November 16, 2005

Curious George: Don't you hate it when you're picking something up from under a table, and it hits the side of the table and falls back onto the floor? What are some of your pet peeves?
  • 1. Misspelling of "existent" as "existant" 2. Misuse of lose as "loose" 3. Use of the phrase "could care less" 4. People getting tongue rings on account of "oral fixation"
  • Having conversations with people suffering from spatial disorientation, they are always want to talk about the table!
  • ok... i know i messed that up... and this will, without become someone's pet peeve (and if it does, they should just get a life!) I'm going back to work, I've done enough damage here!
  • Impenetrable body cavities.
  • When I'm at the bottom of starting up a longish staircase and the person at the top decides to hold the door open for me. I realize that they are trying to be courteous, but I then feel I must courteously hurry up the stairs to "relieve" them of door duty and say my thanks, instead of just moseying on up at my own pace. This irritates the hell out of me! Also (this is a work thing) when I am in the break room standing at the small sink washing out my cup/plate/bowl and the person who walks in after me cannot wait fifteen seconds before I'm through, but instead stands right next to me and proceeds to rinse their cup out WHILE I'M STILL USING THE DAMN SINK. Oh, I had no idea your time was more valuable than mine, you impolite moron! Wait your fucking turn!
  • Basil recipes.
  • 'thx' 'I am grateful, but not grateful enough to spend an extra quarter of a second typing a whole word.' If you want to thank me, type three more letters and do it properly.
  • I always thought that "thx" meant "thinks." Okay, that is not true. But I really did think that LOL meant "lots of luck." I thought that for a couple years or so. Sometimes it would makes sense to me. Other times I thought the person was a bit loopy.
  • Giant Squid, you've made my head hurt, because those are things that drive me batty. My twothree biggest annoyances at the moment: 1. Apostrophes in freaking plurals. Just...just make it stop! 2. People using the word "defiantly" instead of "definitely". 3. The fact that the very people that can't spell "ridiculous" or "ludicrous" are the very same people who think everything is either one or the other. I know it seems petty, but those things actually stop my brain in its tracks when I'm reading something, totally busting up my train of thought. Also, I hate when I fall on my ass in the middle of the road in front of oncoming traffic.
  • the list of things that regularly (and irrationally) annoy me is so long I cant even think about it. my husband leaving the kitchen cabinets/drawers open people who say "heigth" instead of "height" people who exit a door/train/stairway/escalator and STOP, its often difficult for me to resist shoving them even writing this list is begining to annoy me! inpenetrable shrinkwrappage telephones women who are taller than me YOU!
  • When the sheet comes off the mattress when you roll about at night during sleep. People that spell 'lose' as 'loose'. Repetitive noises in the background like a tap dripping. Scratchy clothes labels. Acid stomach. Oprah Winfrey. Dr Phil. Soap operas. Schmaltzy movies. Self help books. People from 12-step. These make me storm out of the room. People who bleat on and laugh like horses braying on their cellphones in the supermarket. Cory fucking Doctorow. Shitty post modern sci-fi. Not being able to remember a word. Internet time-outs.
  • People who say "eck cetra" instead of "et cetera," and then also misspell it as "ect." I suppose I should give them props for being consistent but instead I seethe with the heat of a thousand suns! My, aren't I cheerful today?!
  • Impromptu wrestling matches - I need to stretch first, dammit "stick-in-the-eye" turd disguised as a fart coffee pot with three molecules of coffee left in it after some a-hole skedaddled with the last cup not being able to tart up the rumors getting passed around about me at Ye Olde Rumour Mille. total lack of truly tasty green vegetables in nature every day I come home: still no dog captured spiders, crickets, etc in ziploc bag prison resolutely refuse to fight thunderdome-style taintmunchers who use "that" and "which" wrong, and have the temerity to correct me on their wrongness adorable smoking-area goth girls still call me "sir" having a perfectly good line of bullshit sussed not being told beforehand that children are tiny little Typhoid Mary's and that by having them I would spend the next 5-8 years with a bottle of Purel in my pocket, not that it does a lick of good
  • "irregardless"; IT IS NOT A REAL WORD.
  • Lara wrote: 'Apostrophes in freaking plurals. Just...just make it stop!' Fes wrote: 'children are tiny little Typhoid Mary's' Fight! Fight! Fight!
  • Oh yeah, Americans who think 'Voila' is spelt 'Wah-la'.
  • I'm not sure which is worse: that, or 'viola'.
  • "50/50 drivers." That's the one that does 50 on the 2-lane highway, and then goes 50 through town. Nearly impossible to get past them. Glasses falling off my nose into the toilet.
