You don’t use salt on horse meat. You use horseradish. Mm’kay?
Seemed to come across perfectly well, even with no smilies, MOTHERFUCKER!
You better be careful! EddyTeddyFreddy will have your ass!
Mm’kay?
(Yeah, I gotcha smilies…right heah!)
Um, add me to the list of those who use um and er interchangably - to denote a small hesitation, one of those “I’m not really sure about this” sounds. If I wanted to be condescending, I certainly wouldn’t trust those two small anonymous letters to bring across that message.
I realise that it can be hard to grasp when you sit safely at home in front of your computer, but this Internet-thing is a pretty big place. The people who write here aren’t just you and your neighbours, there are people from different parts of the world. Some of them might speak different dialects than you do. Some even speak other languages as their mother toungues! So while “um” might have a crystal clear meaning in your back yard, you might want to consider the possibility that other people (feel free to substitute “ignorant furriners” for “other people” if it makes you feel better) just might have different interpretations of that word.
One of the paragraphs above is meant to be condescending, the other one’s not. Determining which one is which is left as an excercise to the reader.
Thanks for the offer, but I’ve already got one.
And a mighty cute (although hairy) one it is, too. 
Slight hijack, but with the smilies, not only does overuse bug me, it also really chaps my ass when people use smilies in the middle of a rant or put-down as though they’re trying to tone it down or give themselves an out in case people pile on them for going off on a particular poster for something completely inconsequential or nonsensical. That way they can say, “Well I was just joking. Duh. What do you think I used a smilie for?” or “Jeez, can’t you take a joke?”
Don’t have an example, but I’ve seen a couple of people really hammer someone with insults over a perceived slight, then add a couple of smilies and an “in my opinion, anyway” as though that exempts them from being inaccurate or getting piled on for insulting someone out of left field.
The “um, no” thing makes me nuts, too.
Yarr, that steering wheel in me pants drives me nuts.
As for ETF having my ass… no wonder my fields ain’t plowed. GIVE IT BACK!
I am so stealing this…
Um, I think you meant “no, **you’re ** wrong.”
Just sayin’.
:smack: D’oh
um, sorry?
If I promise to only use it on idiots, can I still do it, please?
See? Now THAT’S condescending! Real condescension is only subtle if the receiver is a hopeless dullard. Seeing condescension in er, uh, or um when there is no like tone in the rest of the sentence indicates the person is overly sensitive to nuances that do not, in actuality, exist. Perhaps she skipped a dose today. ← real condescension
You don’t like “Um”? I think “Listen” is much, much worse than “Um”.
‘Nope’ and ‘Yep’ feature strongly in putdowns.
Listen, um, nope. I’m fairly sure it was South Fork. Yep, definitely South Fork.
Like I care. It was merely an analogy, but the irony seems to be a tad too subtle for some people around here.
Um, no, I meant “your wrong” as in the wrong that belongs to you. Kind of like "my bad"except it’s not a “bad” it’s a “wrong” and it’s not mine it’s yours, m’kay?
Yeah, ok, I meant you’re.
[QUOTE=1920s Style “Death Ray”]
Um, no, I meant “your wrong” as in the wrong that belongs to you. Kind of like "my bad"except it’s not a “bad” it’s a “wrong” and it’s not mine it’s yours, m’kay?. . .
[QUOTE]
Um, er, uh. . . “thank you?”
Um … nice whoosh there TeaElle.
Anyhoo …
Thank you, Shrinking Violet. You know, in my 3+ years on this board, that’s my first intentional whooshing. It felt awfully good.