#Thatawkwardmoment When Incorrect Grammar Became Acceptable

There’s a recent trend taking over the social media world that’s driving the grammarian in me absolutely nuts. The trend is the “That awkward moment...” phrase. It’s used like this: 

If you’re not familiar with standard grammar rules, here’s the problem: That awkward moment when you wave to someone who doesn’t see you is a fragment, meaning it’s not a complete sentence. In order to have a complete sentence you must have a subject, a verb, and an object.  For instance, The dog found a bone is a complete sentence. The dog is the subject, found is the verb, and a bone is the object. In other words, in order to have a complete sentence there must be an action, something must do the action, and something must receive the action. While That awkward moment when you spit on the person you’re talking to has verbs, subjects, and objects, they are not in an acceptable order, nor are there enough of them. A correct way to reorganize the trend would be to say something like “That moment is awkward when people call me Katie,” or “Calling your teacher ‘Mom’ is an awkward moment.” I’m aware that I cannot stop this trend from continually spiraling out of control, but I can bring awareness to the situation in hopes that one of my few readers will think before jumping on the grammatically incorrect bandwagon.