  • And dammit, I've had a stick-in-the-eye, so I feel entitled to use it as a valid standard of comparison.
  • Hey, "Marys" looks stupid. It can't be correct. *stretches*
  • TDM, that reminds me: A viola player can't stop crying. "Why are you crying?" the maestro asks. "The concertmaster turned one of my tuning pegs," the violist sobs. "But that doesn't seem so bad," the maestro says. The violist replies, "He won't tell me which one!" ha ha ha. Ok, now you all have a new pet peeve.
  • 'flourescent'
  • "irregardless"; IT IS NOT A REAL WORD. I actually caught Norman Mailer using that in a novel. I nearly wrote to him about it, but then realized it would spawn an entire volume in which he analyzes his own grammatical prejudices in the third person, peppered with heavy use of the word "prodigious." turd disguised as a fart Fool me once, shame on you... Mine: Wet socks. Being out of beer on Sunday (can't buy it here). Being "corrected" by people who have no idea what the fuck they're talking about. Really having to fart in public, and not knowing if it will smell or not. Chicks with tattoos right above their exposed thongs. Be original, and pull up your pants. Saturday morning cartoons nowadays. They blow eight different kinds of dog.
  • When you're working under a car and you move a bit to peer at something and part of the structure under there pokes you in the forehead, then you recoil and bash the back of your head on the driveway. If you're tired this can get cyclic. Ice cubes that stick in the glass until you let your guard down, then they all slide into your teeth. Marketroids who assume, when they ask "how's it going", that you will divine a) what topic they want to hear about and b) what level of detail they feel is appropriate. I have just started answering "fine, and how are sales of ____?" People who step on my rope.
  • When I hear "literally" used it is almost always used to mean "figuratively". When they do this on NPR I literally shout at the radio. "... was literally a slap in the face of the city." Hate that.
  • Writing "your" when it's supposed to be "you're" in a sentence always pisses me off to no end.
  • Folks that can't grasp the difference between bring and take. Parents that treat their children like pets or personal trophies rather than little human beings. The morons on DeviantArt that think web cam shots are photography. Also: using PS filters incorrectly is not artistic, it's a lazy way to camouflage a crappy shot... as is over exposure and saturation. Stop it. Girls who get tattoos because they think it's cute. Frat boys who think I'll be insulted if they make fun of my shaved head and the guys who think it's appropriate to tell me I'd look prettier with hair.
  • Monkeyfilter: every day I come home: still no dog
  • Butt flickers. Put the butt in the ashtray, not in the street. And don't give me that nasty look when I honk at you for doing it. And don't you dare dump that ashtray in the parking lot when it gets full, fool.
  • Man, just reading this thread raises my blood pressure. And not because of Mary. I'm not gonna challenge Fes now that he's stretched. I'll wait to get him until one day when he's blissfully unaware and unstretched. Yes, that's the thing to do, wait until he's peacefully eating a sammich and then...wait, where was I? Oh, yeah. It's because nearly every one of these are things I hate, too. I've come to the conclusion that we have a very valid and reasonable list of things we hate, and something should be done about them. Oh, add people who start internet petitions thinking that they can possibly hope to affect world politics/hunger/discrimination/what's printed on a can of Coke by sending an email to a million people. Oh, and people who mix up affect and effect, especially newscasters. I have a lot of rage.
  • EarWax, you may not (or may, who knows?) like this then, from NPR: Use or Abuse of the Word 'Literally'
  • EarWax named my biggest pet peeve, about the cigarette butts. My job in HR has created a whole new world of pet peeves. My latest one is reading resumes from people claiming to be "detail oriented" and then they misspell the word "knowledge."
  • Guys in the adjoining apartments with subwoofers. Who tell me I should respect their right to have fun on a Friday night. I feel my right not to be driven batshit loco at all other times should be respected first. Drivers who go as fast as the people near them - especially as soon as people try to pass them. Various grammar and spelling related ones, I'm sure.
  • 1. Driving has an entire set of pet peeves, too numerous to be catalogued here. Also too vast is the set of dumb-ass law clients. 2. Bad dance-floor etiquette. Set your space. Keep your space. Respect the space. See? How hard was that? No flinging yourself around wildly, getting in other people's way, no mulling around on the dance floor checking out chicks when people are on the dance floor actually dancing, and for the love of all that's holy, understand that if someone's on the dance floor, they may not be interested in flirting with your sorry ass -- they may just be there to dance. Nothing more. 3. Bad bar etiquette. If the bar is busy, and you have your drink, step AWAY from the BAR. If it's closing in on last call or the end of happy hour, forget the foo-foo mix drinks. Beer. Shots. Certainly never anything more complex than Rum & Coke or Rye & Ginger. 4. Changed tv listings.
