Pet Peeves

[Phillyfan]

why do first class passengers get on the plane first? They sit in the front. Everyone stares at them and bangs into them with their bags as they pass. no reason for it. Tell them to relax , have a drink, and get on last, their seats will still be there.

kids who snap their gum. not just a gentle pffff as it deflates, but they try and snap it as loud as possible, usually in small crowded places like planes, busses, or trains. not just once or twice, but every 20 seconds.

people who leave their garbage anywhere. Have a cup of coffee? just leave the empty cup somewhere. someone will clean it up. There is a level of hell where they will have to clean up garbage for a thousand years per infraction.

[Sharkey]

People who try to change car lanes to perhaps gain some sort of driving and waiting time advantage at a checkpoint of any kind when that checkpoint is out of view are idiots. These are the people who ask for an extra card at blackjack when one is not necessary and taking one is in fact stupid.

[TKO11]

But the dealer was showing a NINE!

[Sharkey]

Seriously.

[walshb]

Towards. There is no such word. It's toward in all cases but I see even the NY Times using towards.

GorDoom

There is indeed such a word and it is more commonly used
in British English. I know in Ireland we tend to use
'towards' as opposed to 'toward'. It's interchangeable

[10-8]

My city picks up my garbage every two weeks instead of every week.

That would be wonderful if I didn't live in a household of 5 people, not to mention the smell of my garage in the summer which also happens to double as my 'Bucket-O-Blood' gym that I train in on a daily basis.

[PeteLeo]

Thanks for reviving this topic. It's been a lot of fun.

Besides, I said some funnyass stuff in this thread, vis:

People who throw gasoline on you and then light it.

I really hate that.

PeteLeo.

Now, that's classic. PL.

[Sharkey]

Grocery store check out person who asks if I "..found everything ok?" What am I supposed to say and if I had difficulty are they about to help?

"WHOOF! It was a bear. Should have seen me.. I'm in 7, right? I see the Boylens and I'm like I need some Goya Grape and Goya Fruit punch. So, I'm looking for Goya Fruit Punch right? And, heere I am in the soda aisle. Can't find it. Found the Blueberry Morning Cereal.. that was a chore. Near the bottom, hard to find and what with the full cart and all. So, I can't find it so I try to find the salsa, thinking maybe it's international or something... and my cart of course has that one wheel rotating because it no longer touches the floor.. except near the meat case cuz of the bump in front of the meat case.. by where they have the chicken. anyhoo! It's fine though, I found it, near the Goya stuff in International as I thought. Hey, I wasn't able to find one thing: you know those.. hang on a second."

"Maam? I'll be done in a minute.. hold your horses.. I didn't find everything, and I found most things but not 'ok'!.."

"... so anyhow.. as I said, I couldn't find the bag of frozen okra. But not the wheels, the little pods. You used to have them. I was in the frozen, but they're not there. Will you go find them?"

[JLP 6]

Sharkey.....Get back to work. Good Lord man!


Not a pet peeve, but.....

How in the heck do birds get outta of the way of cars so fast? It never fails. Birds are in the middle of the street eating something. I come moving at at least 60 MPH, birds have no chance to get out of my way, they can only sit and die.

I move in, past over what I think will be a dead bird. I look back and....nothing. He has flown alway again, just in the very nick of time.

How do they do it?

[PD99]

JLP - You sound like a man on a, as yet, unfulfilled mission. I have a friend who had to peel a bird out of their grill - so they don't always get away.

Harkening back to Pete L's grievance over people waiting for a parking spot and blocking traffic. The double banger is that the "Blockers" barely leave enough room, if at all, for the departing driver to extricate themselves from their parking spot.

[PeteLeo]

This has probably been covered in this thread already, but to the best of my knowledge, there is no word in the English language (be it the British, Welsh, Scottish, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand-ian, Liberian, Irish, or United States version of English) that is spelled and pronounced "heighth." Yet, time after time, I hear this all-too-comfortable corruption of the word "height" repeated without embarrassment on television by people who are paid -- sometimes in seven figure salaries --to enunciate the language correctly.

Basically, I'm not a total spelling/punctuation/slanguage prick, and I've even come to a tense understanding with the words "your" for "you're" and "there" for "their" on the 'Net. But I simply cannot get past experiencing a stinging sensation when I hear the pros uttering the word "heighth."

