You know how there’s genuinely annoying stuff that you kind of don’t really notice? And then there’s pretty mild stuff that you actually actively hate? And probably shouldn’t?
Oy, don’t get me started.
Oh, ok, I’ll get started:
- People who say “ATM machine” and/or its direct corollary: “PIN number” - So ok, I’m not a monster. I don’t hate those people. But I fucking hate what they say! People, people: You don’t need to tack the noun on — it’s right there in the acronym! Right there and handy! All bundled up, for the ease of your elocution! Lesser hate: The use of the word “social” in place of the apparently-far-too-long-for-mere-mortals-to-get-their-mouths-around “social security number.”
- The endless confusion of “less” and “fewer” – Say it with me now: If it can be counted – you use “fewer.” If it cannot be counted? “Less.” Thus: I have less patience for people who have fewer brain cells. See? Simple. Now go fix the damn signs in the grocery store.
- She Drives Me Crazy, by the Fine Young Cannibals – It drives me crazy. And it is apparently the only song from the late 1980s that radio stations not dedicated to the 1980s are allowed to play. (What – is there a law?)
- Commercials that attempt to fool you into believing that you are eavesdropping on an actual conversation – Commercial currently played ad infinitum, nay, ad nauseum on Chicago radio about how if I stick labels on everything in my office, my workers will become 817% more effective? “According to a recent study”? I’m looking at you.
- The voice of Mark Regev – Mark Regev is an Israeli government spokesman born in Australia, whence they produce people who speak English with an accent that I generally quite enjoy. And yet when I hear Regev’s dulcet tones pronouncing whatever callous lies the Israeli government is currently foisting on the world, I’m as likely to break the radio as listen to it. His voice quite literally makes me shudder.
- The use of margarine and imitation vanilla in baking – Well, no. Upon reflection, I heap upon these abominations precisely the amount of contempt and loathing they deserve.
- Football - But I’ve learned that the less I say about this, the better.
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Josh Jasper
/ September 27, 2010PDF Format.
It’s Its
Tinny obnoxious cell phone ringtones
Snark for snark’s sake disguised as social criticism. By which I mean Camille Paglia.
Cheap store brand low fat Italian salad dressing
asiangrrlMN
/ September 27, 20101. Right there with you. 2. Yes and any of the other common language errors such as their, they’re, and there (and the loss of the comma, but that’s a losing battle, I fear). 3. Eh. I could take or leave. 4. I mute all commercials. 5. Don’t know him. 6. Agreed. 7. Heresy.
My own: 1. People who drive 20 miles under the speed limit in the left lane. 2.Text speak. 3. Imitation crab. 4. Being lactose/gluten-intolerant. 5. The fact that my brain won’t. stop. thinking.
BenjaminTheAss
/ September 28, 2010Superfluous apostrophe’s.
Kylopod
/ September 28, 2010I avoid being a grammar cop, but I can think of at least one pet peeve I have: ending a question with a period instead of a question mark. I see it everywhere, even in professional writing, and I find it like nails on a chalkboard. Why does it annoy me so much. My guess is that I tend to hear in my head what I’m reading, and a question mark makes me hear a rising tone, whereas a period makes me hear a falling tone. So when a question ends in a period, I “hear” the falling tone, and I almost imagine the writer with a dull facial expression and a shoulder shrug. And unlike the it’s/its distinction, or other preoccupations of the grammar police, the rules governing when to use a question mark or a period should be incredibly easy to remember, so there’s no excuse for forgetting them. I just can’t understand why people get in this habit.
enstar
/ September 29, 2010i’m totally the same way, in hearing the sound of words and phrases as i read them–and it’s because of this that i sometimes, in particular circumstances, do write questions with a period as punctuation. some rhetorical questions, some facetious questions, and some question-like expressions of incredulity make me feel like a question mark isn’t the right thing to put there. i’m kind of struggling to come up with a good example right now, but i know i do it from time to time and it’s completely intentional when it happens. (also, as a side note–i only really ever do this in informal communications.)
conversely, i absolutely understand it when a particular phrase that is not constructed as a question gets marked with a question mark (“guess what?”), especially when it’s accompanied by rising intonation. i don’t really ever do it like that, but it makes a whole lot of sense to me when i see it happen.
Karin S.