  • MonkeyFilter: They blow eight different kinds of dog. Most excellent, MCT - i kiss you! MonkeyFilter: Wait your fucking turn! Okay here goes: * pr0n with bellybutton peircings. Blargh. * the word "nugget" * Supreme Court decisions that stop vote counting * Presidents that invade other countries without just cause or a workable strategy * That little piece of popcorn that gets stuck right in the back of your mouth and you can feel it with your tongue but if you try to get it out with your finger it's not there but then there it is again you can totally feel it
  • You guys are great...and, and wound a bit tight..! Heh.. Seriously, I agree with all. Except, of course, the things I'm personally guilty of, those you are wrong about.
  • People who punish others because of "the principle". (Seriously, what fucking principle could you be thinking of, exactly?) My obsessiveness with grammar and punctuation, coupled with my relative lack of knowledge about what constitutes good grammar and punctuation. Reality television. Fixation with celebrities. People who borrow books and don't return them. People who are habitually late who get annoyed when you factor their habitual lateness into your plans.
  • People who borrow books and don't return them. I used to get *incensed* about this! I loan and borrow books all the time, and am very careful about reading them promptly and returning them. But after a thousand books lost to the greedy hands of erstwhile borrowers, I just came to the conclusion that any book I lend, I should be psychologically prepared to consider it a gift, rather than a loan.
  • But after a thousand books lost to the greedy hands of erstwhile borrowers, I just came to the conclusion that any book I lend, I should be psychologically prepared to consider it a gift, rather than a loan. Funny, I went in the opposite direction. It never used to bother me, while new books were still reasonably affordable in Australia. I'd just replace the ones that went missing that were part of my "essential re-reading" library, and forget about it. Now, recommended retail prices for a hardback in Australia are around $50, while RRP for a paperback run to around $35. So, not returning a book means I may not be able to replace it any time soon, or means hunting through 2nd-hand bookstores, which can be a long and futile process if we're talking about a reasonably popular author. I still lend books to friends / family / coworkers, because I think there's a joy in sharing a good book, but I take careful note of who has what, and I'm not above suggesting I'd be grateful for a replacement, should my copy go missing.
  • My pinky toes. For 21 years they've been driving me insane by sticking to the toes ajacent to them. /maladjusted
  • Educated people who act like their own acquisition of standard edited English grammar and rhetoric somehow make their own words seem more relevant, or worthy, than people who haven't yet acquired the discourse features of privilege and power. That and cheap duct tape.
  • Pet-peeve: (1 of many) is a car doing a half-ass stop at a stop sign. I live in a densely packed urban neighborhood with plenty of children and elderly folks. If you can't be bothered to come to a complete stop you don't deserve to drive.
  • Hey, "Marys" looks stupid. Apostraphes are used to indicate the possessive. So "Mary's dog" is correct. "There are three Mary's in my school" is not. think 'Voila' is spelt 'Wah-la' I want to hit these people. People who write "spelt" -- that's just a minor annoyance. :) Girls who get tattoos because they think it's cute. I'll add to that girls who think that being bitchy means being charming. * pr0n with bellybutton peircings. Blargh. prOn with nipple piercings. Double blargh.
  • Apostraphes That is all.
  • "People who write "spelt"" Spelt is an acceptable variant, thankyou.
  • Uh-oh. The spelling gloves are coming off. *gets popcorn*
  • Worthless fucks who say things like, "When you talk like that, you make it seem like you don't care what I think or feel."
  • Also, people who use the right-turn-lane or parking lane to pull to the front of the line waiting at a red light, or who use the breakdown lane to pass bumper-to-bumper traffic. Fucking cunts.
  • Sweet Christ that felt good. (The second, sincere one.)
  • I like spelt. Quinoa too. "Heighth" ought to be right (consider: length, breadth, depth, warmth, wealth, health, coolth (ok, that's archaic), mirth...), and in fact it seems to have been the standard up until the 17th century. What I hates: people who don't pay attention to what's going on around them: letting doors close on people with hands full, blocking aisles in grocery stores... and even worse, greedy drivers. Very little someone else does will actually make me angry, but people zipping ahead in ending lanes, or the third person rushing through the red turn-signal only to block traffic 'cause there's no room to get out of the way... some people should die.
  • This is my very favorite post of the month so far. I'm so glad there are other grammar snobs out there besides myself! I wuv you all. Oh, and Fes, exactly *which* rumors about you would you like tarted up? I'd be more than happy to comply but there are just so many, I need hints. . .
  • I'm going back to work, I've done enough damage here! I hate people who just cheerfully go back to work after doing damage here and getting the Monkeys all riled up. Now the poo's gonna be in OUR living room. Oh, and I hate people who get their knickers up their crack about the trivial stuff they ought to blow off and not worry about.
