# Little things that irritate in a big way - Cafe edition **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [January 12, 2011, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318 "2011-01-12T06:28:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![norinew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/eb9ed0/32.png) [@norinew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/norinew)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/61 "2011-01-15T11:25:51Z")
> [@Blackberry](#): > > My daughter is almost 11, and I feel your pain. However, you didn’t mention the absolute worst of those shows: That’s So Raven. I don’t think they show the old episodes anymore, and thankfully my daughter doesn’t like it anymore anyway, but for a while she loved that show. > > They used to even have some commercial on the Disney Channel that featured a montage of nothing but screaming clips from shows. I’m not exaggerating, that’s exactly what it was. My daughter knew she better mute the TV REAL quick when that came on. Fortunately, my daughter never really got into any of the Disney series shows much. Which is good, because if she insisted on watching Hannah Montana, I’d have to puncture my own eardrums with a screwdriver or something. . . She seems more drawn to the Nick and Teen Nick shows. ---
**Author:** ![Lust4Life](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/ecc23a/32.png) [@Lust4Life](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lust4Life)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/62 "2011-01-15T11:57:19Z")
Sky T.V. news has incredibly loud music at the start so that the news reader has to raise his voice so that the audience has some chance of hearing him announce the headlines. On documentaries there seems to be a fashion for the director/camera man to play around with the shots, extreme closeups of someone so that you only can see their earlobe, shots zooming in and out at speed for no reason. Sudden jerky/stop go shots of something or someone in motion. The film suddenly turning to black and white or green for a short period, again for no reason. Silly wooshing noises or fart sounds when the camera changes its shot. I could go on but I’m liable to kick my T.V. screen in. ---
**Author:** ![Blackberry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ecd19e/32.png) [@Blackberry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackberry)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/63 "2011-01-15T12:26:22Z")
> [@norinew](#): > > Fortunately, my daughter never really got into any of the Disney series shows much. Which is good, because if she insisted on watching Hannah Montana, I’d have to puncture my own eardrums with a screwdriver or something. . . > She seems more drawn to the Nick and Teen Nick shows. My daughter loved Hannah Montana too! You don’t know how lucky you are. It’s always weird to me when people complain about the toddler shows. I always found most of those shows cute, and even the annoying ones couldn’t dream of being half as annoying as the tween shows. Okay, the Barney episodes from the early-mid '90s were enough to make you want to punch someone, but those were before my daughter’s time. My little sister used to watch them nonstop though, and when my daughter was a toddler my mom tried to give me the videos. I politely declined (something about how I’d rather die). ---
**Author:** ![Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bites_when_provoked/32/18073_2.png) [@Bites\_When\_Provoked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bites_When_Provoked)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/64 "2011-01-15T12:42:44Z")
TV ads that consist entirely of a man or woman staring at the camera, making facial expressions but not saying anything, while a voiceover does the talking for them. Seriously, what the hell is that about? Previously, the ads that annoyed me most were the ones that were obviously American ads brought over to Australia and then re-dubbed (badly) with Australian accents, but the ‘weird humans who emote while someone else speaks’ ads are definitely worse. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/65 "2011-01-15T12:55:00Z")
> [@Chefguy](#): > > Happy to see that I’m not alone in this pet peeve. I shout “FEWER!!!” at newscasters, characters in series, commercials, you name it. It’s childish and pointless, really. One day I’ll blurt it out in a movie theater and be pelted by half-eaten Ju-Jubees. Will it be a whole box, or will it be not quite a whole box of Ju-Jubees? ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/66 "2011-01-15T12:55:11Z")
> [@Saltire](#): > > Spec-Fic writers that don’t bother with the simplest sanity checks. > > _No Ordinary Family_ has already established itself as a mediocre super-show, such that even Dopers don’t think it’s worth discussing, so I’m glad you gave me a spot to post this. > > On the show, Julie Benz’ character can move really fast. When she revealed her power to her lab assistant, they tried to gather some data and determined she ran a mile every 6 seconds or so, which comes out to 600 miles an hour. > > In this week’s episode, the lab assistant was going to be transferred to Miami. The show is set in a fictional town called ‘Pacific Bay’, which is clearly in California. And she says, “But I did the math, and at your speed, that’s only 7 and half minutes away, so we can still have lunch together every day.” > > Well, I actually did the math, and to travel that distance in that time would require travel at more than 18,000 miles an hour, if she was willing and able to cross into Mexico and run right across the Gulf. If she wanted to stay on land and in the U.S., she’d have to go a bit faster yet. She’d be approaching escape velocity (about 25,000 miles/hour). > > I know I’m a nerd, but anyone who is not completely innumerate or totally hopeless on U.S. geography must have seen immediately that their numbers were wrong. Why didn’t anyone at the show? Here’s the arithmetic as I see it. Starting with the number of miles from LA to Miami (since I don’t know where Pacific Bay is) [2735](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_miles_is_it_from_Miami_Florida_to_Los_Angeles_California). Dividing by 6 to get the number of seconds it would take to travel 2735 miles(1 mile per second) we get 455.8333333333333. Dividing by 60 to get the number of minutes (60 seconds in a minute) we get 7.597222222222222. ---
