I thought about posting this in the thread “Do you get irrationally irritated by accents / voice traits?”, but it’s doesn’t quite fit into the topic of that thread since it’s a written thing, not a spoken thing. So I thought it might be worth a thread of it’s own.
I always get irrationally annoyed when people write a bunch of dollar signs in place of the word “money”. My brain, for whatever reason, translates that symbol to “dollars” rather than “money” like I assume the writer intends. And since the dollar sign looks like a capital letter, it becomes “DOLLARS” in all caps. So when I read something like the title of this thread, in my head I hear “Will Unemployed Americans Get DOLLARS DOLLARS DOLLARS?”
Text speak in general annoys me too, particularly “ur”. I assume mean your/you’re depending on context, but in my head I always want to pronounce it more like “err”. Also “u” in place of “you”, mostly because it’s not that much harder than just typing the two extra letters.
As running coach has so aptly demonstrated, I get very annoyed, although not irrationally, at acronyms where I don’t know what they mean. People who use them should be D&Q and BWTHPOAS.
There’s a certain Doper who sprinkles “wrt” or “WRT” all through his posts, every time he posts. He does it so much and has been doing it for so long now that it may have become an unconscious reflex. The phrase “with respect to” isn’t something anyone uses in conversation so often, or even in writing when all spelled out. Once or twice, OK. But to lean on the abbreviation so heavily suggests that it’s become a shortcut substitute for thought or simply a verbal tic.
To keep from getting annoyed by it, I read it as “wart” and pretend he’s a dermatologist specializing in verrucae. Or it’s “wort” and he’s a brewer who’s very concerned about his mash bill.
I often use IMO on this board, but that’s about it. All the other stuff doesn’t really bother me, mainly because I stop reading when I see too many of those acronyms, abbreviations, etc. YMMV.
I’m guilty of DH, but it’s just because I don’t want to use his actual first name for privacy (his), and I know that everyone knows what DH means. If I just typed H, I think it would be confused with other things. Something in my mind, though, the D stands for “dorky,” or “dumkopf.”
I don’t mind “thru” in texts, because I remember when you were limited to 42 characters, and people still want to keep them short so they don’t get split. Any place else, though, GRRRRRR. “Drive Thru” at a restaurant? want to correct with a Sharpie.
I was taught that you use the full term the first time, show what the abbreviation is, then use the abbreviation from there on. (No, we don’t all know what DH means. Never assume.)
The thing that drives me nuts isn’t a spelling, it’s when people put the dollar sign after the number. Twenty-five dollars is not written 25$. Stop doing that!!
“100’s” in place of “hundreds” and “1,000’s” in place of thousands. As in “George Washington lived 100’s of years ago and owned 1,000’s of acres of land.”
Do not like: I would like rice w/ soy sauce.
Like: I would like rice with soy sauce.
Do not like: I would like a hamburger w/o cheese.
Like: I would like a hamburger without cheese.
Not exactly what the OP is looking for, but for whole numbers between zero and ten that are used in a sentence, I much prefer the number to be written out, e.g.
Do not like: I have 3 cats.
Like: I have three cats.