  • What I call "mallwalkers": people who walk slowly and seemingly without purpose, right in the middle of the walkway or sidewalk; people who come out of stores without checking for foot traffic; families who seem to think everywhere is their living room, and that it's ok to totally block the sidewalk while they stop and get their shit together; shoppers who don't respect personal space, and try to walk through me to get what they're after. These people make me feel psychotic.
  • I've made a conscious effort over the last few years to try not to let little things like these bother me. It's been about 80% successful.
  • When you've been standing in the checkout line for half an hour and it looks like it's going to take half an hour more, and they open the register next to yours and the people lined up at the back rush over to take the new lane. In my own defence for considering this a peeve, when I'm at the back I always wave people who've been waiting longer into the newly opened line. It's hard leading a spiritually advanced life. Or so I'm told...
  • Spelling and pronunciation! The next time I hear the word 'vunerable' I am going to drive to the broadcasting station, demand access to the miscreant and give speech and/or spelling lessons until the word is accurately pronounced!!!! Oh also 'pleece'(police) and rooal (as in rural) Aaaaaagh are these three just Australian foibles?? Feel free to add pushy people who simply have to be ahead of you and walk/drive over or through you to get there. Hmmm I feel much better now.
  • I like spelt. Quinoa too. Heh. *Golf clap*
  • People that underline and highlight paragraphs on books. With black ink markers. Or radioactive-looking color ones. OK, everyone has a personal method for studying, and are free to do as they please with tehir own books, but I've seen people color entire pages, and there's still something that tugs at me when a book gets defiled. *grumble* French-style nails. Can't help it, they look tacky to me. The sound of a thousand 4225 monkeys whining... : ) /runs away
  • Office nail-clipping. Argetty-argh-argh. Do your toenails and floss your teeth while you're at it, why don't you? Talkers in theatres. People who think they can make me drive faster by tailgating. People who drive slowly in the outside lane. People with 15 items in the 10 items or less line. People who count my items. People who feel the need to share their taste in music with the rest of the world by giving us no choice but to hear it. People who don't understand that the music I like is edifying for them. "having said that", "that being said", "empowerment", "special", etc. I have now ground my molars down to the gums.
  • Just to add impetus to the nascent apostrophe crusade, The Apostrophe Protection Society.
  • People with 15 items in the 10 items or less line. People who count my items. Is it just me...? (And cue someone mentioning "people who say, 'Is it just me...?'")
  • All of the freaking people at work who think I can make an exception to the rules just for them. It is my job to ensure that there are NO EXCEPTIONS! Granted I work in a highly regulated industry, but, dammit, you're just not special enough for me to break all the rules. Suck it, losers! You hit a sore spot with me today.
  • and the people lined up at the back rush over to take the new lane Shit, one of my big pet peeves ... is that all stores don't have a common queue, a la US banks, where everyone waits in one line and gets the next available clerk.
  • Spelling and pronunciation! The next time I hear the word Too numerous to mention, but I really don't mind so much as to get a good chuckle. Recently I had the pleasure of reading how my company was going to do a "viral" marketing campaign, several times in the same document. That brought a smile to my face :)
  • .
  • People who laugh at really dumb times at movies. Pedantic people of all flocks and varieties. People who think they're much smarter than they are. Showy religious people. Women who do too much to look pretty. Fancy shampoo makes your hair look like shit and most maintream make-up techniques and clothing make you look dull and over-refined. Gimmie a girl a face full of pepperoni in dirty sweats and I'm good to go. Boring Trolls.
  • People who get their understanding of current events from Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity.
  • Articles by acedemics that refuse to use words that can actually be looked up in the dictionary. Use English you boring shits.
  • People with Volvos. People with yellow cars. Old people. People who like golf. People who *play* golf. People who obsess over any sport. Lawyers. Pseuds. Art gallery sycophants. Plastic people. People with brown shoes. Noisy dustbin men. Loud Americans with tiny brains. English yobbos. Australians from the 'country'. People who say "that's gay". Republicans. Nutjob conspiracy freaks. People who think that bigfoot is paranormal. Ultra skeptics. James Randi. Phonies. Politicians. Rich trophy wives. Bratty children. People who have never read a book. Actors. Tom Fucking Cruise. Scientologists. Fake-o trendoid Cabalists. People who believe in crystal therapy. Grateful Dead fans. Phish fans. Marillion fans. Fat people. White guys with dreads. Jazz musicians. Musicians in general. The game of chess. Too much ice in my drink. Very hairy genitals. Prickles in the grass. Mean dogs. Cats that act like they want to be stroked then run away at the last minute just as you get to them. People who obsess over their gardens. Women who don't ring you back. Impolite waiters. Coffee not hot enough. People who make noise in the cinema. Not having any weed. Cops. Fascists. Zionists. The British Tory party. Goths. American 'punk rock' which is nothing but garage rock played by middle class white blokes. People with halitosis. Adult onset acne. Pumpkin. Eggplant. Religious fundamentalists of any stripe. Christmas. Michael Crichton. People who buy expensive things for status. Gold jewellery. Toddlers with green snot running out of their noses. Trailer trash breeders. People who always have to be right. Teenagers. Brittney Spears. Electropop. Songs of Praise. Doof Doof. Pedos. Spedos. Lycra. Margaret Thatcher. Rupert Murdoch. Jeffrey Fucking Archer. People who complain. People who complain about people who complain.
