#1: Posts about pet peeves.

j/k

Lori ;)

#1 Job Related: People who call our office and 1) have a crummy phone that drops ev....oth...syl.... 2) mumble the name of the person they are seeking 3)cannot speak very good English 4) have so much background noise going on that you can not hear what they are saying or 5) have all four of these situations going on at the same time! Cell phones CAN be the bane of the existence of switchboard operators!

#2 General: people who think that the laws/rules of the road do not apply to them; "What part of this 'No Parking Anytime' sign three feet from the front of your car don't you understand?"

#3 General: People who will look you right in the eye and tell you something that just isn't so.....when they know all along that YOU know what is really what.

Thanks! I feel much better now!
Teresa

Claire, that pronouncing the ES thing on the end of a word drives me crazy too! What about typing an apostrophe at the end of ANY word that ends in S? Let's not even start on their, there, and they're, or to, too, and two.... I should have been an English teacher.

Speaking as someone who used to work at Sears (loved the vacuums and sewing machine I sold, and the customers, but hated the company)... they do NOT care about customers at all... just about making money. Do you know the sales associate gets 2 dollars every time they have someone fill out a credit card application? Or that at least 10 percent of their sales have to be "service contracts" or they get canned? At least that's how it was back in 02. One time an old man (I'll never forget his name, Mr. Merburhger!!) called and was almost in tears because he couldn't get to the store to buy a belt for his vacuum, and certainly couldn't have changed it himself. I asked him to tell me about the vacuum so I could bring the right belt, and on my own time after work, I drove to his retirement "trailer park", knocked on his door, changed his belt, and vacuumed his house. He was about 80, and actually cried when he was thanking me.... He said he couldn't believe that in this day and age someone would bend over backwards to help a complete stranger... his wife and died a few years ago and his kids all lived far away... he tried to give me 25 dollars, and I tried not to take it, but he would not let me leave without it, and I was just a 19 year old college kid with no money so I finally did accept it... I paid for the belt and drove 30 minutes, so I figured a little reimbursement wouldn't be awful. An old lady bought a microwave from me and was upset because she didn't know how she as going to get it in from her car... again, after work on my own time, I went over and took it out of her car and set it up her kitchen (she also lived in a retirement trailer park!).... then I sat with her and we talked on her porch for 4 hours and had a really lovely time! I was telling a co-worker about it, and she told me not to tell them managers because I could have gotten "let go" as that violated store policy. Whatever! Claire, what if you had ordered the appliance online... I wonder if they would have insisted you come to the store to sign! Wouldn't surprise me!

My biggest pet peeve is people who smoke right by the entrance doors of public buildings! Sheesh! I really try not to be judgmental about smoking, but I cannot be tolerant about inconsideration.

Or people who post adds to get rid of their "beloved" pet even though it "breaks their heart" because their new apartment doesn't allow pets. If it's even true that they are moving and the new place doesn't allow pets, why don't they choose a place that does? There are plenty that do.... they had the pet first. Why don't they just be honest and state: OK, look people.... I got this cat when he was a baby because he was cute. I didn't realize that I'd have to feed it and change the litter box and take it to the vet.... I'm lazy now and I don't want this thing because it isn't cute anymore, so someone please take it off my hands so I don't have to feel too guilty about taking it to the shelter to be executed or dumping it in the woods... I'll even waive the 25 dollar "re-homing" fee because we all know that's BS anyway!

There, I feel better now too, what a nice idea for a thread, Claire :o)

Now someone needs to complain about people using ellipses too much when typing on the cooking forum (guilty)... :o)

That's a lovely story, Bobby. I have a dog in my lap so typing is one handed right now- but kindness is always the right way to go.

Mine- people who flip cigarette butts anywhere. In general, it makes me despise smokers. All litterers, of course, but there is something socially acceptable about throwing a cigarette butt wherever you want.

People who don't use turn signals.

Blocking the aisles in the grocery store. Not as bad as the other two, but their incredible unawareness of the world around them bugs me.

