I’ve been watching television on low volume with subtitles quite a bit over the past few months, mostly due to the fact that I’m a bored and tired nursing mom under quarantine during a pandemic and I don’t want to wake the baby. I noticed “all of a sudden” written in subtitles and It grabbed my attention. I’ve always said “All of the sudden.” I A quick google search led me to conclude that I had been saying the phrase incorrectly for 38 years. Ugh. I hate being wrong. Outside of that, I dreaded the thought of having to put conscious effort into correcting myself, knowing that I would be neurotic about paying attention to listening to myself speak. I made a mental note to ask around and determine if other people say “a” or “the”. The two people I remembered to asked indeed say “a”. Ugh. So...I forgot about it and moved on. However, over the next few months I would see “all of a sudden” pop up on the subtitles and it would irk me. So I decided to turn up the volume to audible range and strangely, I began to notice that some people said “all of a sudden, but multiple people would say “all of THE sudden” but the subtitles would read “all of A sudden. Ahem? What kind of autocorrect stratagem is happening on screen? Another google search led me to this thread tonight and I must say, I feel an overwhelming sense of relief. I CAN continue to paddle upstream in my little rudderless dingy and try to climb on board “all of a sudden”, but I think I’m going to climb back into the “all of the sudden” boat, nestled safely in between the intellectuals and idiots; students and seniors; northerners, southerners, midwesterners and Chinese. It’s clearly where I belong.