It’s defiantly a part of my job

As a college English instructor, I’m obsessive about correct word usage. I continually badger my students to check their word choices, as it’s an easy thing to mishandle big words, and, often, word processing programs automatically default to certain words when that’s not what the student meant.

For instance, one of the most frequent errors I see is the use of the word ‘defiantly’ when it should be ‘definitely.’ As in “I defiantly will turn in the assignment no later than tomorrow!”

Really? I’d rather the student took an additional day to proofread and make sure he ‘definitely’ will turn in the assignment without any word bloopers.

Another one I saw a lot last year was ‘pervert’ when it should have been ‘previous.’ As in “my pervert employer can give you a good recommendation.”

Actually, I’d rather not communicate at all with a pervert employer, thank you. A ‘previous’ employer would be much better.

Before the fall semester begins for my classes next week, however, I want to even the playing field and publicly admit that I have made errors in word usage, too. But my problem isn’t with a word processing program.

My problem is my mouth that opens before checking with my brain.

So here’s the story of the most awful word blooper I ever made: I was the communications specialist for a public school district in 1979 and the director of academic programming was unhappy with a news report about school test scores that I had released to the local press.  She called me on the phone, and promptly gave me a verbal tongue-lashing for what I had done.  Flustered and eager to defend myself – since the superintendent had told me to release the story – I stopped her in mid-tirade.

“Before you castrate me any further, I think you should know I was just doing my job,” I said.

There was a pause on the other end of the line, and I immediately released that I’d used the wrong word.

“I meant to say ‘castigate,’ not castrate,” I uttered into the silence, my face flooding with heat.

Oh yes, incorrect word users – I know your pain.

But I’m still going to call you on it. Just doing my job, folks.