**Author:** ![adhemar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@adhemar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adhemar)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/67 "2011-01-15T18:28:23Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > Here’s the arithmetic as I see it. > Starting with the number of miles from LA to Miami (since I don’t know where Pacific Bay is) [2735](http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_miles_is_it_from_Miami_Florida_to_Los_Angeles_California). Dividing by 6 to get the number of seconds it would take to travel 2735 miles(1 mile per second) we get 455.8333333333333. Dividing by 60 to get the number of minutes (60 seconds in a minute) we get 7.597222222222222. I think you missed something somewhere in your calculations, if it is 2735 miles and she moves 600 mph it would take 4.5 **hours** to travel that distance/ you should have multiplied the miles by 6 not divided. ---
**Author:** ![metonymic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@metonymic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/metonymic)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/68 "2011-01-15T18:35:27Z")
Great idea for a thread! Empty cups/mugs that we are supposed to believe are filled with a beverage. It’s so glaringly obvious, and annoys me greatly. I just hate being pulled out of the show/movie for something so easily avoided – just put some water in the damn cup!!! I’ve been watching Castle lately and Beckett’s vigorous gestures with her morning coffee (just received from Castle, of course) are agonizing. The only thing keeping me sane is that sometimes it’s so bad it’s almost hilarious. sigh… ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/69 "2011-01-15T19:01:17Z")
I can’t stand actualers- people who use actually or actual in nearly every sentence. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/70 "2011-01-15T19:34:20Z")
> [@adhemar](#): > > I think you missed something somewhere in your calculations, if it is 2735 miles and she moves 600 mph it would take 4.5 **hours** to travel that distance/ you should have multiplied the miles by 6 not divided. You are mistaken. Take an easy calculation. 12 miles. How many seconds does it take her to travel 12 miles? First we’ll go second-by-second and do addition. 6 miles in 1 second. Another 6 in another second. 6+6 = 12 and 1 + 1 = 2. 2 Seconds. It takes her two seconds to travel 12 miles. Now we’ll do it with division. The calculation is: 12 miles divided by 6. 2 seconds. The correct calculation: 2735 divided by 6. To put it another way: If you go 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, does it take you 60/60 = 1 hour, or does it take you 60\*60 = 3600 hours? ---
**Author:** ![Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/son_of_a_rich/32/5439_2.png) [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 8:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/71 "2011-01-15T20:18:33Z")
When I was a kid, my sister would file her nails with an emery board, and it used to really set my teeth on edge. One day I got the notion I’d try some aversion therapy by raking one across my teeth. So I did. To my surprise it felt just like a potato chip. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/72 "2011-01-15T22:16:43Z")
> [@Khadaji](#): > > You are mistaken. Take an easy calculation. 12 miles. How many seconds does it take her to travel 12 miles? First we’ll go second-by-second and do addition. > > 6 miles in 1 second. > Another 6 in another second. > 6+6 = 12 > and > 1 + 1 = 2. 2 Seconds. It takes her two seconds to travel 12 miles. > > Now we’ll do it with division. > > The calculation is: 12 miles divided by 6. 2 seconds. > > The correct calculation: 2735 divided by 6. > > To put it another way: If you go 60 miles at 60 miles per hour, does it take you 60/60 = 1 hour, or does it take you 60\*60 = 3600 hours? At least now we know exactly how and why the writers came up with 7.5 minutes. Think about it for a second: 600 miles an hour, travelling \>600 miles, means you’re travelling for more than an hour. Where you went wrong mathematically is that you’re calculating for 6 miles per second (21,600mph) instead of 6 seconds per mile (600mph). Big difference. (From 4.5 hours to 7.5 minutes, in fact.) Then again, at this point I’m thinking **Saltire** may have mistakenly thought they said 6 seconds per mile when they actually said 6 miles per second. If so, are there sonic booms as she hits mach 3? ---
**Author:** ![Rrose\_Selavy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bcef8e/32.png) [@Rrose\_Selavy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rrose_Selavy)\ **Post date:** [January 15, 2011, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/73 "2011-01-15T23:56:57Z")
> [@Stoid](#): > > Sadly this is true. I majored in broadcasting when I attended college a million years ago and this is what they teach you to do, or did. I argued with my teachers about it all the time. Is there any truth in the idea I heard that the talking over on the radio was also to discourage recording of complete tracks by listeners ? - ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_A.Robrin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sam_a.robrin/32/14497_2.png) [@Sam\_A.Robrin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_A.Robrin)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/74 "2011-01-16T00:20:58Z")
For me, it’s the closed coinages slipped–make that _stabbed_–into prose by copy-editors (and it _is_ copy-editors who do this, not authors; I think it’s taught in college as a way to make it look as though you use bigger words than you do) who have a deathly fear of hyphens or something. I can’t count the number of times I’ve tripped over such abominations as (and these are all real examples collected during my proofreading career) semireal, miniriot, quasiscene, pronative, preufology, coastronaut … When I figure out that a book (one I’m not being paid to work on) has been edited that way, I just stop reading. (Interestingly, the copy-editor who was worst about that also made a punctilious change that had someone “out the door in _fewer_ than two seconds.” The author had correctly made it “less,” as it’s an amount of time, and not a quantity of seconds.) ---
