There are many things I find in life that I am powerless to change yet wish I could. They remain irritants that won’t go away. Does anyone else have any favorite irritations? Here are several examples for me – The use of the words Insure and Ensure: In American usage there appears to be no distinction yet elsewhere in the world they have quite different meanings. To insure something is to invoke the services of an insurance company. To ensure is make certain that something occurs. I find it irritating when Americans won’t see a difference. Similarly the words Inquiry and Enquiry: An inquiry relates to a formal investigation, whereas an enquiry is a simple request for information. Again Americans make no distinction. The words Less and Fewer: This is probably just poor grammar but I hear many well-known speakers and politicians make this mistake, it sounds so ugly: Use ‘less’ for analogue quantities and ‘fewer’ for digital quantities. So one should say “there are fewer people here today”, whereas if one were to say “there are less people here today” then that would somehow imply that the people were perhaps not quite people. And finally the words: The fact of the matter. A favorite phrase made by politicians that appears to have no meaning. Cris
Oh Cris, Ya got me and I'm guilty. Of some of the very things you mention. Call it lack of proper learning. Then again some to the dialects trip my trigger. Did you ever see a movie named Fargo? I couldn't stand or sit and watch it. Every sentence was ended with this stupid word that I can not for the life of me remember. All I can remember was that it was driving me nuts. So channel change time.
people that drive slow in the left lane frivolous use of large words when a simple word would sufice people who can't take a freakin joke
Movies on TV wet1, Haven't heard of Fargo but you've reminded me of some other irritations. This doesn't happen on British TV but on American TV at the end of a movie just after the last scene they break for commercials and then play the credits and final theme tune after the commercials. So having enjoyed an emotional movie and where the final theme tune would make an appropriate ending as the film-makers intended, one would be hit by a deterngent commercial or somnething similar. It just ruins the mood. And how about those movies that have superb theme tunes and instead of allowing the final theme to play they go to a split screen, kill the theme tune and run trailers in the other split. Uhh! And then there is TV censorship. And US TV censorship is probably the most intrusive in the world. Any hint of nudity is hidden or edited out, any potentially offensive word is similarly removed. Blood and gore is similarly treated. I wonder sometimes why some TV channels try to show some movies, they are so heavily censored that the meaning is almost lost. Mainstream US TV - bland and puerile. Cris
hey now !! we prefer to say that we are politically correct , not bland and purile. besides what if we like being treated like children throughout our lives? you know according to the way americans think society should be set up for the weak and the stupid, ya know so they dont have to suffer with the hardships of using their freakin brains (in case you didnt guess ... that is another irritation of mine).
Lighten up I'm going to be abusive here; I apologise in advance. It was (mostly) not my intention to offend. You see, friends, I too used to be in the same position. I would correct people who said 'less' instead of 'fewer'. I would rail against the mindless dolts who couldn't spell 'its'. I would sneer at utterers of phrases such as 'the environment in which we live'. Then I pointed out to someone that a myriad was an actual number; 10,000. I pointed out that to 'decimate' meant to kill every tenth person; not, as TV would have it, to wipe out almost everyone. Several months later, that person got really irritated when someone misused the word 'myriads'. This caused me to develop a theory. We are all of us smug bastards; those of us capable of stringing a sentence together more than most. We know what 'fewer' means. We never dangle our participles. We get irritated with people who don't have knowledge that we do, for no other reason that we know it and they don't. We're not being intolerant because it's something they should know; it's because we're smart and they're not. For the majority of the planet, the primary communication medium is speech. We learn from what others say. If most people say that they have less oranges than the had yesterday, it's because that's what most people say. When they say it, everyone knows what they mean. Where's the problem? Up until recently, the congnoscenti muttered imprecations at those who ended sentences with prepositions. This despite the fact that some sentences have to end in prespostions, or they'll be so convoluted as to be incomprehensible. For some, this is okay; they feel it's better to be correct than to be understood. Assholes. So: the next time you hear someone say less instead of fewer, ask yourself a few questions. Do you know what they meant? Do you have reason to believe that this person had the difference explained to them? Ten minutes from now, will this travesty of grammar matter to anyone? For anything? One final point: I found out recently that trademarks are adjectives; one should refer to Coke soda, Spam luncheon meat and Hoover vacuum cleaners. Before you knew this, how would you feel being called a dolt because you asked for a Coke?
