Two of my pet peeves:
Using the letter O for the number 0. The area code is three three zero not three three oh.
Not signaling lane changes or turns. There should be a toll-free number to call to report idiots that do not use turn signals.
Peace on Earth = Purity Of Essence
STARK:
Your CCC memorial beats my shopping mall. But did I mention I also saw “it’s” incorrectly on the cover of a software CD-ROM meant to teach spelling and grammer for children?
Oh, the humanity!
Catrandom
I actually mis-quote the mnemonic. It should be
Its spelling is “it’s” when it’s it is, and “its” when it’s not.
Thus demonstrating both correct uses in one sentence. Can also be used as a tongue-twister!
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Henri B. Stendhal
Oh yeah, one more:
A few language related ones:
‘Affect’ and ‘effect’. ‘Affect’ is a verb and ‘effect’ is a noun, dammit! Use 'em that way!
Similarly, ‘insure’ and ‘ensure’.
But my biggest language peeve are people who use ‘flavor’ in the software context, as in, “We sell three different flavors of Windows.” They’re VERSIONS, not flavors, ya pinhead! Who tastes their software?
Picking a nit…
“Effect” can be used as a verb form when meaning “to bring about.” (“To effect a cure…”).
Otherwise, your point is well taken (misuse of these two words bugs me also).
Right. I informed one supposedly bright ex-co-worker that his statement that his statement that “this project will effect the entire planet” wasn’t quite what he meant. This would have gone over just fine if someone else (with more guts) hadn’t spoken up and said that it just proves what we’d suspected all along: that he had himself confused with God.
BTW, “affect” can be a noun, as well; it’s a specialized term in psychology, although I don’t understand its connotations well enough to define it.
Phone calls where the other person misdialed but hangs up instead of saying anything. Or, the ones who get snippy as if it’s your fault they misdialed or have the wrong number. Question: do you answer when they call back immediately - making the same mistake twice or do you just let it ring?
People who pay for their gas with 300 different coins and ESPECIALLY the sales clerk that tries to recount them and keeps losing count.
Places that don’t have a penny dish and insist on giving you exact change (ie. cost is $10.01 and you give them a $20) instead of just saying, “close enough” and giving you a ten.
Stoplights.
I can’t stand people reading over my shoulder either! It drives me batty.
What I really hate are those people who stand right in front of the magazine stands reading the entire damn magazine completely blocking them from the view of people who are actually going to buy them. There’s a wonderful place where they welcome you to read for free, it’s called a library.
I also get really peeved at people who call me on the phone then spend the whole time talking to other people, watching tv, ect. If I’d called them and interrupted their dinner, I could maybe understand this, maybe, but when people call me up and do this…this is why I screen my phone calls.
“Flavor” is a valid descriptor of software, if you are talking about the UNIX operating system. It does not mean the same thing as “version”.
For example, I own two computers. One of them is a PC with Red Hat Linux. The other is a DECstation, which runs Ultrix. These operating systems are basically the same-- they’re both UNIX-- but they’re incompatible in some significant ways. They’re considered different ‘flavors’ of UNIX.
‘Version’ denotes the age or generation of a program, and is denoted by numbers. The version of Red Hat Linux on the market right now is 6.0. A new version will be out soon, with the number 6.1. It’s still basically the same software, but with some changes, additions, and (hopefully) bug fixes.
The different iterations of Windows are versions, not flavors. Despite fact that MS changed its numbering system (calling their 1996 release “Windows 95” instead of “Windows 4.0”), and added a lot of crap to the interface, the underlying software that runs everything hasn’t changed much.
Oh, and on the OP: I get miffed when people complain about technical subjects, without understanding what they’re complaining about. (Not that that happened here, BTW. I’m just bitching.)
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
Not to nitpick, but…well, actually, screw it, this is to nitpick.
Show me in the OED where “flavor” may be properly used to describe anything not directly being tasted.
people that can not pick up after themselves. like clothes on the floor. bathrooms not picked up. I hate having glasses and plates and crap like that sitting around expecially over night. Glasses and plates dirty in the sink OMG I cant STAND that. Im not a damn maid. if I was I would atleast make money for it! you really wanna get on my bad side do that stuff, youll be there VERY soon.
Love Always,
Heather Lee
XheatherleeX@aol.com
MaxTorque, go to www.m-w.com and do a dictionary lookup on ‘flavor’. Pay particular attention to definition 4a: VARIETY.
