# What ultimately insignificant things manage to bother you anyway? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 4, 2010, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430 "2010-11-04T06:19:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 9:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/101 "2010-11-15T09:33:23Z")
> [@Moonlitherial](#): > > I would like to add > > 1. Coworkers who use those ridiculous stationary backgrounds on their emails (dramatically increasing the size of each email) Wouldn’t it be even worse if the background moved? **OpalCat** , that would still be the same in the winter and in the summer. My gripe is not with being told to take visibility into account, it’s with linking it to the calendar and with talking about snow and rainfall as if they were daily occurrences in the whole country and as if the weather moved from “summer” to “winter” settings at a magical date. There’s parts in this country where snow in August is commonplace and others where it would spell the end of times. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [November 15, 2010, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/102 "2010-11-15T22:01:35Z")
> [@Engywook](#): > > Retailers who hand you your change with the coins stacked on top of the bills. If I’ve got something in my other hand (which, hello, is usually what I just bought), Grocery stores are the worst. Add to the bills and coins about three feet of receipts and coupons and a roll or two of quarters that I might also be getting, all dumped into my hand while the customer behind me is impatiently waiting to start their transaction. Speaking of the ticker tape lengths of receipt for just one or two small items, I’ve been known to tear off the three inches that actually record my transaction and give the rest back to the person, saying, “I don’t need all of this.” ---
**Author:** ![berff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@berff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/berff)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/103 "2010-11-16T04:24:54Z")
I don’t know why it bothers me so much, but I really can’t stand it when people don’t use question marks when they are asking a question. This seems to have become much more popular in the last year or two for some reason, and not only on the internet or email, but at my place of business too. For instance, I commonly see questions such as “What is the status of this.” or “Did you review the document I faxed this morning.” ---
**Author:** ![InterestedObserver](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/838e76/32.png) [@InterestedObserver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/InterestedObserver)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/104 "2010-11-16T05:21:53Z")
> [@Larry\_Mudd](#): > > In Vancouver, a lot of transit company properties (ALRT stations, etc) have posted signage which reads:[ul][li]No Loitering[_]No cycling[_]No skateboarding[\*]No Scootering[/ul]The wording on these signs has not changed for twenty years. Any time I see one of these signs, the _wrongness_ of it drips into my brain and drives out… whatever sensible thoughts I _ought_ to be having instead of speculating about who worded it that way, what happened to them, if there are any current and less brain-damaged employees of TransLink whose responsibilities might extend to improving such signage or not… etc..[/li] > Finally, I’ll have to force myself to think about something else… like whether or not the lawn needs mowering. > > What’s the least significant thing that bothers you? You ask in the title what “ultimately insignificant things” manage to bother us anyway. Hell, lots of little petty shit that drives me momentarily mad, but none of them all that much or for long. The only REAL answer I can come up with is “my own death”…ultimately insignificant to be sure, in the grand scheme of things, hell, MILLIONS of people do it every year, everyone to date has or WILL do it, and the world goes on, but somehow it manages to bother me no end. 😃 That and A-holes who honk their horns to summon whomever they are picking up, disturbing the entire complex, instead of using a damn CELL PHONE or getting their DEAD ASS out of the vehicle to go knock. :mad: 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/105 "2010-11-16T06:28:27Z")
I get annoyed when I see a sign that reads BACK IN 15 MINUTES (or some other amount of time). If I have just arrived I have no way of knowing if the person had just left and should, in fact, be expected to return in 15 minutes, or if the 15 minutes has since elapsed and the person should be due back soon. Since only a digital sign with an accurate countdown timer could update itself, it does no good to do this with a handwritten or other ordinary sign. It’s much more useful to write something like WILL RETURN AT 3:30. I can’t STAND people who habitually use the word “like”, as in, "I was like, ‘wow man, that was awesome!’ And then he was like, “Yeah, you should have been there…’” Fortunately, most of the people I regularly converse with know better than to do this. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 11:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/106 "2010-11-16T11:02:45Z")
No one seems to want to use the word _literally_ correctly. Pisses me off to no end. The word used to be useful, but now you can’t trust it. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 11:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/107 "2010-11-16T11:50:44Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > No one seems to want to use the word _literally_ correctly. Pisses me off to no end. The word used to be useful, but now you can’t trust it. Shouldn’t that be: “\*\*Literally \*\*no-one seems to want to use the word _literally_ correctly?” (d&r) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![bouv](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bc8723/32.png) [@bouv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bouv)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/108 "2010-11-16T14:26:42Z")
> [@Brynda](#): > > People who don’t understand that there are differences in the way Americans and Britons spell things. 🙂 Related: Americans who British English spellings of words like color, armor, favorite, etc… (colo **u** r, armo **u** r, favo **u** rite, etc…) You come off as a pretentious twat. I should know, because for a couple years in college I was one of those pretentious twats that did that. If you do a search enough years back, you’ll find some posts here where I use some British spellings…it happened, I’m not proud of it, but I admit my mistake. Exceptions can be made for the few Americans who might have had some formative years in an area that used British spellings, or were taught to write by someone British, but odds are that accounts for a trivially small percentage of the douches that do this. Most just want to seem more “sophisticated” and “worldly” or something. I know that’s what I was going for. ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 2:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/109 "2010-11-16T14:36:36Z")
