% of people in the dating market consider poor grammar skills a deal breaker in online dating. Interestingly, women seem to have higher standards: 65% said they would stop chatting with a bad speller, and only 60% of men said they pay attention to a prospective partner's grammar.

Still, the majority found obvious spelling and punctuation mistakes to be turn-offs. And it's not just bad grammar that people hate; silly hype words such as "LOL" and "YOLO" were found to drastically decrease response rates.

#13 Sweetish Meatball

#14 Notre Dame Is In Golfed

#15 My Grandma's Abdomen

Our personal lives aren't the only context in which good spelling and punctuation matter. Which CV do you think would be tossed away immediately: one with blatant grammar mistakes or a carefully proofread one? Certified professional résumé writer Drew Roark says that spelling or punctuation mistakes are about more than just grammar knowledge.

#16 I Own You Now

#17 Halp I’ve Been Hatched

#18 To Spell Democrat

"Mistakes on your résumé can expose traits about yourself, which can ultimately keep an employer from offering you a job," Roark explains. "Employers are less concerned about your spelling (knowing you probably just made a typo) and more concerned with the fact that you overlooked an error, which speaks volumes about your tendencies."

#19 Pack Of Lips

#20 Once A Pond A Time

#21 Sam And Ella Don’t Joke Around

What's worse than a bad speller online? Grammar police who love to humiliate those with poor grammar skills and call them out for their mistakes. Research shows, and experts claim that they're not trying to do the world a solid and rid it of grammar mistakes – they're trying to establish their superiority.

#22 Perineal Vision

#23 On Words?

#24 Bi Curiously

According to a 2016 study, introverts may be more prone to correcting the mistakes of others. Apparently, they connect the mistakes to the person's core self, judging their intellect. The researchers also found that the less agreeable the person is, the more likely they are to be members of the grammar police.

#25 Mean Either

#26 Nailed It

#27 Mines Well

A professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania, Robert Kurzban, explained to Slate that the grammar police are looking for ways to make themselves feel better. "When people, especially publicly, correct others' mistakes, a lot of that has to do with signaling to other people," he said. "People are trying to signal their expertise, because being able to identify mistakes indicates that you know more about something than the person who committed the error."

#28 British Spelling

#29 I Love Me A Bowl Of Rom And

#30 Panties Are In Full Bloom

What about you, Pandas? How often do you spot bad spelling and punctuation online and in the messages people send you? Or maybe you're the bad speller, and you feel no shame for it whatsoever? Let us know your experiences when struggling with words in the comments! In the meantime, check out these hilariously unfortunate names parents have given their babies that we wish were spelling mistakes.