People who do that must go around wearing aluminium foil hats.
Oh, I remembered - I guess my coughs sound like sneezes, because people are always blessing me for them, and it’s weird and awkward because I’m all, “It was a cough!” and they’re like “oh, sorry” but I kind of feel like I ought to explain why I’m not, you know, tissuing up and all. I don’t know, it’s the stupidest thing but it bugs me. It doesn’t even sound like a sneeze!
The bartender who takes my $20 bill and goofs around for 20 minutes, chatting with customers, taking a smoke break, texting, looking up the recipe for a Cosmo… with my $20 on her person. Get me my change, gadammit!
Bars that charge $x.25 for a beer. I like to leave $1 per drink, regardless of the price of the drink, but that gets hard to do while I’m accreting quarters. I’m sure the bartenders hate that, too.
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), I have to fumble the whole mess into my pocket and deal with it later.
Metrocard machines that are unable to accept credit cards or coins… and require exact change (a single ride is $2.25, and I don’t take the subway often enough to feel justified in an unlimited fare card or a higher-value card which will stop working when it’s still got money on it).
The expression “at this time.” It is a waste of air. No sentence loses its meaning if “at this time” is removed from it. “At this time” also appears to be mandated by the MTA employee handbook as the buzz phrase to use when they are about to “thank us for our patience” with a delay. Patience which I’m running out of because my pockets are jingling with all the quarters I got stuck with at the bar, which I had to wait 20 minutes for, and couldn’t use to buy a single-ride MetroCard, and because of all those beers I gotta take a wicked piss to boot.
Oh, and people who only post pictures of their kids on Facebook. I seem to recall that The Onion did a headline on this about a year ago, to the tune of “Area Man Friends High School Classmate to Find Out If He Got Fat Or Bald, Finds That All Of Classmates Photos Are Of Kids And Dog.”
[quote=“FordTaurusSHO94, post:49, topic:559430”]
I hate the phrases “Girls night out,” “Guys night out,” QUOTE]
Yes, yes! Me, too. I even had someone refer to it as “GNO” in an email. I had no idea what she was talking about. Once I figured it out, I knew I did not want to participate.
Large groups of loud drunk women
I’d pay to attend.
I have suddenly become aware of the number of people who end sentences with prepositions.
“Where did I park at?”
Hopefully near the school so you can learn how to speak.
Grammar in general bugs me now, probably because of how bad it has become. I’ll admit I’m no expert, but some things should be easy to not screw up. I was helping my cousin who is taking an on-line college course. Looking at what other students had posted for their 100 word answer one student used “there” instead of “they’re” then ended the next sentence with a comma, and finally wrote, “I think thats cause [sic]” You click the freaking “Check Spelling” button right next to the one that says “Post!” It’s a good thing I’m not **their **teacher.
Lots of grammar stuff gnaws at me, but I can live with prepositions, as long as they’re not really and truly (in my mind) prepositions. “I parked at the lot” <- preposition. “Where did I park?” <- not needed. “Where did I park at?” <- different verb, “to park at,” not “to park.” Maybe not the best example of a phrasal verb, but an example nonetheless.
I prefer “'cos” because it reflects spoken speech, and because written speech supports contractions, and 'cos it shows that I’m smart enough not to write “cause.”
When people make references to celebrities that I have never heard of. They don’t preface the reference with any kind of introduction like, “John Smith, the guy who hosts Some Cable Show I’ve Never Heard Of…” No, it’s always: “John Smith did so-and-so the other day, and it was hilarious!” If they aren’t an A-list celebrity like Brad Pitt or Denzel Washington, chances are I will not know who you are talking about. So please don’t talk to me about a Z-list celebrity like we’re all best friends.
Also, it bugs me when people take for granted that I know stuff from their job. I have trouble enough keeping up with acronyms from my own job. Please don’t inundate me with acronyms and abbreviations and then act surprised when I ask you to explain what those things are. I don’t care that you’ve already told me what it is in the past. I apparently forgot and need you to drop the code words.
