MIRAMAR, Calif. — Gunnery Sgt. Tom Bluto reads at the third-grade level and won’t stop saying the word “demure,” sources confirmed today.

Data reflects that he peppers the phrase into 37% of sentences, almost always using it incorrectly and sometimes pronouncing it “duh-moor.” The suspicious behavior began last week, leaving his Marines baffled as they tried to figure out where the knuckle-dragging Philistine might have picked up the strange new habit.

“Ay, Devil! Supposably, you think it’s sat to be slimin’ around on my grass, smokin’ and jokin’, eck-setera, all demure. Aye Gunnery Sergeant?” Bluto told one private on his way back from the food court. “Irregardless, for all intensive purposes, it would behoove you to belay my last, as you were, cut the daggone demurity and stand at parade rest, motivator. Trackin? ‘Rah.”

Defense officials say Bluto, an adult man who can’t spell “Sergeant,” does not possess the breadth of cultural knowledge to understand the etymology of modern language. And he most certainly does not use TikTok, Instagram, or X.