You Know You're an English Teacher When...

So my colleague and I were exchanging text messages about something insignificant. It was early in the morning and my brain was NOT in the "text" mode. It was in the "writer" mode because before I went to sleep the night before I was writing. 

First of all, let me make it clear that I wasn't driving while texting, which makes me a safe person to be around on the road and someone you want to ride shotgun with. I asked my colleague a question and used the word "objectionable" as in "What was so objectionable?" and he, being a science teacher, slimed me about it (a la Nickelodeon).

So back to the texting and writing and brain mode thing. I rarely use a word more than 12 letters long while writing fiction. I could give a big Oxford comma about vocabulary, unless it pertains to my character. How would that be? Let's say your character is really smart, or your character is a word junky, or your character is an expert in a jargon heavy field like aeronautics or plumbing. Yes, plumbers can rattle off something and leave you thinking, what is he talking about?

My colleague texted me back and said, "u know ur an english teacher when u use the word "objectionable" in a text message."   

Even if you're not an English teacher, I thought it'd be fun to list more of these in the comments section. A lot of you are still writers and readers and word people, so I'm expecting big things.

Here's my original:

You Know You're an English Teacher When....

You tell the waiter that the menu is missing an apostrophe.

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Blast from the Past: You Can't Do That on Television - Rainbow Slime