I won't get started on the way people treat animals, that's a rant and outrage, not a simple pet peeve.

My biggest pet peeve is people who smoke right by the entrance doors of public buildings! Sheesh!

Amen to that! Our building has set up a special smoking area INSIDE the parking garage, way away from the door. I suppose the idea was to protect the smokers from the weather. Great. On rainy or cold days, they go there to smoke. But if the weather is nice, they smoke anywhere and everywhere else. Including at the car entrance to the garage, where they stand in the way of cars trying to enter! How ridiculous is that? I guess they already lead a risky lifestyle with their cigs so why not stand in the pathway of cars while they are at it.

By the way, not only is this annoying as I'm driving into the garage but of course that smoke floats right over to the entrance door. YUK!! Sorry, but I find cigarette smoke one of the most disgusting things about our culture. It's invasive and completely unnecessary. I know a lot of you are smokers and are probably offended but that's how I feel.

Oh yeah, another one... people who call (at work) to get a phone number or address, then when we start to tell them, they say, "Hold on.... let me git uh eeeeeenk peeeeehuuuun!" I usually put them on hold for 10 minutes when they pull that, by the time I return they forgot what they were calling for! I can't speak for everyone, but when I call a company specifically to get information, I have "uh eeeeeeenk peeeeeehuuuuuuuun" ready! One time a lady called and I started to give her an address and she immediately yelled, "Jamal, git momma a cula crown for I cud write this numbuh down right quick." It took me a moment to regain my composure after that one.

By the way, I didn't mean to sound harsh about grammatical errors... I know I make plenty (often I'll write the instead of they or them instead of the, or add an m to the, though that's usually a spelling thing), especially when I'm tired, but there is a difference between making a mistake and not knowing better. As Claire said, what has happened to education?

When making a contraction of you all, "they" write ya'll. I was under the impression the apostrophe replaced the missing letters. It may not bother y'all but it does me.

People who leave their trash in grocery carts. If you don't want your snotty tissue anymore, why do you think I want it?

Oh! You all are cracking me up!

I have a new one since yesterday, when I saw an ad for some kind of mobile phone. (I think it was for an iPhone, but since I don't really care, I didn't notice that part.) The commercial has everyone looking intently at their devices, WHILE THEY ARE DOING SOMETHING ELSE. Riding their bikes among human beings, social networking with their ''texting'' friends while they ignore the real people they are with, walking down a busy sidewalk among people they could easily run over...uh, into. NONE of whom are paying attention! So now, we have commercials being made, condoning rude behavior in public places while making it all seem perfectly acceptable. Oh yeah, this one Really flames me!

...I knew I liked you Bobby!

Oh yeah! eeeeeenk peeeeehuuuun! Where is mine?

I'm guilty of ellipses, which I confess I had to look up. Thanks for making me learn something new today!

"gone/went missing". I hear this all the time now and it makes me flinch every time. It sounds as if the person or item made the choice to hide somewhere, in other words "went missing."

Here's a quote from a book on the subject:

"Gone" or "went" missing is dreadfully popular today. Everyone from reporters on "CNN" to detectives (or their writers) on "Without a Trace" now prefer it.

People are so dull-witted and impressionable that, today, in this country, the popularity of "gone" or "went missing" has soared. Words like "disappeared," "vanished," "misplaced," "stolen," "lost," "deserted," "absconded" are seldom heard today because "went missing" has less meaning, or less exact meaning, than any of them, and people, especially the media, perhaps, are afraid of expressing meaning. What's more, "went missing" sounds willful or deliberate, and, indeed, sometimes that connotation is accurate, but the child who has been kidnapped is hardly agreeable to having been so.

From "Silence, Language, & Society" by Robert Hartwell Fiske

OK, so regarding pet peeves about language, grammar and pronunciation. I have TONS of them. Yes, all the ones you've mentioned and more. Example: mischievous is prounounced MIS-che-vus NOT mis-CHE-vi-us. There is no i between the v and the o.

