Who would have thought a Twitter account could gain nearly 8,000 followers in 60 tweets over 3 days -- just by correcting one piece of poor grammar over and over?
That's what happened to @yourinamerica, an account entirely devoted to naming, shaming and correcting every tweet that contains the hideously illiterate statement "your [sic] in America." Invariably, what follows that phrase is the ironic admonition: "learn English."
The account kicked off on Friday with a typical tweet, this one correcting a user in Macon, Georgia:
It's "you're." RT @tallcan100 Absolutely pisses me off when someone that doesn't speak English gets rude with me. Your in America!— Your in America Bot (@YourInAmerica) November 24, 2012
That user deleted his original tweet -- as often appears to be the case with @yourinamerica's victims.
Proving itself an equal-opportunity grammarian, @yourinamerica has also taken to correcting tweets from across the pond:
#jheeeez, it's "you're." RT @ben_coombes: your in england so speak english!!! #jheez— Your in America Bot (@YourInAmerica) November 24, 2012
Nobody knows the masked linguistic avenger behind the suddenly popular account (its avatar: a mug with Captain America on it). But whatever its true identity, we're betting thousands of English teachers are grateful for its presence.
Indeed, given the highly publicized gaffe in a Mitt Romney app earlier this year -- which promised "a better Amercia [sic]" -- perhaps we should be grateful that those Twitter users at least knew how to spell the name of their country.