One of the things I used to like about The Two Ronnies was that quite a few of their sketches were about language, or at the very least made use of peculiarities of English for their humour.
Last night I watched the first episode of the new season of Mitchell and Webb.* It finished with a sketch about a pedantic company manager gradually shooting all the people at a meeting. He shot the first one for pronouncing the name of the letter "H" as "Haitch" rather than "Aitch". He shot the second for saying "pacifically" when she meant "specifically". The third was despatched for saying "expresso" instead of "espresso".
He then responded to criticism by saying "I killed my own wife for ironically saying, 'mispronounciation'."
Subsequently the sole remaining member of the meeting took him to task for saying "ignorami" rather than "ignoramuses" and he shot himself, pausing only to shoot the other man for saying "whoever" rather than "whomever", before expiring in a pool of blood.
The sketch is here, though as it's probably been posted without permission, I can't say how long for.
Now that's what I call pedantry.
(*This example is nothing to do with the rest of the entry, but it's a personal favourite.)
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