Just because "width" is correct, that doesn't mean you're allowed to stick an "h" or a "th" on the end of every other measurement of distance because it sounds right to your ear.

Sorry, just my inner snotass sticking his nose out into the real world again. PeteLeo.

[TKO11]

I have to admit Pete, I've never heard anyone say "heighth". If I did though, it would drive me nuts as well.

Here's one some may not agree with, but since when is "orientated" a word? I checked and the damn thing is in the dictionary now. Have we as a society become so illiterate that they just add mistakes to the dictionary when the mistake's use becomes too prevalent? The word is "oriented", not "orientated". Every time I hear someone say "orientated" I think they're a dumbass, and want to ask them the last time they "presentated" anything to a group.....

[Sharkey]

Weighth?

****

I think if we go to adding 'ness' and using the adjectives of these words we will be fine:

Tallness.

Wideness.

Heaviness.

Longness.

What is your tallness?

The longness of that drive was brutal. The deepness and broadness of my dislikeatude is hard to describe.

We also ought to consider speaking in the descriptive:

Hi babe... hey, can you go to the food store before you come home?
Alone... what am I a loser? Who eats night meal alone?
Not the meal building.. the food store..
Oh.. sure. Right after I go to the clothes fixer.

[Sharkey]

Hey, what about 'monies' why is this word ok? Monies is a collection of money. Money is already both singular and plural.

[Phillyfan]

morons who speed up at merges to be first, just to slam on the brakes 10 seconds later because they are turning right at the next intersection. I see it almost every night going to work.

[PeteLeo]

Ah, a night worker.

Pete "Devilishly Chuckling" Leo.

[PD99]

The usual suspects who uniformly do not leave messages on answering machines resulting in numerous "messages" with nothing but the hang up tone to listen to. The usual suspects who tell you how much they hate answering machines. First the silent pause then Beep - Beep - Beep -Beep causing me to go Bleep-Bleep-Bleep-Bleep.

People who do leave messages on the answering machine but messages which are of the War and Peace, "When is this effing going to end?", variety.

I know, I'm hard to please. I simply want a cheerful clairvoyant (happy medium) = messages of the short, sharp and succinct variety.

[Phillyfan]

The new tv converter boxes. This is the biggest scam out there now. I hook up the cable to the box, the box to the vcr, the vcr to the tv. Except now I can't record using the vcr, all I get is snow. Why can't they convert at the sending end. One big converter box at the cable company instead of handing out millions of little boxes? I need 5 remotes to watch tv in my mancave. One for the tv, one for the surround sound, one for the vcr, one for the dvd player, and now one for the converter box. I thought technology was supposed to make life easier.

[PeteLeo]

At last, a kindred spirit. This "digital TV" bullshit claims that your picture will look even better.

Sure, if you live within fifteen feet of the blamed transmitter. PeteLeo.

[Sharkey]

Cats suck.

[Phillyfan]

seriously, 5 remotes for 1 tv. FIVE REMOTES! and now I can't get the dvd player to play because I'm not an electrical engineer and must have crossed a damn wire somewhere.

[Counter Jab]

The usual suspects who uniformly do not leave messages on answering machines resulting in numerous "messages" with nothing but the hang up tone to listen to. The usual suspects who tell you how much they hate answering machines. First the silent pause then Beep - Beep - Beep -Beep causing me to go Bleep-Bleep-Bleep-Bleep.
People who do leave messages on the answering machine but messages which are of the War and Peace, "When is this effing going to end?", variety.
I know, I'm hard to please. I simply want a cheerful clairvoyant (happy medium) = messages of the short, sharp and succinct variety.

I check my messages every day and I routinely get the speedy-gonzalez dork that, after spitting out a huge paragraph of dialogue in about 10 seconds, says: "andyoucanreachmeat seden-sis-a-fine-niv-fo-to, that's seden-sist-eh-fiv-ein-fo-to....obviously we're never going to talk you numeric noodler...

[PD99]

Women who uniformly show off much more than a co-incidental (otherwise, allegedly fashion dictated) amount of cleavage only to complain that most men "Talk" to their breasts rather than their faces. Okay, fine. Moving on - now what was that your left breast was saying again?

