Good morning, John. Today I want to talk about saying stuff wrong.

It is, as far as I am concerned, the most embarrassing thing that can happen and unfortunately, just like when your fly is down, sometimes people are embarrassed about telling you about it and so you go on and on with this intellectual fly down, your underwear exposed, and toilet paper hanging out the back of your pants.

Number one: You couldn't care less. If you could care less, then you do care.

Number two: For all intents and purposes. I don't know what intensive purposes are, but that's not what you mean.

Three: You do not hold down the fort, because the fort isn't inflatable and filled with helium. You hold the fort. It's a military metaphor.

Five: This is Frankenstein? No. This is Frankenstein. That guy is Frankenstein's monster.

Six: Dear Alanis Morissette, when you get a death row pardon two minutes too late, that is extremely unfortunate. It is not, however, ironic.

And finally, number seven: If you're saying an acronym, make sure that the thing you say after the acronym isn't in the acronym. Like when you put your PIN number in an ATM machine. Of course implying that you're putting your personal identification number number into the automated teller machine machine.

But I also want to note here that it's totally okay to say the La Brea tar pits, despite the fact that when you translate that out it's the the tar tar pits.

Let's take a common comment on Vlogbrothers videos. You lose the game. Except that it is often spelled like this. In that case, I don't lose the game. Because I'm not thinking about the game. I'm thinking about that failure of the American education system.

Moving on to the mother country, the United Kingdom, which is the united kingdom of Northern Ireland and Great Britain. Great Britain is an island that contains three autonomous (ow), the countries of Wales, Scotland and England. So if you're in a pub in Wales, and you say "Gee guys, I sure love it here in England!" they will punch you in the face. England is not a synonym for the United Kingdom.

Now moving onto the two most confusing words in the English language, as far as I am concerned, affect and effect. Of course not pronounced Affect and Effect, but affect and effect. But I remember it as this way - the greenhouse effect affects the climate. Effect almost always being a noun and affect almost always being a verb. But this is extra super confusing because sometimes effect is a verb, too. So it is literally okay to say "I effected the effect". That verb, effect, means to bring about an effect. So if you say "I effected the effect" you mean "I brought about the effect". If you say "I affected the effect" that means that you changed the effect. so if you are good at bringing about effects, you are effective. Sorry, this is horribly confusing, it just is, but it is important to figure it out.

Now to finish this off I am going to talk about some mispronunciations, because when I was in college I did a long oral report on Leon Battista Alberti, and I discussed at length all the the facades he designed in renaissance Italy, except instead of saying facade I said faKade, and it was one of the most embarrassing moments of my life when I found out.

Okay let's go!

It's not awree its awry.
It's epitome, not epy-tome.
Edinburgh not Edinburg.
Not ether-real but ethereal.
Not mimi, but meme.
Not hafazard, but haphazard.
Facetious, not face-tious.
Not the sequel to the Super Bowl, the Hyper Bowl, but in fact hyperbole.
Colonel, despite the fact that this word has no r in it.
Boolean not boo-lean.
And disheveled not dis-heaveled.

And that is all I got for you. I hope that I have, at least a little bit, helped the world avoid some embarrassment. Nerdfighteria, in the comments below, help me feel better about my facade mistake and tell me some words that you've mispronounced in public before.

John, I'll see you on Wednesday.