  • Recently I had the pleasure of reading how my company was going to do a "viral" marketing campaign Okay, I'll bite. I was under the impression viral marketing was an accepted term for certain types of marketing campaigns.
  • So many of mine have already been mentioned, especially the spelling and grammar issues, but here goes: Someone who asks you for the same information repeatedly because they can't be bothered to learn it. Office politics, club politics, online forum politics...bah. Washing an article of clothing and not see the big grease/ink stain until after it has been dried. People who think that civil liberties are unimportant.
  • Chyren wins. I hate people who have to catch up on gossip in the store taking up the whole fucking aisle where you have to stand and wait till they're done to get on with your shopping. Also, people who only listen to certain bands because they think it will make them look cool.
  • People with a pram who think it gives them a god-given right to do WHATEVER THE FUCK THEY WANT WITHOUT LOOKING. Actually, people who walk without using their brain, criss-cross the path, and generally do everything possible to get in my way. ARGH. Also, it's, people pronouncing "they're" as "there", ditto the apparent inability for ANYONE to choose the correct their/there/they're. Loose makes me lose my shit.
  • Well, I pronounce "there" "their" and "they're" exactly the same way. I am also, however, a frequent pram-pusher, which may explain this.
  • Most of all, I hate complainers.
  • Jesus Fucking Christ. 986 straight comments about grammar peeves. People who think a good writer is someone who knows all the grammar "rules." People who don't understand how language changes over time- by people using new words, which then get added to the dictionary, not vice versa.
  • Just thought of another one -- people who claim that they never make a fucking mistake when communicating, it's "language changing over time". THE FUCK IT IS. Yes, language changes. NO, YOU STILL CAN'T USE IT'S AS A PLURAL, THEIR is not THERE and it's NOT THAT HARD TO REMEMBER. Not entirely aimed at you, drjim -- I've seen many other instances of this, particularly on the blue, and it makes my hair ache.
  • /takes off brown shoes, throws them plus boiled eggplant at Chyren TAKE THAT, YOU VOLVO HATER!
  • "language changing over time" Because the illiterate are teaching the illiterate - they have just done a survey in Oz which shows that some ungodly percentage of teachers (I cannot remember the exact percentage offhand) cannot spell or use grammar correctly themselves Oh and add to pet hates the use of myself when I would suffice - or do i mean me?? Ooooh my head!
  • On my way to work I have to go down a flight of stairs to get into the subway. There's an escalator coming up, which is wide enough for two people; often some people stand on one side and other people walk up the other. The stairs aren't wide enough for two people. Still, a couple of times a week someone walks up the stairs, making me wonder (a) what their problem is, and (b) if I can deck them.
  • That is to say, I hate the haters.
  • Anything advertised as "free" that requires a purchase to receive.
  • Actually, the Grammar peevists are a great sort of language-awareness idiot test. They are the obviously college educated, "we are now middle class 'cause we speak good and gotta protect that status" discursive nostalgics who have no sense of the history, lingustic grammaticality, or social functions of language. They are the gap-shoppers of language. They need to go dig their elitest noses out of their collective arses and get a few theories of lingustics and literacy, preferrably ones that don't begin and end in an autistic understanding of their own relationship with the language that defines them. As if "its" and "it's" really matters outside of signaling class/education status. n00bs. /puts on blast googles
  • "lingustic grammaticality" Ha ha ha ha! Heh, here, doofus, let me just brush that chip off your shoulder. It's not about class status, it's about making yourself fucking understood. Now, please, suck my cock. No, really. Suck my cock.
