You’ve likely heard by now [because news outlets have to tell you what’s “hip” and “with it”], but Matthew McConaughey has become a professor at UT-Austin.

This has led to a frenzy of news anchors saying, “All right, all right, all right.”Even the award-winning anchors on my own station couldn’t escape the dreamy pull of this story during a feature segment.

All that attention caused the unseasonable rain we’ve had this week. It’s not rain; it’s Walter Cronkite crying in heaven.

This caused a co-worker to exclaim she had seen too many people posting about Matthew McConaughey, and she was preparing to flip out. I appreciated the heads-up. Naturally, since I’m notoriously difficult to work with, I declared I’d write a blog about it.

Reporters don’t care for celebrity gossip, but celebrity gossip drivers listenership, paying our bills so we can be boring and matter-of-fact.

But this isn’t a blog about celebrity gossip. It’s a blog about a much more sensational and attention-grabbing topic: word usage.

You see, and you may have noticed above, Matthew McConaughey does not say, “alright, alright, alright.” He says, “All right, all right, all right.”

I do not recall why this came up, but back in college, several associates and I started discussing this issue [But we were totally “hip” and “with it,” as kids today are wont to say]. Someone had looked it up and learned that “alright” is a colloquialism.

It’s not a real word! And he’s wearing a hat with a misspelled word in his publicity shot from UT-Austin!

So while we may say Matthew McConaughey doesn’t have the credentials to be a college professor, he’s teaching us right now. Teaching us how words aren’t spelled.

I may not be as “cool” or “hip” or “with it” as Matthew McConaughey, but I have guest lectured at two universities in the area, and he and I share the same credentials as educators. Also, one of those universities is UT-Arlington, which has a higher global enrollment than UT-Austin. Whatever, though, that just means I’m a bigger deal than Matthew McConaughey.

I’d like to offer my services to the University of Texas system as a dean. A dean of insubordination.

That link above says James Joyce and The Who also used “alright.” I’m a bigger deal than them, also.