Word Crimes

(album: Mandatory Fun - 2014)

Everybody shut up
Everyone listen up!

If you can't write in the proper way
If you don't know how to conjugate
Maybe you flunked that class
And maybe now you find
That people mock you on-line
(Everybody wise up!)

Okay, now here's the deal
I'll try to educate ya
Gonna familiarize
You with the nomenclature
You'll learn the definitions
Of nouns and prepositions
Literacy's your mission

And that's why I think it's a good time
To learn some grammar (What!?)
Now, did I stammer?
Work on that grammar
You should know when
It's "less" or it's "fewer"
Like people who were
Never raised in a sewer

I hate these word crimes
Like "I could care less"
That means you do care
At least a little
Don't be a moron
You'd better slow down
And use the right pronoun
Show the world you're no clown
Everybody wise up!

Say you got an "it"
Followed by apostrophe, "s"
Now what does that mean?
You would not use "it's" in this case
As a possessive (no no no)
It's a contraction (yeah yeah yeah)
What's a contraction?
Well, it's a shortening of a word, or a group of words by omission of a sound or letter

Okay, now here's some notes
Syntax you're always mangling
No "x" in "espresso"
Your participle's dangling
But I don't want your drama
If you really wanna
Leave out that Oxford comma

Just keep in mind that "be", "see", "are", "you"
Are words, not letters
Get it together
Use your spell-checker
You should never
Write words using numbers
Unless you're seven
Or your name is Prince
Everybody wise up!

I hate these word crimes (I hate them crimes)
You really need a (I hate them crimes)
Full-time proofreader (I mean those crimes)
You dumb mouth-breather
Well, you should hire
Some cunning linguist
To help you distinguish
What is proper English
Everybody wise up!

One thing I ask of you
Time to learn your homophones is past due
Learn to diagram a sentence too
Always say "to whom"
Don't ever say "to who"
And listen up when I tell you this
I hope you never use quotation marks for emphasis
You finished second grade
I hope you can tell
If you're doing good or doing well
Everybody wise up!
You'd better figure out the difference
Irony is not coincidence
And I thought that you'd gotten it through your skull
What's figurative and what's literal
Oh but just now you said
You literally couldn't get out of bed (What!?)
That really makes me want to literally
Smack a crowbar upside your stupid head
Everybody wise up!

I read your e-mail
It's quite apparent
Your grammar's errant
You're incoherent
Saw your blog post
It's really fantastic
That was sarcastic (Oh, psych!)
'Cause you write like a spastic

I hate these word crimes
Everybody wise up!
Your prose is dopey
Think you should only
Write in emoji
Oh, you're a lost 'cause
Go back to pre-school
Get out of the gene pool
Try your best to not drool

Never mind I give up
Really now I give up
Go away!