No Feeling Feels as Good as Feeling Smugly Superior

The other day at work (I work at a radio station), a great thing happened. Marcus Smith pronounced a word incorrectly. And I caught it. If you don't know who Marcus Smith is, go here and listen to a few episodes. You'll see what I mean. Marcus is really a nice guy, but when someone is really smart it's always fun to catch them. I was tempted to write a fake snooty letter to the station. I used to answer e-mails that came to the station, so I think that I could probably get the tone down pretty well. Here's how it would go.

To: Mr. Marcus Smith

From: Ms. Ima Prick

Re: Gross error on your show

Dear Mr. Smith,

I was distressed the other day as I was listening to your show. Usually I find your commentary to be if not insightful, at least thought provoking. On this particular day though, you made an almost inexcusable error in the pronunciation of the word "chimeric." While your misplacement of the accent of the word (on the first syllable instead of the second syllable) might be excusable due to the word's Greek origin, and the frequent accentation of the antepenultimate syllable in Greek, your pronunciation of the word using an "sh" sound instead of a "k" is incomprehensible. In an English approximation of Greek, a "ch" should never make an "sh" sound. In the future please be more careful about your pronunciation as poor pronunciation can at best make you harder to understand and at worst be offensive to the more sensitive portion of your listeners.

Humbly,

Ms. Ima Prick

You know, it's sad how close that letter actually comes to sounding like something we might get. Anyway, I'd never send it since Marcus really is such a nice guy, but like I said, it's nice to feel smugly superior sometimes, if only for a minute.