  • What mrjojoetc said. "Grammar" and "spelling" are throat-following the architekture 'f dead-high sad and boring routines that only idiots love, collapsing down's there ways headshakers clucking and basically they should be abandoned completely. griggle at they're dictioniry's snicker-pointing Although, perhaps we shouldn't go too far, or else saddon off thre blanc night's silent foam of words
  • Comrades! Strike a blow for the class struggle by misspelling words! Every misplaced apostrophe is one in the eye for the bourgeoisie! Sheesh
  • I hate it when I come too late to a thread to either add stupid comments or to be bothered actually reading what everyone else said. So I'll just say: 'You're all teh gay' and leave it at that. God bless.
  • I'm with jojo. Millions of children die each year from preventable diseases, but for bour-gee-o-see fuckwittes such as YOU - yes, YOU, you fuck - your worst fear is a misplaced apost'phe. "Let's them eat semicolons!" you cry, you contemptible piece of shit. How I hate YOU. No - not you - YOU. Yeah - you up the back. Fuck YOU.
  • DAWN WITH SPELLING!
  • GRAMMAR DOWN WITH!
  • CHY = BOURGEOGNE JOJO = PROLIXTARTARE Which is tastier? YOU KNOW NOTHING'S.
  • It really bugs me when people come too late to a thread to either add stupid comments or to be bothered actually reading what everyone else said. Especially when they just say 'You're all teh gay' and leave it at that. Sheesh!
  • That r gud, kwidnunk. U mek good argyumint whi peepul kare tu much abowt tocking gud uhmericuhn.
  • I hate petebest. All of them.
  • I also hate it when people post a bunch of funny comments overnight and I end up reading them all before I go to work. And then I end up being late. Thanks a lot!
  • Hooray for everything!
  • Millions of children die each year from preventable diseases ... What a wonderful, infinitely useful rhetorical device that is! At school: 'Why are you wasting my time making me learn the three times table? Millions of children die each year from preventable diseases!' At the office: 'No, of course I didn't fill in my TPS report. Millions of children die each year from preventable diseases!' Stopped for speeding: 'Yes, I was driving at 100 mph, but it doesn't matter, because millions of children die each year from preventable diseases!' Arrested for murder: 'All right, I might have killed him, but millions of children die each year from preventable diseases!'' For God's sake, won't somebody please think of the children!
  • Thanks for all the comments in my first post ever! You guys are awesome! I hope my grammor is ok!
  • Don't get cocky, kid! And welcome to the world of posting to Mofi! Failure to garner this many comments in ALL your future posts will result in instant dismissal.
  • I will do my best sir!
  • Chyren, you forgot zombies.
  • Also, to the grammar and spelling point: You can have the most intelligent ideas on the planet. You can be the most brilliant person in the world. But if you can't write it in a fashion more coherent than my 12-year-old nephew, I probably won't be able to follow it. Also I have never shopped, nor will I ever shop, at Gap. Or The Gap. Or whatever the hell it's supposed to be. And I hate people who push their baby strollers (prams) out into a crosswalk against the light to make cars stop, in a sort of "you won't stop for me, but you'll stop for my baby, dammit!" maneuver. I think they've come to feel that that stroller is like a mighty sword to part the sea of everyone else in the universe and allow them unimpeded passage.
  • Down with strollers and wheelchairs!1!!
  • This thread literally blows my socks off. Their are defiantly some great nugget's ect here. Having said that, though, it's the heigth of the ridicolous to worry about some non-existant "correct" way things are spelt - really I could care less, guys. Irregardless, and that being said, Thx
  • Down with Plegmund!1!
  • Careful Now!
  • Go empower you're self.
  • I love you people. And, Plegmund, you forgot to say that it knocks your "sock's" off.
  • Down with this sort of thing!
  • Down with jerks! Mean people suck! My tummy hurts!!
  • Koko has wind!
  • Look. Do you, in fact, have any cheese here at all?
  • No, but I can give you something with a blue vein in it...
  • I don't care how fucking runny it is. I still hate it!
  • "Sherbert". "Expresso".
  • "Carmel".
  • Foilage.
  • It doesn't bother me when my students make easy grammar/spelling mistakes because they simply don't know any better. It's my job to teach them, and I do this happily. (It's rewarding to see a student's writing skills increase over the semester.) However, it does bother me when my students make easy grammar/spelling mistakes when I have already warned/taught/begged them not to. This, to me, says that the student is simply being lazy. If I'm giving them my all to try and teach them, they should give me their all to try and learn.
  • Pointsetta. Febuary. Artic.
