Tiny errors that drive you insane

I was watching “The Good Wife” recently, and they had an episode where Alicia was meeting with high-ranking military and government officials. I am generally willing to suspend my disbelief with most things military in most movies, after all, I recognize that it’s a pretty steep learning curve to expect everyone to get everything right.

Except for one thing.

And every single time I see it, it drives me insane. It’s such a small, nothing detail, and would be SO EASY for them (Hollywood) to get it right, but they really never do.

Why does every military beret look like someone threw a wool pizza on their head? Seriously. It’s ridiculous. Form the damn beret! It’s such a simple thing.

Anyone else have a miniscule irritation centered around their industry or hobby, that would not be hard to get right, but for some reason, no one ever does?

The “double tube” look when someone looks through binoculars drives me insane…though it is so ingrained now in movies the average Joe probably freaks out when someone once in a great while shows it the right way.

Cue sound of eagle that sounds more like a screeching red tailed hawk now…

Heh. Ivygirl was just saying after graduation that she’d have to wet her beret again. She said they hold their shape for about three days.

Funny - I was just in Costa Rica, and a guides phone rang with a long descending screech. I asked if that was a red tailed hawk, and he responded, “No - imperial eagle.”

But yeah, I’ve been trying to learn a bit of birdsong, and it is striking how often they’ll have something blatantly incorrect as background noise.

Re: the beret - are you talking about that (IMO) stupid looking flop over the brow look? Since all of the army started to ape Special Forces/Airborne/Rangers, I find that more irritating than any misrepresentation on screen! ;D

It takes a lot of work to form a beret and I assume the ones on TV are pretty much straight out of the box. You have to pull out the liner, wet it, shave it, squish it, wet it again, shave it some more, wet it, squish it into the right shape (put something really heavy on top of it), repeat a few more times until it looks sharp. I think mine took a week to form. I would assume a costume department isn’t going to put much effort into forming berets but you’re right Poysyn, floppy chef’s hat berets look awful.

In keeping with the military theme of the OP, whenever a Marine salutes without a cover on his grape.

Whenever a grunt acknowledges a direct order with nothing more than a nod of his head. Of course, it would blow the entire budget if he said “Yes, sir!” or *“Yes, Sergeant!” * :smack:

Reminds me of the time I faxed something. It was to a MASTER Sergeant…and I accidentally just put Sergeant on the header. People on the other end apparently howled with laughter. He was mad AS HELL. But I was a random civilian so what could they do?

On the one hand I kinda felt bad. But on the other hand he WAS kinda a dick so I didn’t feel THAT bad about it.

You realize, of course, that by referring to him as just “Sergeant” you knocked him several rungs down the ladder?* :eek:

*An E-5 as opposed to an E-8!

Yes, but I was just an engineering peon myself…I actually caught a good bit of hell for that…but given that I was about as low my totem pole as I could be (and getting screwed to be honest about it)…and that it wasn’t on purpose…it just kinda went over me like water on a ducks back…which I think probably just pissed some people off even more.

Washington, DC is the capitAl of the USA. That big white building downtown with the dome is the CapitOl.

I once saw a guy lose on Jeopardy! by making this mistake (“Capitol” was the correct response.) :smack:

I like my mushrooms cut in slices. If I get my mushrooms quartered, I totally am not into it.

Electrical: calling a receptacle a “wall socket”. I know it’s just trade ignorance, but it bugs me.

For a real nitpick: you don’t pour concrete, you place it. Even when it’s being pumped to the top of a building and comes sliding down a chute, it’s being ‘placed’. I suspect there are few outside of the construction game who know that.

Cooking: “saute” does not mean to gently cook vegetables on low temperature. That’s called “sweating”. Saute means to fry something quickly in fat.

Well, to be fair, it’s not just movies or TV that does this, a quick Google search shows many instances of this, from Handyman magazine to Home Depot, to concretenetwork.com (in this case, the title is Pouring Concrete - How Concrete is Placed, but it still uses pouring in the article itself). It may be one of those common usage things that changes the definition of a word, like tragedy.

You can do it in less than a week, if you wear it until it dries, but our berets may be from different suppliers? I am not saying it has to be perfect (I don’t expect that), but just flopped on with the little tails in back ARGH!

*I did mention it was a tiny error *

A buddy of mine was running a motor pool in Vietnam during the war. He was a CW2, Army.

As he tells it, one day he gets a call: “This is Captain such-and-so. Please send a car to pick me up.”

That was a pretty ballsy request from a junior officer, so it got placed at the bottom f a long list.

Several hours later: “This is Captain S-a-so – where the hell is my car?”

At that point my friend says something like, “Maybe you should just get your own transport, sir.” And hangs up.

An hour later, in storms Navy Captain Such-and-So. (The Naval rank of Captain is a senior officer, O-6, as opposed to,the comparatively lowly Army O-3).

This wasn’t a film error, but the SGT / MSG confusion reminded me of the story. My friend dodged the wrath of the guy by sending someone else out to meet him, I think.

Whenever I read someone is an alum, I wonder how he could be an aluminum potassium sulfate. Might he be used in pickles?

Finishing the word with -nus (or -na for a female) really wouldn’t be that hard.

In speaking all sergeants are referred to as sergeant unless they are a first sergeant or sergeant major. In writing they would be addressed by rank; SGT SSG SFC MSG 1SG SGM CSM

I thought that’s what they more or less were.

The idea that a beret is useful or practical in any sense whatsoever is utterly laughable.