**Author:** ![Daylate](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9dc877/32.png) [@Daylate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Daylate)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 12:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/75 "2011-01-16T00:40:21Z")
When Pringles potato chips came out with a reduced calorie version, they blared out in large print on the container that they now had “50% LESS CALORIES!” Arg!! I would yell at the container each time I got it out of the pantry. Then, about a year ago, they actually by golly changed it to FEWER!!! Life is good again. I’ve always heard the rule that if you can count it, use _fewer_, if you have to measure it, use _less_. I have also heard that there are exceptions to this rule, but can’t think of any. ---
**Author:** ![Khadaji](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/9e8a1a/32.png) [@Khadaji](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Khadaji)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/76 "2011-01-16T01:22:25Z")
> [@EllisDee](#): > > At least now we know exactly how and why the writers came up with 7.5 minutes. Think about it for a second: 600 miles an hour, travelling \>600 miles, means you’re travelling for more than an hour. > > Where you went wrong mathematically is that you’re calculating for 6 miles per second (21,600mph) instead of 6 seconds per mile (600mph). Big difference. (From 4.5 hours to 7.5 minutes, in fact.) > > Then again, at this point I’m thinking **Saltire** may have mistakenly thought they said 6 seconds per mile when they actually said 6 miles per second. If so, are there sonic booms as she hits mach 3? I didn’t really go wrong, did I? I calculated 6 miles per second because that was what was mentioned in the post. But as you point out, **Saltire** \*then immediately \*said 600 miles per hour. One or the other is wrong. > [@Saltire](#): > > then she revealed her power to her lab assistant, they tried to gather some data and determined she ran a mile every 6 seconds or so, which comes out to 600 miles an hour. My calculations are correct for 1 mile per second. \*\*Saltire’s \*\*statement that this comes out to 600 miles per hour is wrong. 6 miles per second comes to 21,600 miles per hour. Now, since I don’t watch the show (well, to be fair, I no longer watch the show), I can’t say which was stated. But based on what was said in the quote, I’m going to say that **Saltire** miscalculated. Did the writers mess up, or was the report of 600 miles per hour wrong? I don’t know, but the calculations I made for 6 miles per second is a correct one. ---
**Author:** ![Bill\_Door](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@Bill\_Door](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bill_Door)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/77 "2011-01-16T01:43:29Z")
> [@Daylate](#): > > When Pringles potato chips came out with a reduced calorie version, they blared out in large print on the container that they now had “50% LESS CALORIES!” Arg!! I would yell at the container each time I got it out of the pantry. Then, about a year ago, they actually by golly changed it to FEWER!!! Life is good again. > > I’ve always heard the rule that if you can count it, use _fewer_, if you have to measure it, use _less_. I have also heard that there are exceptions to this rule, but can’t think of any. It’s identical to the boogers/snot breakdown. If you can count them, they’re boogers, if you have to weigh it or measure by volume, it’s snot. ---
**Author:** ![ianzin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/ed655f/32.png) [@ianzin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ianzin)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/78 "2011-01-16T01:49:51Z")
> [@ThelmaLou](#): > > At the beginning of a sentence, I mentally grab the subject out of the air and hold onto it until the verb comes along. Then I either hear the crystalline ping of agreement or the THUNK of non-agreement. / I feel better. I feel better too! Thank you for this decription of your inner mental processes. I’m the same, but with just about every aspect of how English is written and spoken. I find myself mentally ‘vetting’ almost all the English I see or hear. This is entirely involuntary. Whenever I notice errors (of syntax, meaning or usage) it’s as if a little ‘Error alert!’ sign lights up inside my mind. I am aware of the fact that, given the nature of this post, people will soon come along to point out that it is littered with errors I failed to notice. ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/79 "2011-01-16T01:55:28Z")
Well that does it. I’m going to Tombstone Arizona and correcting Lester More’s grave marker. ---
**Author:** ![ThelmaLou](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thelmalou/32/390_2.png) [@ThelmaLou](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThelmaLou)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2011, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318/80 "2011-01-16T03:09:11Z")
> [@ianzin](#): > > I feel better too! > > Thank you for this decription of your inner mental processes. I’m the same, but with just about every aspect of how English is written and spoken. I find myself mentally ‘vetting’ almost all the English I see or hear. This is entirely involuntary. Whenever I notice errors (of syntax, meaning or usage) it’s as if a little ‘Error alert!’ sign lights up inside my mind. > > I am aware of the fact that, given the nature of this post, people will soon come along to point out that it is littered with errors I failed to notice. I also do this with all aspects of grammar. Don’t even get me started with pronouns and their antecedents or modifying clauses that aren’t anywhere near the thing they’re supposed to modify. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/little-things-that-irritate-in-a-big-way-cafe-edition/567318.md?page=5)