/ September 28, 2010Damn, good thing I read about the vanilla before I bake that cake you requested. Though I will say–it is CVS imitation vanilla, which Cook’s Illustrated–I mean, c’mon–COOK’S ILLUSTRATED–said is as good as the real thing. And it’s only 99 cents for what is practically a jug of the stuff.
I dare you to try it.
Duncan Watson
/ September 28, 2010I don’t listen to radio so 3,4,5 are not an issue for me. I live in a bubble of my own music choices. I am sometimes bothered by grammar but generally by the more egregious violations where the speaker obviously doesn’t know the meaning of the words they chose to use.
My hatred is for the NFL, I get to enact the NFL’s stupid blackout rules that prevent VOD from being available during game days. Every year this stupid policy annoys me, both because of the NFL and because I have been forbidden to implement a client solution that just loads the schedule for blackouts directly from metadata. I once freaked out in a grocery store when I overheard a discussion of football games at checkout. I hadn’t blacked out that day and had visions of lawyers in my head until someone told me it was a college game. I probably shortened my lifespan by two days with the stress from that moment.
Regarding hatred for lactose/gluten intolerant, I would expand that to hatred of all digestive woes. I will point out that muting commercials works great in a video environment but not for audio only media such as radio. How do you know they are over?
sue swartz
/ September 28, 2010That Bristol Palin is on Dancing With The Stars.
Ditto on the store brand low fat Italian dressing.
The new Indiana law that requires everyone to show I.D. when they buy liquor. Everyone, including people who have gray hair or have their grandchildren in tow or who teach 18-year-olds at the university down the block from the supermarket.
And truly I hate that I’m not Queen of the World.
enstar
/ September 29, 2010for #2, you’re right that you probably shouldn’t hate it as much as you do:
http://motivatedgrammar.wordpress.com/2008/09/30/10-items-or-less-is-just-fine/
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003775.html
enstar
/ September 29, 2010and as an addition to this, i would say that the atm machine/pin number thing isn’t going to go away, mainly because even though we know what the full version of the acronym is, we parse it as an individual unit; thus “isbn number” is redundant from a semantic standpoint but not from a processing standpoint. it’s kind of like saying “willow tree”–we know that the willow is a tree, but we don’t parse it as redundant because we read “willow” as a label for what type of tree it is.
…and now, i promise, i’m done with being a language jerk for the day.
Russell King
/ February 18, 2011The link leaves me flat: dictionaries are reflections of common usage, not guides to correct usage. And, yes, language is a fluid, ever-evolving invention of ours, and it is what we say it is — a kind of unspoken (heh) democratic process of determining grammar. Emily is casting her vote for the fewer/less divide. I am too, mainly because it falls more elegantly on my ear.
Russell King
/ February 18, 2011OK, I’ll play. Things that tick me off more than they should:
1. The confusion of borrow and lend. “Borrow me your lawn mower,” makes me cringe.
2. The confusion of take and bring.
3. “Can I come with?” Not so much because it’s an ugly construction, but more because it’s a self-conscious affectation by the tragically hip.
4. Men who spit in the urinal before they pee. Why? Looks like there’s plenty of liquid in there already.
5. Men who flush the urinal, then pee, then walk away. Guys, the whole idea of flushing is to make your pee go away instead of having it sit there and wait to greet the next guy.
6. The fact that a rookie NFL player who never sets foot on the field of play makes twice the average salary of a family physician.
7. Note to singers who perform/record Beatles songs: You will always be compared and you will always fall short of the original. Just leave it alone.
8. TV news readers who are chatting along in their American accents, then slather on a sloppy foreign accent when they encounter the name of a foreign person or place, then pop back into Americanese.
9. TV shows that convey the message that you can find a mate, a true love, a soulmate by spending a few minutes with each member of a harem (or, worse, by being a member of the harem, getting taken out for a quick test run, and then hoping you’ll be selected).
10. Use of the word “genius,” now applied to almost any person who achieves fame and/or fortune. No, the success of a marketing campaign does not mean that the product being marketed is of high quality (I’m looking at you music/film/TV industry).
11. Men who go through life wearing a baseball cap instead of engaging in personal grooming (even more so if the cap is on backward — you cannot possibly be as stupid as that makes you look).
12. People who chew with their mouths open and talk with food in their mouths. And, yes, it’s still nasty even when you’re “just talking on the phone.” I know Mel Gibson has done it in just about every movie he’s ever been in, but his lack of imagination in creating movie characters does not create permission for you to be rude.