The internet was in hysterics yesterday after Kansas City Chiefs’ quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ social media grammar slip.
In response to New York Jets star Aaron Rodgers’ suspected Achilles injury, the 27-year-old Mahomes posted “Hate that man…Praying for the best” to X, formerly known as Twitter.
However, this wasn’t a shot fired across the bow of the NFL—he’d just forgotten to include a comma. Mahomes quickly fixed his mistake by amending his post, but unfortunately, followers had already spotted the original—including the account of Merriam-Webster.
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“Proud of this edit,” the dictionary commented on Mahomes’ post, with the hilarious response receiving over 650,000 views and more than 13,000 likes.
“You sure it wasn’t on purpose?” joked Jeremy Pelofsky.
“Punctuation will forever be important,” said KING-Ace.
“Thank goodness for MW!” wrote @TheKeeper2016.
“Proud this is the top comment,” said Adam Corbett.
Clearly taking the jokes in his stride, Mahomes shared a follow-up post that read: “Knew i was going to need that edit button on here one of these days,” alongside the laughing emoji.
Mahomes isn’t the only celebrity that Merriam-Webster has ribbed. The publisher poked fun at former prisoner Amanda Knox, after she declared on Twitter that “Studying abroad is awesome!”
The comment was in response to an article written by a student detailing her negative experience in Florence, Italy. Knox, 36, was jailed for four years after being wrongly convicted for the murder of her roommate Meredith Kercher, while studying in the Italian city of Perugia in the mid-2000s.
Replying to Knox’s tweet, Merriam-Webster simply left a link to the definition of “Spit-take,” defined as “The act of spitting out one’s drink in response to something funny or surprising especially for comedic effect.”
In 2017, the dictionary also mocked then-president Donald Trump, after the 77-year-old used the wrong version of “pore” in a tweet.
“After having written many best selling books, and somewhat priding myself on my ability to write, it should be noted that the Fake News constantly likes to pour over my tweets looking for a mistake,” the businessman wrote in a now-deleted post.
“I capitalize certain words only for emphasis, not b/c they should be capitalized!”
In response to the faux pas, Merriam-Webster wrote: “‘pore over’ ‘to read or study very carefully'”
“‘pour over’ ☕️’to make expensive coffee’
“‘comb over’ ‘to comb hair from the side of the head to cover the bald spot.'”
The publisher’s remarks about Trump’s alleged comb over hair style was applauded by critics, with @EstherThePig declaring: “The Merriam Webster social media team need a raise.”