To each his own ... We all have idiosyncrasies which drive other people up the wall, I'd assume. Like discord5 said, though, slow people in the left lane need to be phased out. People that have a limited awareness of their surroundings: Shopping in a supermarket, stopping the cart in the middle of the aisle <i>diagonally</i> and not realizing that maneuver destroys the little flow of shopping traffic coming down the aisle. People that drive by using their rear view mirrors only: These people are so concerned with giving brake checks, they slow traffic to a crawl. People that drive without using their rear view mirrors: These guys tend to slow traffic up <i>only</i> if they're slow, and they usually are. People that have a hard time seeing the other side of the coin in an argument: "Yeah, but ..." -- "Maybe, but ..." -- "I don't know about that, but ..." People that expect major attention due to a minor fact: A lady once said to my brother (who was a waiter/server at the time), "Hey, it's my birthday" clearly expecting to get some hoopla and a bunch of (purposely) off-key carolling aimed at her. Instead, he said, "Happy Birthday" and walked off. Of course, she stiffed him. People that expect to be the center of attention due to their being the most knowledgeable on a given topic. As if they are the ultimate form of authority: I have a friend that makes it a point to inform you if you say something even minorly incorrect about Russia, <i>although</i> he'll turn a deaf ear to anyone mentioning something incorrect about his belief system's history. People that correct you when you mispronounce a foreign word. I studied Spanish for four years and Japanese for two years (speak Japanese much better though). So, if someone pronounces <b>sayonara</b> as SAY-oh-na-RAH, I don't correct them. What do they care? If they ask if it's correct, sure I'll say something. But I'm just happy they remembered the word. Incidentally, if you can pronounce everything in Spanish, you can pronounce anything in Japanese. But not vice versa ... People that, like rde said, use words that do not necessarily match the person they're speaking with: A person that can adapt their language to match the listener will get <b>much</b> more across than one that speaks the same to all. Having said that ... People that don't enjoy a healthy dose of sarcasm. I had a roomate that had become a really good friend. I was going on a road trip and asked if I could borrow his Civil War audiotapes. He said yes, "As long as you take care of them." We traded sarcastic gibes in the past, so I said, "Yeah, I'll probably take them out of the case, piss on them, and then put them back." He got rather miffed at that, until I told him I was kidding and who goes out and does that sort of thing anyway? Perhaps there's a point of taking things too far. Unfortunately I seem to be the one that finds out that I've gone too far. I just like to imagine someone doing those things and then it cracks me up (because no one really goes and does those things, do they?)
Ah tolerance Rde, As a smug bastard to an ex smug bastard: - nice response. My irritations arise mainly when the errors come from official sources, such as newsreaders, politicians and schoolteachers, e.g. people who should know and who set very visible standards for everyone else. But as for those who appear to know less than me: I try to keep this saying in mind - “Be tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving, and tolerant of the weak and wrong: Sometime in your life, you will have been all of these.” - Anonymous. So your post reminds me that I am often wrong and I have little or no right to point out the errors in others. But knowing that there is a lot wrong with the world doesn’t mean that I have to sit back and accept that nothing can be done. I would like to think that at some point in my life my voice will be heard and that people will listen and react in a way that produces improvements. So I will continue to watch for faults and if I have the power to correct them then I will. But I must absorb the price for such an attitude and realize that there will be times when I am powerless to introduce a change and accept the consequent irritations. But ‘decimate’ huh! Nice, I’ll add that to my list, thanks. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! And where was the abuse and offensiveness? Have fun, myriads of it!!! Cris
Dig the new word processing facility..cool But the stuff that irritates, well let me think now 'cause I'm actually the original Mr. Angry that all Mr. Angrys' were named after, but I wasn't expecting this on this board right now so um, here goes. Proffessionals who don't know their job sure piss me off. The shop that has had my video camera in for repairs for the past 10 months (who sent it to a 'specialist' in another town) which keeps 'forgetting' to get it back for me--repaired or not--as I requested. The idiots who came to install a ceiling fan on our patio pergola and took a feed from a nearby wall light. They didn't even screw the wires into the fitting--just kind of squeezed them into the existing ones--and instead of feeding the fans cable through the back or side of the light fitting they just lay it across the front lip and screwed the lamp cover back on with 1 screw, leaving the insides exposed to the elements--unfuggingbelievable! The broken pavements and roads, broken pavements and roads, broken pavements and roads. The trees planted in the middle of the broken pavements. The building regulations which restrict you from officially building anything within a 3 metre space around your relatively small plot, so consequently people put up unofficial ugly, ramshackle, shanty town stylee sheds which they quite mistakenly call garages to store their Toyotas and Mercs, next to their smart new houses. The nepotism that exists like a cancer in serious metastasis, in all walks of life in this country of half a million people. Bourgeois neo middle class bullshit entertainment like grand opera and ballett performed by third rate artists. Bourgeois neo middle class bullshit mentality that mistakens status symbols for status. That British newscaster who always mispronounces 'Muslim' as in 'muslin' instead of the correct 'Mooslim'.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! The way Cyprus TV programmers disregard the natural (commercial)breaks built into a lot of the imported programs and instead cut the program at totally unsuitable moments, like in the middle of a sentence or during some dramatic build up or action sequence. The way local newscasters refer to all illegal drugs as 'the pale death', or petroleum as 'black gold', or children as 'the beautiful sweet little tyke' etc etc, YUCKS!Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Drivers who don't use their indicators. Who hog your tail on the highway. Who, on spotting their friend driving towards them in the opposite lane will stop their cars in the middle of the road to have a chat, creating streams of traffic behind them. Who allow their toddlers to stand on the front or rear seat as they're driving. Who owe everybody money but drive around in flashy expensive cars.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! People who don't switch off their mobile phones in concert halls, theatres, churches, restaurants etc. Friends who ask you for unreasonable favours, expecting you to compromise your intergrity and then get pissed off because you can't bring yourself to do it.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Friends who have borrowed substantial amounts of money from you and have no intention of ever paying you back. People who do not keep their word or promises. Businesses that are so badly run and disorganised that you constantly find yourself thinking, "I could do that so much better" Instruction manuals for electronic gizmos (synthesisers, computerised eqpt etc) written by techno nerds for techno nerds in nerdygook. Magazine adverts written in very small type. Arrogance! Summers that are too hot, winters that are too cold, rain that is too wet, springs that go doiiing and they're gone and wind that goes, 'wooooooooo' and dumps half the Sahara on your car, patios and verandahs! That's probably enough for now.
