. A Proof of Nerd ID by Kasey Bomber Today’s citation for gross grammar mindfuck.  The word “myriad.” Essentially, in AP English as a senior in high school, my flagrantly pretentious poetry-loving teacher loved to pieces the word myriad.  On any given rainy day, when she was feeling like sowing her poetic grammar oats, she’d wax philosophically to our ennui-encased dead lustre-less eyes about this, her favorite word.  She drilled into us, each time as though it were the first, that the word was an adjective, a synonym to “many,” to be used as such: Mrs. Boringpants offered myriad discussions of poorly reasoned grammar.  And that under no circumstances was it a (gasp!) wretched, everyday, dime-a-dozen, bourgeois noun to be used as such:  I have devised a myriad of ways to fucking kill myself if anyone uses that word in my presence. So, not only does this word for some reason sound less like “a vast array” and more like “the description of an eye booger”, but also it guarantees that anyone who uses it sounds like an utter dickhead.  Why use this word at all I ask?  If you use it as an adjective correctly, it is like saying, “ha ha, peasants, I know how to correctly use this word as a substitute for much better words!”  And if you use it incorrectly, it is like saying, “Hey I’m a fucknut.  I think I’m pretty fucking smart but I is really stoopid.” I read the word in a book and I cringe.  Lord forbid some earnest heartfelt dope puts it in a song! But it gets worse!  Because people are bound and determined to be pretentious, the legacy of the word “myriad” is ever-evolving.  Turns out that once upon a time it WAS...