Quote Originally Posted by Loony BoB View Post
I simply say "Haha, fail." in such instances. I don't need to add any further words.
But under the prescriptivist model that SuperMillionaire is advocating, fail acts as a verb and so you would be wishing someone to fail and as such your tense would be incorrect and apparently we are unable to infer your meaning despite it conforming to a fluid and descriptivist understanding of the way the English language works.

I find it hard to get on board with total prescriptivists because the hidden implication in their approach is that Shakespeare was utter trout. If language is not allowed to evolve than what we are prescribing is a falsehood; we ought to ask Chaucer to come back and "fix" English.

Personal preferences are fine; I do not mind a bit of flexibility in the way we use our language. I just find it strange to focus on something like this. Trying to combat viral internet memes is an impossible undertaking.