I guess the only things that really tick me off are that rocks are hard and water is wet. The rest I can pretty much ignore when I feel that I can't do anything about it.
Tab, Ah ha, I think I've found a subject you like, err, don't like, oh what the heck. And there I was being worried about a few misued words, and you were suffering so much more.Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Did you know that here in the USA the pavement is the roadway and where pedestrians walk is the sidewalk. So when you mention pavement (British for sidewalk) the Americans will think of the road. And a biscuit (British for cookie) over here is what I'd call a scone. Now isn't that irritating that the same words are used to mean quite different things? There is an America/English dictionary and it is suprisingly large. Cris
Re: Ah tolerance I used to feel the same way; when a newsreader mispronounces 'enclave' or 'en route', for example, the red mist would rise; then I realised that the newsreader is no less fallible than the rest of use. Sure, s/he could run through it to catch errors, but I'm not going to complain too much. The problem lies not in general stupidity, but (I'm willing to bet) in the unwillingness on the part of people to point out errors that may put back a production; no-one would thank you for that. From there it's a simple step to not offering any criticism outside one's personal domain. Does that make sense? What does fuck me off greatly is that noble Murdoch enterprise that is Sky television. 46,000 times an hour there's an ad for the latest football match on Sky Sports, and we're promised "Liverpool vee Leeds". It's fucking versus! There's no excuse for this ridiculous dumbing down. Ooh, and then there's motorists who think that the best way to turn left when there's a bicycle in the way is to hope that it's able to fly out of teh way when they pull out in front of it. In fact, motorists in general. My estimate is that about 20% of drivers (in Ireland, anyway) obey the speed limit. And then there's... ah shite. Enlightenment is still obviously a long way off. In happy days gone by, I could offend without even thinking about it. Now I can't do it deliberately. Bummer. I've just thought of another one. Multiple exclaimation marks (second only to the bizarre '!...' which I've no idea how to pronounce). I've just thought of another one; four or more dots in an ellipsis. Time for a deep breath and some contemplation, I think. PS: Fargo - great, great movie.
Don't get me started...too late: People who pull out in front of you knowing you were coming. People who spell canceled c-a-n-c-e-l-l-e-d, when they say, 'he shook his head yes' rather than, 'he shook his head no.' Teenagers who use the word "like" every other word. The misuse of their, there, and they're The misuse of affect and effect. Men who keep close friends with their ex-girlfriends knowing it bothers their current girlfriend. A teen girl that calls your boyfriend "dad" when he isn't her dad, when she has her own dad. Sorry for getting personal on that one. I'm a female by the way.
Having lost a loved one to death a couple of days ago, this thread really pissed me off when I first came across it. At first, it bothered me that some people's lives are so uncomplicated that that they actually have time to dwell on matters which seem so petty and inconsequential in the big scheme of life compared to (boo-hoo/pitty-pot) what I was going through. Upon further reflection, however, I see that I was just envious or looking for something/someone to be angry at, I guess. Actually, I am very happy to find that some people are otherwise so happy that such matters actually irritate them. Good for you! I hope to be able to join you soon.
Living in Minnesota in the general area where Fargo was made, I am very familiar with that word. That word is "AY". Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! It can be pronounced "AY!", "ay.", "AY?", "ay?", and last but not least "ay" (all said with a long A sound). Also, normal people don't speak like that. It's mostly retarded inbred folk from the back water areas. Canadians too, just kidding but it's a good joke here. Oh, and the thing that makes me tweaked are humans. So don't get me started!...... The "!...." is for rde. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Here in Europe, 'cancelled' is the correct spelling. It's you wacky americans that exorcised the extra l. But what can you expect of people who refer to gas when they're talking about a liquid? Oh, yeah. That reminds me of another one. It doesn't elicit irritation as much as pity, but when people refer to themselves as 'mad' 'wacky' or 'crazy' you've got to wonder. And if they say 'whacky' instead of 'wacky'...
One the things that irritate on forums are users sending their first message saying.."I, i'm new!" I people, i'm new. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
