While I wear the mantle of optimism, deep down I am a cynic. I am losing faith in the direction the human race is going, but at the same time, there’s lots of good stuff, and I refuse to sound too much like guys often do as they age, which in a nutshell could be described as “mad about the world.”

I try not to get bogged down talking about how things should be or used to be, and instead, I make my little jokes and smile, or at least grimace.

I set my expectations low, and I’m rarely disappointed. It works for the most part, but then I go online because of the phone that’s always within reach, and once I’m scrolling through posts and reading comments, I cannot help but wince, mock and complain when I read misspelled words and malapropisms. Recently on Threads, someone asked, “The greatest punk band of all-time is?” — not a great phrasing to begin with, mind you — to which someone replied, “Ethnically it’s Fugazi … Musically it’s Fugazi.”

I have to assume they meant “Ethically,” as the D.C. quartet was known for its ethics, not its members’ ancestry.

To be fair, the autocorrect function on many a so-called smartphone is absolutely bonkers. I just entered “parlay” into my phone, which autocorrected it to “parkway,” but above that word, which I didn’t even intend in the first place, there’s the option to change it to “parklay,” whatever that means.

Still, time and again, the pleasure of my doom scrolling is interrupted by reading ostensibly human-written words. I’m guilty myself. I have been a journalist for nearly 30 years and have made any number of embarrassing flubs right here in The Bulletin.

One that still makes me cringe: Many years ago, I took a flying lesson in a Cessna, and even got to take hold of the yoke and fly a bit. It was exhilarating in the sense that although it was terrifying, there was the relief of knowing someone else would ultimately take responsibility for our flight, and more importantly, the landing.

But the flub that came after was solely on me. Being neither a video gamer nor a farmer who has worked animal labor, the only “yoke” in my lexicon was the word “yolk.” You can see where this is going. Wherever I meant “yoke,” I wrote “yolk.”

The two words are homonyms, which means they sound identical but have different meanings. Unfortunately, my editor at the time didn’t catch my error, repeated throughout the piece and gleefully brought to my attention by, well, smug people not unlike myself, I guess.

Without trying to sound too pedantic, here are some of the strange words usages and spellings I’ve either seen lately or see with regularity.

Woah’s arc. “Woah” has all the right letters, but Keanu Reeves’ trademark word is still “whoa.” Merriam-Webster backs me up on this, but whoa, not the Oxford English Dictionary. Yeah, I know: Dictionaries reflect popular usage, and language evolves. I just wish people would keep spelling it “whoa” because “woah” hurts my eyes and makes me think they’re talking about Noah’s brother or something.

Bias v. biased. I might be accused of being a snob, but I will take that chance because I am biased enough to want to call out people who write sentences such as “Then again, I might be bias.” Hello, bias! It’s nice to meet you.

“Don’t hold your breathe.” Sir, did you perhaps mean the noun “breath,” as in, “Don’t hold your breath”? And while we’re at it, it’s great advice to tell someone to “just breathe,” but “just breath” is not. You see, one is a verb, the other is a noun, although the Oxford English Dictionary is probably breathlessly updating their entries for these words.

“Commons sense.” Sigh. I guess strange, pluralistic phrasings are part of participating in the public commons, so in a way, commons sense still makes sense. Yet common sense tells me the writer meant the more mundane phrase I just used.

Jibe v. jive. How about when people mean “jibe” but they write “jive”? As in, “That doesn’t jive with what he said earlier.” The word you are seeking is “jibe.” “Jive” has lots of cool meanings, but none of them are in agreement with jibe.

Incase. I have no idea why this one — as in, “Just incase, here’s a dictionary” — has become a thing, but I see it all the time, so I included it here, just in case.

Apart v. a part. A mistake that can actually change the meaning of a sentence to its opposite, “apart” v. “a part” problems are a personal favorite of mine. I’ve seen at least one pro skater use “apart” when he meant “a part,” as in, “I’m lucky to be apart of skateboarding.” You should never have started in the first place then.

Their, there, they’re. This trio of words are hands down among the most misused words in the entire social media kingdom. Honestly, I don’t even judge anyone who misuses them. Though some have no clue which of these is supposed to be used when, it’s easy to make a mistake typing them out with your thumbs on a phone. I tend to give their/they’re/there mistakes a pass — just not when I have a column to write.

Column: If you love something, why would you let it go?

Speaking of which, I know full well that I will end up with a typo, a misspelling or, worst of all, an Oxford comma in this week’s Dropping In.

I know that’s just the way it goes with writing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained. I also know that being able to derive the meaning of what someone is trying to say is really all that matters, so keep trying, and keep on “parklaying” with the language. I know I will.

Otherwise, the yoke is on me.