Divemaster: oooh I hate chummy waiters! Ed and I were at an Outback once (once!) in a booth. HiI’mBobYourWaiter proceeds to sit down next to me and throw his arm over my shoulder! I shoved him to the floor and told the manager to get us another waiter. We’d been waiting a long time and weren’t going to leave and wait somewhere else.
“On the edge of sleep, I awoke to a sun so bright…”
My two biggies are work related.
A bunch of the guys I work with feel the need to clip their fingernails at their desk. I can’t see them doing this, but I hear every single CLIP and it drives me insane.
The other one - when someone calls my line and asks for someone else. When I offer to put them into that person’s voice mail (because they’re not at their desk) and they say, oh no, but will you please have them call me regarding whatever at such-and-such number. WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK VOICE MAIL IS FOR??
AuraSeer:
You got it. Merriam Webster definition of “flavor”, 4A, gives the alternate word choice of “variety”. I never said I disliked the use of the word “variety” in referring to software, I dislike “flavor”. They’re distinct words, and “flavor” is NOT an appropriate substitute for all uses of the word “variety”.
Reading on, definition 4B goes on to explain the proper use of “flavor” meaning “variety”: a property that distinguishes different types of elementary particles (as quarks and neutrinos). Last time I checked, software wasn’t a subatomic particle.
Further, recall, please, that the discussion is over what annoys you. Could be black socks annoy you; that doesn’t mean wearing black socks is wrong.
sigh…
…at night, the ice weasels come…
My all time biggest is ppl who drive 10 mph slower than the speed limit in the left lane… and when you finally lose patience and pass them they give you this innocent look like you’re the idiot for passing them. Then they speed up making it impossible to pass…
Ohh and GeneralRipper… I used to signal til I found out that it really means to the other car…speed up so she can’t get in the lane. Can you tell I commute 120 miles on urban Cali highways daily?
“Only when he no longer knows what he is doing, does the painter do good
things.” --Edgar Degas
YAY!! I have fellow soldiers in my personal jihad against unnecessary apostrophes!!
Arnold & STARK, you will receive your rusty grapefruit spoons in the mail soon…I really do believe that anyone who misuses apostrophes should have their eyeballs removed with, as I mentioned an another board, rusty grapefruit spoons. This is probably my biggest pet peeve.
“All you need to be a superhero is a heart that is pure, a mind that
is strong, and underwear that is fresh!”
~Dav Pilkey
You KNOW I hate the non-signalers. There’s nothing worse than waiting to pull out onto a busy street and waiting on one car coming from the left who turns at your intersection without a signal. Arrgh! I could’ve been out there and driving, not waiting for you!
“Irregardless” – not a word!
Chummy waiters – just bring me my food and go away, dammit!
Another waiter gripe, when you ask for something simple and specific and they have to make it all complicated and wrong and infuriating. Examples:
“I’d like a piece of foil, please, for my one last kabob that is too small to bother with boxing up.” Waitperson returns with giant table-size styrofo—er, um, polystyrene foam box and usually a bag to put the box into, as if I wouldn’t want to be seen walking from the restaurant with a take-out box, but putting it in a bag is a whole different deal. (Oh and I HATE when they insist on boxing it for you, I don’t have any reason for that, I just do. I actually yanked the box out of the hands of some poor well-meaning fellow, but felt really crappy about it after.)
“Soda with lemon, please.” Received: glass of soda, small platter of lemon slices, assorted extra silverware to handle lemon slices, massive stack of napkins for all the mess I’m supposedly going to make with the lemons. Man! Just toss a slice in the glass like you would for tea!
Oh, there’s more (you better believe it!) but now this has made me hungry, so time for lunch!
How about people who spit their big juicy wad o’ Bubble Yum on the ground any ol’ where so that you can spend weeks trying to pry the last little bit your shoes? These people should be rounded up and shot.
Oh, and the ones who flick their still-smoldering cigarette butt out their windows so it can land on your car, or fly in your window? My boyfriend does this, and won’t use the ashtray in the car because it “smells bad.” You can imagine the “discussions” we have about this.
I hate seeing the roadside littered with butts…hey, guys, it’s YOUR bad habit, YOU keep the damn butts!
My personally relevant favorite for today is the poor benighted individual who is invariably in front of you at the ATM…pressing buttons, eliciting angry beeps from the machine, reinserting the card fifteen times after the machine (intelligently) decides this person would be a danger with ready cash.