I'm a c**t sometimes

Sometimes my pedancy is embarrassing and annoying, I seem to have compulsions to correct spellings and grammar that make my life a misery sometimes, even though I sometimes offend myself and spell things wrong. Last night, at my friend's party we were discussing Torchwood, and my friend Beccy stated that she hadn't realised until now that Torchwood was an anagram of 'Doctor Who'. I had to admit I hadn't either. Then, my friend's son piped up

"Huh, well you don't wanna know what Newquay is an anagram of!"

Everyone giggled, but I sat with a puzzled expression on my face for about 30 seconds. I'm quite good at Scrabble and Countdown, you see, and was trying to work out what exactly it was an anagram of, and I couldn't find one, and I certainly couldn' t find one that was amusing. I asked my friend's son what it was, he looked a bit shifty and then said

"Wanker innit?!"

Everyone laughed again. I continued to stare stupidly, not getting it. My brain actually did this:

Newquay - N.E.W.Q.U.A.Y.
Wanker - W.A.N.K.E.R.
Common letters in both words - N.E.W.A.

I couldn't just leave it, I'm not built that way, so I said

"But... 'Wanker' has a K in it. 'Newquay' has a Q and a U and a Y in it. I don't get it."

The son got a bit defensive then.

"Well I dunno! I'm dyslexic!!"

I pointed out that yes, he was dyslexic, but that someone must have told him that joke in order for him to repeat it, which they had, so that meant that there were other non-dyslexic people out there that also made spelling errors in attempts to create rubbish jokes. And thus his dyslexia claim fell flat. He's not stupid anyway, not by a long shot. By now everyone else was a bit fed up and wanted to move on to the next subject.

I can't actually help being a nitpicker. It's not my fault that I can spell properly. Was I just supposed to laugh along with everyone else and leave this mistake unchecked? But what if it spread to other parties, and a pedant more annoying than I pointed it out, things got ugly, there were a few punches thrown and a man got KILLED?? I couldn't have that on my conscience, no, best to nip it in the bud there and then to prevent further embarrassment.

I think so anyway.