  • Laggard but not late, adding .. Shopping, people who are always (predictably) late, petty bureaucrats, bigots, humourless bastards, fanatics (about anything), stuttering, Jerry (abomination) Springer, the cult of celebrity, American comedians (except George Carlin), American spelling, jealousy, spite, bullies, cruelty of any kind, jingoism, the smell of cat urine, tattoos, friends who spread bits of their motorcycle all over the living room, 'name brand' anything, ganja smokers who sneer derisively at those who don't, Las Vegas, suspiciously well-behaved children, people who never use the word "fuck", cell phones, waiting in line anywhere, shopping malls, shaving, dentists, Volvos, Corvettes, SUVs, slobs, American beer, London underground rush hour, Paris Metro rush hour, Paris-France (the most over-rated city in the world), being woken at 6a.m. by a parrot biting your nose, smog anywhere, team sports, bullies, so-called helpless women, dill pickles, jalopenos, cabbage, T.V. in the bedroom, target shooting with machine guns, guns in general. Oh yeah, and intolerance.
  • jalopenos The British spelling, one presumes?
  • Your all teh gay. Im leaving.
  • Disorientated?
  • When women leave the toilet seat down. What -- do they think I want to touch that thing? Why should I have to touch the toilet seat just because she is not confident enough in her aim to stand up?
  • Maybe she just doesn't like scooping your poorly aimed poo off the floor.
  • bernockle, behold. The Magic John toilet seat lifter.
  • Signage.
  • Carpeting. Roadway.
  • ok, a correct term that somehow seems like it should be wrong, and I KNOW it bothers you too! TEMBLOR I just hate that word.
  • Disorientated? And its bastard cousin, orientated. Thank you.
  • TEMBLOR I have never seen that word in my life. I HATE NEW WORDS!!!1~
  • Trogdor's cousin.
  • Wait- isn't that The Saint? Simon Tremblor? Sure. 'ashphalt', 'licorish'
  • You have the temerity to not tremble before the terrible TEMBLOR?!?!
  • "Let's nip this in the butt" Always makes me think of this.
  • Telemarketers. And having to argue with someone to get a service cancelled. I used to be vocally outspoken about orientate / orientated / etc, until some kind soul (damn their eyes!) pointed out that it's in the dictionary.
  • middleclasstoolblor!
  • I still have a problem with orientate. I think it's been added to US dictionaries because so many people use it. I have precious little with which to back that up, though. These people seem to agree.
  • Wot! Wot? Fishtick, one is all afrighted! "Jalopenos" esto Espanol, conforma? Ahora hombre muy loco en le cabeza? .. Chanza, broma!
  • 'Orientated' is in the Oxford English Dictionary. 'Tis true Brit, doncha know. As is 'asphalt and 'licorice'. Lexicographers unite! Eck-tyoo-elly, English is a constantly evolving leng-gwidge, and it's history is fascinating. It is one which absorbs words and idiom from many, as are other languages these days. The word 'geek' for instance, is understood from Gudjarat to Akademgorodok (with accompanying laughter).
  • Peppering me with insults, jerrycan, eh?
  • 'Asphalt' and 'licorice' are usually mispronounced, at least in North America. Also, they taste the same, near as I can tell.
  • I snigger with thee, Oh fishy one!
  • Eeek- watch yer evolving 'it's', there, gherkin.
  • Blasphemy! Asphalt tastes like vegemite. heh
  • Garn atchya, apostrophe there denotes ownership, once in English, it's owned.
  • The proliferation of the phrase 'perfect storm'.
  • I still have a problem with orientate. I think it's been added to US dictionaries because so many people use it. Which is pretty much how all language evolves. Well do I remember the day that "Google" was added to the OED as a verb. Well, actually, I don't remember the day at all, but it wasn't yesterday, and I don't think it was last week, either. One of the things I've always struggled with is in not using a possessive apostrophe with "it", as in, of a car, "That's it's engine." I know it's wrong. I know it's wrong, and yet I damn well type it anyway. Oh, and the punctuation fetishists might enjoy this link (probably not suitable for work, flash, audio, scary-eyed-guy insulting people through email, entirely using punctuation).
  • I think you mean "it's pwn'd", jeraboam.
  • The most common errors I notice are: 1. Misuse of the word wherefore (especially when quoting Shakespeare). It means "why", not "where". 2. Misuse of "begs the question" when what they really mean is "raises the question" 3. Misuse of "myself". It should only be used when you are the subject and object of the same sentence (e.g. "I touch myself")
  • People now think that "conversate" is a word. Also, the number of people who refer to their driver's license in the plural. Example: "My license are revoked but if I just pay off a ticket I can get them back." You have ONE license, not eleven. It is because the word ends in the "s" sound that people refer to it in the plural. It drives me crazy. I need to relax about it, though. After all, patience are a virtue.
  • Monkeyfilter: being woken at 6a.m. by a parrot biting your nose. Ahhhh, almost forgot this one that really irks me: that country is called Colombia, not COLUMBIA.
