I once corrected a waiter on how to pronounce a dish, I was wrong, and he let me stay wrong for the entire meal. I think about that maybe twice a week, so I come to facepalm memes with some humility, though not a lot. There is a specific kind of person who is wrong at full volume, in public, with an asterisk, and then tells you to buy a dictionary. I am the quiet kind of wrong. Here is the loud kind, gathered in one place for your comfort.
Said in an accent.
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Shadows: famously just outlines.
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Lost and found, and found, and found.
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So easy he missed by a factor of ten.
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Koreanese was the warning sign.
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He lost an argument to a goat.
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It was explained twice and landed zero times.
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A day that long and still no time to proofread.
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He should fill his own prescription.
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Batter is not a rumor.
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One-a bee, two-a bee.
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The call is coming from inside the tweet.
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In her defense, it did fit.
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Nobody tell him about turning 10.
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Thousands of votes and not one for 36.
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Fought the war from the maternity ward.
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Basic biology would like a word.
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Honest about the methodology, at least.
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Let him have this.
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They do not, in fact, go together.
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The clue is in the first seven letters.
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Shortest trip in travel history.
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The ice is gone. So is the glass.
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Undefeated in a field of one.
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The creeper is innocent. Of this.
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Googled it one conversation too late.
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Sound, famously, uses the exit.
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Unmatched by grammar.
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Just let that sink in, then show it the door.
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A fair question for the wrong person.
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My favorite thing in the world is a wrong correction. Somebody spells a word right, and a stranger shows up to fix it into something worse, then adds a small lecture. It takes real energy to be confidently incorrect, and I admire the stamina, because I get tired just being correct and unsure about it. I have typed a snippy reply, looked the thing up, and deleted the reply. That is my whole personality online.
Then there are the gaps, and I say gaps with love. It is news to some adults that the other half of the planet has its own weather, or that a city can be located inside a country. These are the dumb social media posts I feel closest to, since I did not understand time zones until an embarrassing age. I am not going to say the age. It was thirty one.
The ones that actually hurt are the funny fails that left the internet and touched a physical object. A bad opinion costs nothing, but a bad idea about your windshield comes with a repair bill and a photo. I once microwaved something wrapped in foil because the box seemed relaxed about it. Nobody was hurt. The microwave was hurt.
What gets me is that none of these people were trying to be wrong. They were trying to help. They saw a mistake, or thought they did, and they ran toward it like a volunteer firefighter carrying a can of gasoline. The internet removed the three seconds where a friend would have quietly said, hey, maybe check that. So now the checking happens afterward, by eleven thousand strangers.
And I laugh, sure, but it is the laugh of a man with a record. Everybody has a fact they have been wrong about for years, sitting in their head like a houseguest who never chips in for groceries. You just have not said yours out loud in front of the right audience yet. I find that comforting. Being wrong is the most common thing a person can do, and these folks simply did it with the caps lock on, which is at least a kind of commitment.
The asterisk is wrong. The confidence is real. The screenshot is forever.
If you enjoyed watching strangers lose arguments to a dictionary, there is plenty more where that came from. Start with the confidently incorrect people getting called out, then wander over to the funny fails for something with more property damage. We also have geography fails, tech fails, and a deep shelf of facepalm moments for anyone who wants to feel smart on a weekday. I recommend reading them quietly. You never know who has screenshots.
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