This isn’t really insignificant, as it has the potential of creating problems, but I hate when I transpose numbers.
When having a conversation with someone, they constantly drop names of people whom you don’ t have a clue about but it’s important to the point of the story so you have to stop them every 5 seconds. My neighbor does this:
Neighbor: “So I had to drop Alyssa off at Nick’s house, and Tammy called me when I was on my way back and told me about the new house.”
Me: “Who’s Tammy?”
Neighbor: “I was at church yesterday and JOANIE cornered me and started asking about Jennifer’s divorce.”
Me:“Who’s Joanie and Jennifer?”
My neighbor and I are very good friends, but she talks in a stream-of-consciousness way where she assumes everyone knows what’s going on in her brain and knows everyone she knows.
Also, I hate this exchange on Facebook:
Random Status Update: “WILLIE SMITH and my kids had a fun day in downtown D.C. today together enjoying a great family day together.”
Annoying random comment: “What! You were in downtown DC and you didn’t CALL ME?”
Because anytime anyone goes ANYwhere they should scan their FB friends to see who might live there so they can waste an hour out of their valuable time so that said person isn’t offended.
This also goes for people on business trips:
Random Status Update: “BUDDY JOHNSON is off to Tampa on business.”
Annoying random comment: “Hey I live 75 minutes outside of Tampa, you should VISIT me!!!”
My sister does a somewhat similar thing while telling her stories, Winnie, except she goes too far the other way. For example, a story about some co-workers from a job five years ago - she tells us the name of the company, the names of all the people involved, all the details about everything involved in the anecdote; we only need generalities, really. “A few years ago, I had a job where one of my co-workers lit their hair on fire while checking to see if there was any butane left in their lighter” is all we really need (and, by the way, that actually is a true story - one of my co-workers did that). 
Reading a blind item about some celebrity caught doing something gross or stupid, where you are invited to hazard your best guess who did it… Nine out of ten of the guesses are names I never heard of! I have to google their names, and they’re on tv shows I never heard of!
You want really, really insignificant?
When people type out laughter as : bwahahahaha
Do you actually make a “B” sound when you laugh? If so, you must sound like a complete and total dumbass.
Hah, I see this all the time on my Facebook and it’s always hilarious because many of my friends are living outside the US and the distances are always pretty significant, which these people seem incapable of appreciating. Because if you’re both outside the US, then you can meet up, right? So instead of “I’m 75 minutes outside of Tampa, come visit me!” it’ll be something like:
Friend 1 [German citizen living in Berlin]: Spending the weekend in Köln with Eugen and Dietmar.
Friend 2: Lukas! I’ll be in Spain on [random dates]. Let’s meet up!
Friend A: Leaving for study abroad in UK tomorrow!
Friend B: Hey, I’m teaching English in Slovenia! We should hang out!
Friend C: If anyone is going to be in Asia, give me a call!
This “rule” doesn’t exist in English, and never has. This is a Latin rule that gained some popularity a few hundred years ago, which some folks won’t let go of. The final proposition, however, has been present since Old English.
This is the type of faux pedantry up with which I will not put!
Ahem.
Movies that incorporate its title into the dialogue. Lord of the rings is a great example of this.
Our cereal shelf fits all of our cereal boxes perfectly, except one, my husband’s Frosted Flakes. He keeps them beside the place where he eats breakfast now, but it bugs me. Cereal goes here, except one.
Craigslist flakers.
Whenever you post something for sale on CL, you will always get emails from people like this :
“OMFG I NEED THAT THING RIGHT NOW WHERE DO YOU LIVE I’M COMING OVER BECAUSE I CAN’T LIVE WITHOUT THAT THING I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR THAT FOR LIKE FOREVER WHAT’S YOUR ADDRESS!!!”
And then you never hear from them again.
Doable.
We already have a perfectly functional word for that concept. Feasible. Seriously, it’s not gonna kill you to use it.