What I have to keep reminding myself, however, is that language evolves based on common usage. A lot of the spellings, pronunciation and grammar we use today would have been considered wrong years ago. Things that are correct now were someone else's pet peeve at one time. Those people are dead and gone and here we are saying it wrong! And this same fate will happen to us!!

Now, that doesn't comfort me. It doesn't make me feel better about these mistakes. It doesn't make me forgive them more easily! It just reminds me there is very little I can do about it and to just move on.

I do have to say, I don't think I've ever heard anyone pronounce the apostrophe as you stated claire. But the ubiquitous usage of an apostrophe in a plural has sent me running from the room screaming on multiple occasions. Get over it May!! It's probably going to be considered correct within the next 20 years! (ew!)

May, plurals made with apostrophes drive me nuts! Even more maddening is the omission of "-d" or "-ed" at the end of passive past participles. As in "the mistake was not notice." It's spreading like smallpox. How does this stuff happen? Nobody ever does it, and then suddenly it's everywhere. Poison memes!

People who dress sloppily in public. Tuck it in, smooth it out, and for goodness sakes, at least have no holes or spots. Oy!

Not sending in a response to an RSVP request. Grr. Don't those invitees know headcounts are important when it comes to meetings or parties, so that there is enough space and food? Have they never entertained at all, ever??? A no is quite acceptable. No answer is the epitome of bad manners.

Drivers who stop traffic because they need to get over a lane. Had this happen today, Hmmm, couldn't they have gone forward and turned around instead of holding up twenty people who all now missed the light?

So everyone knows all about the obesity epidemic, right? Right? So why can't a family go anywhere - shopping, sight-seeing, etc. without everyone constantly holding a large drink or snacking on something? It's like pacifiers for everyone, all the time.

Yes, in church too. It's not a movie! Do they have to have a coke and doughnut during the service?

Double negatives in a sentence,is a pet peeve of mine. We live in a rural small town in Eastern NC, marbled mouth, ignorant garble isn't charming at all! You don't have to be college educated to sound intelligent!

Another pet peeve is, no one uses their turn signals down here, what's up with that!
People that cut you off by pulling out in front of you, only to go 15 miles under the speed limit! 9 times out of 10 they are on their cell phone!
Oh don't get me started!!!!

Bobby! funny!!...aiiink peeehuiiiin LOL!
And the very mention of "ink pen" drives me wild. What other kind of pen is there? A pig pen? a catsup pen?
And then there are some who use words like prior to when they mean before or forenoon when they mean morning or gratuity when they mean tip or human resources when they mean personnel....etc.

Another annoyance is being someone in a grocery check out line. They watch while the clerk checks their order, pronounces a total..then dig in the purse for a check book, ask for a pen, make out a check, fill in the stub, then hand it to the checker and wait because they have made the check out for more so as to get cash! AARGH...and I walk up swipe my card....and if it's under $25 I don't even have to sign!

Instruction manuals and booklets with all the languages bound together. Why not use a few more staples or more glue and enclose three or four small, convenient, manageable booklets? Then we could throw away all but the one we want. Why must our files be fat with all the other languages?

• I become mildly irritated by family groups who stretch across entire aisles at the grocery store and meander slowly. I am a usually a streamlined one woman machine shopper, in and out, no messing around. Shrug. I see them and use another aisle and come back around. Mostly I like to keep my momentum going.

• People at four-way stops who don't know whose turn it is. Grins.

• Junk mail.

• My neighbor when he cuts the grave vines I planted between us back to the trunks. Sigh. I never say anything because he is a sweetie who often brings my garbage can in from the street for me and has never complained once that my dog pooped on his lawn and I missed it.

• REALLY loud music in other people's cars.

Appliance repair people who have the homeowner scheduled from 8-12 or 1-5 on Friday and arrive at 5:30. What quality of job would be expected? Not much, obviously. At least keep the customer updated so that 1/2 of the day isn't lost!

Family groups at the grocery store irritate me too, barnmom.

Oh Barnmom, the loud music in other cars drives me crazy too.... I'm not violent, but I want to do something really nasty to people who think that is OK to do... it's ridiculous!