A typo fixed in the next message with an asterisk — 'their' / '*there' — as the chat convention that has survived every platform, and the record's entry for the smallest edit, which is also the most polite. Nobody agrees on whether the asterisk goes before or after.
I saved a screenshot of the first Asterisk Correction post I saw. Looking at it now, the joke is entirely in the timing. The timing does not survive the screenshot.
Sighting: my grandmother said "Asterisk Correction" out loud at dinner and then looked at me to check it had landed. It had not. Filing this as evidence of terminal spread.
The record notes the asterisk correction is thirty years old, that no platform has ever needed to explain it, and that the record's own 'teh' / '*the' has been sent a thousand times.
What does it mean? Write it the way you would say it out loud.
