Mike O’Brien emailed a few hundred colleagues last month to announce his retirement after 32 years at Ford Motor. The sales executive’s note included the obligatory career reflections and thank yous—but came with a twist. Attached to the email was a spreadsheet detailing a few thousand a meticulous log of mixed metaphors and malaprops uttered by co-workers over a decade.

During a 2019 sales meeting to discuss a new vehicle launch, a colleague blurted out: “Let’s not reinvent the ocean.” At another meeting, in 2016, someone started a sentence with: “I don’t want to sound like a broken drum here, but…”

For more than a decade, O’Brien kept a meticulous log of verbal flubs uttered in Ford meetings, from companywide gatherings to side conversations. It documents 2,229 linguistic breaches, including the exact quote, context, name of the perpetrator and color commentary.

There is a leaderboard and a clear GOAT of verbal flubs. The list became so known—and feared—that one executive cursed O’Brien’s name in a meeting after tripping up on an expression. Violators could appeal their inclusion but success was rare. And nobody was above a grammatical roasting: Ford CEO Jim Farley twice made the list.

“We weren’t being mean,” O’Brien said. “It was just funny.”

Possible Preaching Angles: This is an example of good-natured ribbing, but sadly, some of us keep a meticulous list of flubs and offenses and sins that are much more damaging.