[PeteLeo]

Women who uniformly show off much more than a co-incidental (otherwise, allegedly fashion dictated) amount of cleavage only to complain that most men "Talk" to their breasts rather than their faces

Not to say that I agreed with the man man about everything, but Bob Guccione had a great line relating to this "phenomenon." On a cable interview show sometime back in the Nineties, Ol' Bob mentioned seeing a woman enter a restaurant in a top that basically was a strip of cloth around her neck dangling over her mammoth mammeries and staring rather openly at the performance she was giving the room.

Said lady noticed his leering gaze out of all of them and marched over to his table, her righteous indignation billowing before her. Without introduction, she demanded, "And what are you looking at?"

Guccione, never known for his subtlety, answered in equally elevated dudgeon, "What the fuck do you think I'm looking at?"

I know this falls rather blandly onto the written page, but the way he recounted the incident on TV had me rolling in the floor. If we guys still wore codpieces, do you think we would have the right to be offended by too-long or too-intense looks? Nah (I've never met a straight guy who was offended by any attention he received from a woman).

PeteLeo.

[Phillyfan]

I hate it when you hold a door open for someone and they still stick out their hand to push on the door. What do they think, you're going to quickly slam it behind them or while they're in the door frame. I'm holding open as a courtesy, just walk thru.

[JLP 6]

I hate it when you hold a door open for someone and they still stick out their hand to push on the door. What do they think, you're going to quickly slam it behind them or while they're in the door frame. I'm holding open as a courtesy, just walk thru.

If it is a lady, fine and I agree, but if I am holding the door for a dude, he better touch that door.

It's like a baton. "I'm a man, and I will take the door from here pal". Thanks.

[hawk5ins]

agreement with the baton aspect of holding a door for another male.

If they are with their family and the acknowledg me with a thanks, then I'm fine.

But if a guy is solo, it's definitely a Baton that I'm handing off with the door.

Hawk

[Phillyfan]

yes, I can see the baton thing for a guy. The women still bother me a bit though. I try and be a gentleman and they still have to stick that hand out, almost like a slap in the face.

[PeteLeo]

Three current TV commercials that tick me off:

(1) The absolute worst is that run-a-million-times-a-day ad for the NetFlix-like videogame service which allows you to rent said games and keep them for as long as you wish. I don't even recall the name ("Gamepro"?), but I certainly do recall the annoying jerks who are depicted as having bought the "wrong" games before coming to their senses. These birdbrains are screaming as if their gonads had just been dipped in lye, punching holes in their walls, tossing their televisions through windows, and basically over-reacting (and over-acting) to a degree that would seem a bit much if they'd missed out on the MegaBucks lottery winner by one digit. I know the single duty of advertising is to provoke a reaction and plant a memory in the mind of the viewer, but this is so ugly a scene that if I played crap like videogames and were a member of that club, I'd probably resign in protest. (Well, probably I wouldn't. But I would think about doing so.)

(2) The idiot who loses his sunglasses (they're actually in his hoodie) during a romantic trip with his lady. What is it with freaking sunglasses, anyway? (A question I've broached on this thread before.) When the moron finds them, they look as if they cost all of five bucks, so does that justify driving all day back through the places they've just visited in gasping anguish? Just stop at a Wal-Mart, for god's sake. They're open all-night. (I don't even remember what this ad is pitching. Sunglasses? When to seek out a mental health professional?)

(3) This one is an audible. Not the football kind of audible. One of the chocolate-covered rice cookie/dried toe-jam cookie companies has a spot running now that consists entirely of various people snapping the cookies, popping them into their mouths, and chomping away like bored goats in a field of yellowing newspaper. I guess the grating soundtrack is supposed to make my mouth water. What it does is cause my ears to hear my Mom shouting, "Close your mouth when you eat, you pagan!"

Nothing earthshaking in these observations, I know. I just felt they needed to be addressed. PeteLeo.

[TKO11]

The use of the word "orientated'. Whenever I hear it, I automatically think the person using it is stupid. Kind of like "supposebly". The proper word is "oriented". I have been told that these two words are both correct and can be used interchangably, and only that oriented is the older version. I do not care. "Orientated" just sounds stupid.