Grammar is a vitally important skill, especially if you’re a far-right provocateur running your mouth on Twitter.
The Daily Wire commentator Ben Shapiro is learning this lesson the hard way after a poorly written tweet had people thinking he was coming out as gay–surely the last thing a man who routinely pontificates about masculinity and gender roles intended.
Shapiro was attempting to troll The View commentator Ana Nàvarro-Cardenas in response to a tweet she posted about her gay male best friend.
But the way Shapiro worded it made it sound like he was coming out as gay himself–a move sure to get him cut from the homophobic far-right’s Christmas list this year.
See the tweet below.
As a gay man, I have been reliably informed he cannot opinion on this, and you should have told him to shut up https://t.co/q7PHrrbrvP
— Ben Shapiro (@benshapiro) May 3, 2022
Shapiro’s tweet was a trolling response to Navarro-Cárdenas’ tweet about her gay male best friend’s shock and dismay at the Supreme Court’s leaked opinion on Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health, which if adopted in the Court’s next session in June will invalidate Roe v. Wade and overturn abortion rights.
Shapiro tweeted in response:
“As a gay man, I have been reliably informed he cannot opinion on this, and you should have told him to shut up”
Now what Shapiro surely meant to write was a snarky and sarcastic complaint about the oft-repeated notion that abortion is a women’s issue on which men should not have decisive say.
But as written, the tweet reads as if Shapiro was identifying himself as a gay man. Which is funny, considering Shapiro has written more than 10 books–you’d think he’d have a better handle on grammar and syntax.
Anyway, Mr. Shapiro, if you’re reading, let us help you with this. What you meant to write was, “I have been reliably informed that as a gay man, he cannot [have an] opinion on this, and you should have told him to shut up.”
See? Same words, same whiny, bigoted, insufferable sentiment, but clear as a bell in the reading so that nobody gets the notion that you actually are homosexual, since you believe it’s a mental illness. You’re welcome!
On Twitter, of course, nobody was about to let this slide, and the trolling came in hot.
Your spacing is a little weird, but I support you pic.twitter.com/XIWJgQxIlI
— Sh☭tGaming.com (@ShotGaming) May 4, 2022
Your spacing is a little weird, but I support youpic.twitter.com/XIWJgQxIlI — Sh\u262dtGaming.com (@Sh\u262dtGaming.com) 1651624326
I just want to say that now that you’ve come out, I accept and love you just as much as I did before 🙂 — Linus LinusMediaGroup (@Linus LinusMediaGroup) 1651645125
proud of you Ben. we’ve all known you’ve been holding back for years. glad you finally came out — The Seer (@The Seer) 1651586584
congrats on coming out ben pic.twitter.com/IGYI7AFu7Y — Fun Anomalocaris Facts! (@Fun Anomalocaris Facts!) 1651626116
“As a gay man, I” \u2013\u00a0Ben Shapiro, 2022 — John Fallot (@John Fallot) 1651587221
I bet it felt good to write that didn’t it — Huge Bigtime (@Huge Bigtime) 1651586559
Congrats on coming out, and only a month before Pride \n\nExplains your confusion about WAP for sure — gender woo gerbil #GNUTerryPratchett queer af \ud83e\udd95\ud83e\udd96 (@gender woo gerbil #GNUTerryPratchett queer af \ud83e\udd95\ud83e\udd96) 1651620120
bro forgot to log into the burner — Seth \ud83e\udd91 (@Seth \ud83e\udd91) 1651601443
pic.twitter.com/m7mxWkz7MU — sean brett (@sean brett) 1651588873
Worst misplaced modifier ever, or coming-out story? — Molly Yanity (@Molly Yanity) 1651606314
Remember kids, grammar matters!
Really! Taking that part of the tweet that way makes the rest of the tweet nonsensical, and a response inappropriate to the tweet to which he was replying. People will go to wild stretches to make things mean what they want.
You have worse grammar than Ben