  • See, orientate and disorientate just sound like "conversate" to me. Clunky and unnecessarily polysyllabic. "Orient" and "disorient" will do. I do concede that they're a part of the language now, though, as are the newfangled use of "begs the question" and "vicious cycle" (should be "circle"). I'm thinking of joining a support group to help me with this transition.
  • Strategery. Brought to us by Chimpy, spread by innumerable reality tv game shows, it needs to stop. It's not a word. The noun you want is 'strategy'. The verb you want is 'strategize', not 'strategerize'. (Mind you, Chimpy is a whole subset of pet-peeves altogether. Just seeing his self-satisfied smirk is enough to send me into orbit. Almost as bad an effect as seeing David Fucking Frum, That Dickweed Fucking Traitor TM)
  • 'Orientate' is bad. 'Burglarize' is worse.
  • The worse kind of mispellers? French wons.
  • Let's visit the laundry room, shall we? people who ... -- leave their clothes in the machine for long periods of time -- leave their clothes in the machine for long periods of time, and then get upset when you move them -- can't wait five minutes for you to come move your clothes before they pile them on top of the machine -- do 39 loads at a time -- get crud in the machine and don't clean it out
  • "39 loads at a time" Rented that one last night. The climax was incredible.
  • Leveraging.
  • Pedos. Spedos HA!
  • > 2. Misuse of "begs the question" when what they really mean is "raises the question" there's a discussion of this here. i wonder if part of the transition to the sense of "raise/provoke the question" is because the original sense was, well, nonsense, or at least a poor translation.
  • I just walked in to the office. It is the coldest morning of the season thus far. Co-worker has arrived two minutes before me. I am not sure how the office will feel because the heat hasn't truly been tested in this building. I remark to her, "It is nice and warm in here." She responds, "I just turned the heat up." "Why, if it was already warm in here?" "Because it's cold outside." "But we are inside." 1. People who are reactionary when changing the thermostat (usually this is done by people being slightly cold, changing the thermostat by ten degrees, everyone soon is sweating, responding by lowering it by fifteen degrees, everyone soon is freezing, and so on).
  • It's called sharing the hot flashes.
  • When someone moves my stuff. Open kitchen cabinets, especially when I hit my head on it. Drivers without courtesy or common sense. Noise when there is an expectation of quiet (e.g. happy birthday sung in a nice restaurant, talking or candy wrapper crinkling in a theater, jack hammers at nap time) Use of the phrase "At this point in time." Sanctimony.
  • via Dilbert
  • I agree about begging the question, but I recognise that it is a lost cause: as lost as that of 'gender', which still grates on my ears a bit. To be honest, it's not so much the inadvertent destruction of the word's proper meaning as the fact that to me it still sounds revoltingly like a piece of leaden Victorian drollery - which it probably was to begin with: "Oho, Pooter, I fancy your visitor is a member of the weaker sex!" "A chap of the female persuasion, Gowing?" "The distaff side, it looks like." "Indeed, a young person of the feminine gender, by Jove..." Both parties succumb to a fit of uncontrollable chortling and subside.
  • I think "gender" became prominent first here in the US, where the appropriate word "sex" tends to freak people out. See also: the "niggardly" incident. Seeing "sex" on a form also prompts gleeful, Austin Powers-esque declarations of "yes please!" Cue droll chortling.
  • someone said "zombies" up there, didn't they? eh? Zombies???? did someone say "zombies"?
  • Braiiinnnzzzzz...
  • So, I'm imagining these two zombies, sitting around. And one says, "I'm starving, let's get some brains." And the other says, "You mean braiiinnnzzzzz, right?" And the first one says, "What did I say? Brains? Yeah, whatever, braiiinnnzzzzz, yeah." And the second one says, "You know, I'm kind of over the whole brains-" "braiiinnnzzzzz" "-thing, yes, sorry, braiiinnnzzzzz, what do you think about maybe getting some pancreas for once?" And the first one says, "That's sick, Ralph. Seriously, you disgust me sometimes." And what I want to know is, can you be bad at being a zombie? I mean, can you?
  • Daffs was bad at being a zombie. Shaun was very good.
  • With all thy wide geographies, manifold, different, distant, Rounding by thee in Oneā€”one common orbic language... When words, or new meanings for old words, get added to the dictionary, isn't it generally because, like google, they've come into another meaning through some reasonable organic process? I mean, it's not just because a lot of people misunderstood the original meaning. Changes in language happen for good reasons, not just through people not bothering. And don't bring class and economics into it, because my mother grew up dirt poor on the wrong side of the wrong side of the tracks, and she made it her business to learn how to speak and write intelligibly. It's a desire for a common language, not snobbery. Oh, and wet counters in public bathrooms drive me nuts.
  • Um . . . I'll agree.
  • orbic--great word among great words!