So your username should be corrected to **bov**? ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/110 "2010-11-16T16:12:30Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > Exceptions can be made for the few Americans who might have had some formative years in an area that used British spellings, or were taught to write by someone British, but odds are that accounts for a trivially small percentage of the douches that do this. Most just want to seem more “sophisticated” and “worldly” or something. I know that’s what I was going for. Or, you know, someone who grew up 200 meters from Canada (that’s not pretension; that’s a sign of being an engineer), or sometimes lives and works in Ontario, or frequently corresponds with our major holdings in Ontario and the total of Europe, where British English is used in lieu (I mean, instead) of American English. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/111 "2010-11-16T18:18:15Z")
> [@Noone\_Special](#): > > Shouldn’t that be: “\*\*Literally \*\*no-one seems to want to use the word _literally_ correctly?” (d&r) 😃 [Obligatory xkcd link](http://xkcd.com/725/). Come on, it’s literally obligatory! ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/112 "2010-11-16T18:27:39Z")
At least you can laugh at the people who say things like, “I literally died of embarrassment.” Really? Died, eh? So this is, what, your zombie I’m speaking to? ---
**Author:** ![Paintcharge](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/paintcharge/32/7946_2.png) [@Paintcharge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paintcharge)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/113 "2010-11-16T18:39:18Z")
> [@iamnotbatman](#): > > No one seems to want to use the word _literally_ correctly. Pisses me off to no end. The word used to be useful, but now you can’t trust it. Actually people getting pissed off about this piss me off. The usage as an intensifier goes [a ways back.](http://www.slate.com/id/2129105/) Although, to be fair, I get pissed about people using “try and” as opposed to “try to” for much the same reason. It’s technically incorrect, but usage has changed. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/114 "2010-11-16T18:45:16Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > [Obligatory xkcd link](http://xkcd.com/725/). Come on, it’s literally obligatory! You mean it’s required, for literary reasons? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Rain\_Soaked](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e19adc/32.png) [@Rain\_Soaked](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rain_Soaked)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/115 "2010-11-16T18:54:23Z")
Many stores incorporate a clock into their signage on the side of the road. It may be a big analog clock or a digital clock. It may also show the temperature and advertising. I get mildly annoyed when the time displayed is wrong. On the flip side, I am mildly pleased when I pass a sign that has the correct time. Don’t ask me why I feel this way. ---
**Author:** ![iamnotbatman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/858c86/32.png) [@iamnotbatman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iamnotbatman)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2010, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/116 "2010-11-16T23:50:08Z")
> [@Paintcharge](#): > > Actually people getting pissed off about this piss me off. The usage as an intensifier goes [a ways back.](http://www.slate.com/id/2129105/) While I literally didn’t know that, it still literally pisses me off because it would literally be convenient to have a word that literally means literally. It would really literally be useful 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Balthisar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/balthisar/32/2825_2.png) [@Balthisar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balthisar)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/117 "2010-11-17T00:12:44Z")
When I drink too much even _I_ get pissed. ---
**Author:** ![Yllaria](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/yllaria/32/3452_2.png) [@Yllaria](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Yllaria)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/118 "2010-11-17T00:53:09Z")
> [@bouv](#): > > . . . Exceptions can be made for the few Americans who might have had some formative years in an area that used British spellings, or were taught to write by someone British, but odds are that accounts for a trivially small percentage of the douches that do this. Most just want to seem more “sophisticated” and “worldly” or something. I know that’s what I was going for. It also used to be the way that Americans spelled. My Mom remembers when they changed it at her elementary school. She says she was in the third grade and that it messed her spelling up. No clue whether her school was behind the times or not. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/119 "2010-11-17T00:55:20Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Badly laid-out notices, and bad typography in general. Good examples. My bugbear is bad _bilingual_ typography. Two real life examples that really got on my nerves: \*Welcome to the Bienvenue à la McLennan Library Bibliothèque McLennan\* WHY WOULD YOU EVEN DO THAT. And then in Madrid: _Puerta del Sol Puerta del Sol_ What was this about? Well, when I saw another sign that said: _Estación de Atocha Atocha Train Station_ it became clear: the second “Puerta del Sol” _was in English._ :smack: ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2010, 12:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430/120 "2010-11-17T00:56:45Z")
> [@Balthisar](#): > > Or, you know, someone who grew up 200 meters from Canada (that’s not pretension; that’s a sign of being an engineer), or sometimes lives and works in Ontario, or frequently corresponds with our major holdings in Ontario and the total of Europe, where British English is used in lieu (I mean, instead) of American English. Here’s another one: Microsoft products that think that Canadian spelling is the same as British spelling. We actually are large enough to have our own orthography, with _-our_ à la britannique and _-ize_ à l’américaine. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-ultimately-insignificant-things-manage-to-bother-you-anyway/559430.md?page=7)