mckean’s law

Telofy commented on the word mckean’s law

McKean’s Law: “Any correction of the speech or writing of others will contain at least one grammatical, spelling, or typographical error.”

Just for illustration: Today I’ve found that McKean’s Law extends—albeit in a slightly changed manner—even to nonverbal conversations.

Our instructor in Literary Studies talked about something unrelated to “a sworn statement by an authorized official filed in court briefly describing the nature of each charge against a suspect, tantamount to an indictment but without the involvement of a grand jury” (Wiktionary: Information) when he slipped (rarity!) saying “... informations ...”.

I was like *facetiously cringe* and I saw across the room a girl was like *facetiously cringe* than we were like *eye contact* and she was like *wink* and I was like *wink*. Then I was like *oh noez*: McKean’s Law.

Five minutes later I was second in the line of students who needed to talk to our instructor. The one before me had the problem that his name wasn’t on the attendant list when the names were read out earlier. When it was my turn I said “I wasn’t on your list either”, he asked “Sorry?” and I repeated my sentence stumbling over every word.

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October 23, 2009