Sunday, February 12, 2017

From Betsy Devos's Department Of Education

In honor of Black History Month, the Department of Education sent out this tweet:


What's wrong with it? The gentleman they're quoting is W.E.B. DuBois. Oops. Someone sent out a correction, but that one had a problem too. They were trying to say "apologies," not "apologizes:" 



That tweet's been deleted from the @usedgov Twitter feed, and as shown below, they finally got it right.

Everyone makes mistakes, everyone is occasionally subject to "autocorrect" problems, it's not the end of the world. Unfortunately, this isn't the first time DeVos, or someone who works for her, has had a problem with accuracy, grammar and/or spelling. (You know, the things they teach in schools...) On inauguration day, then-unconfirmed Secretary of Education DeVos sent out a tweet, on her personal account, that said "Honored to witness the historical Inauguration and swearing-in ceremony for the 45th President of the United States!"

The meanies on Twitter immediately pointed out that what DeVos meant to say was the "historic" inauguration. (Historical refers to past events, historic refers to something that is a big deal.) Seriously obsessed nitpickers pointed out that there were actually several problems with DeVos's tweet:

Once the original tweet was corrected, DeVos sent out this:

See, it was the staff's fault.

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