Stuff that REALLY annoys you.

Nintendodragon · Post by **Nintendodragon** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 2:28 pm 0

my spelling is esspecially poor,

a few years ago i still occasionally put a 9 instead of a P when writing my surname...... (i'm 22)

I hate driving at night when im tired and have a headache and then people drive around with their high beems on all the time, blinding me and making my headache worse..

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:15 pm 0

gravy wrote:
piku wrote:And we have a "language", lets use it?
Are you being ironic

Err ... yes...

No, I made a mistake. I could blame the keyboard I have and the way sometimes it doesn't register key presses, but sometimes my brain just tells my fingers to push the wrong keys and I don't notice.

Wish I had done that on purpose now though

Ever typed the completely wrong word? Baffles me when I do that.

piku · Post by **piku** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 3:31 pm 0

sack wrote:
piku wrote: Your brain isn't read-only...
Neither is the english language
so... do we all need to post to forums in that style of english seeing as we've been 'making it up as we go along' for the last couple of hundred years?

The way I see it is that the point of language is to allow us to communicate. It helps if we're all using the same rules. Writing things down in the way they're said doesn't work because we all have different accents and dialects. It's a fair bet that if I write "oop" the word "up" doesn't pop into your brain. When I read things I don't have your voice speaking in my head, I have my own.

Making up new words is fine, so long as everyone knows what they are. You can't make up new forms of grammar and punctuation though. A full-stop is still a marker for the end of a sentence, apostrophes and commas have specific meaning and you can't randomly decide to strip all the nouns from your sentences.

The words we use may be different since Shakespeare's time, but the grammar looks the same.

It's the programmer side of me that is making the objection - it's like you're merrily coding away in C++, but them come to something you find hard to write so add in a bit of your own syntax but then wonder why it doesn't work.

Stuart B · Post by **Stuart B** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 4:08 pm 0

Got reminded of another one this morning...

* Companies who ring your mobile and then say that you appear to be at the end of your contract, implying that they're the original sellers and that you need to renew. They then attempt to sell you another contract. Their company name usually ends in "..communications" and if I hadn't hung right up this morning I might have given them a google

On a related note:

* Similar scamming companies (CarData, I'm looking at you) who ring up when you advertise your car for sale, usually asking if you're interested in a 'free magazine' before offering to list your car to a 'guaranteed list of intersted parties' for a hefty fee. My mum got taken for 80 quid by this bunch of cunts a couple of years ago and never heard from them again

Ratsoap · Post by **Ratsoap** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 4:22 pm 0

sack wrote:
Ratsoap wrote:Pretty much everybody

And relax.
Fixed that for you

I should add that list should be taken with a slight pinch of salt. but just about everybody is not far off.

Internet spelling pedantry is a bit off too, as most people are just clattering away at a keyboard inbetween tasks at work or whatever, so don't have time to go over their posts with a fine tooth comb.

Harlequin · Post by **Harlequin** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 4:32 pm 0

Ratsoap wrote:I should add that list should be taken with a slight pinch of salt. but just about everybody is not far off.

It reminded me of an exchange between Reggie and Jimmy in The Return of Reginald Perrin.

Ratsoap wrote:Internet spelling pedantry is a bit off too, as most people are just clattering away at a keyboard inbetween tasks at work or whatever, so don't have time to go over their posts with a fine tooth comb.

I spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to ensure the correctness of my posts and they still often contain errors.

One of my primary reasons for abandoning Usenet was that my obsessive pedantry over my posts was consuming most of my life.

sack · Post by **sack** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 4:43 pm 0

Ratsoap wrote:
sack wrote:
Ratsoap wrote:Pretty much everybody

And relax.
Fixed that for you
I should add that list should be taken with a slight pinch of salt. but just about everybody is not far off.

To be honest there were some pretty choice selections there. Emos especially. couldn't sleep last night and I remembered a couple of them bitching at me about their life history over xmas and I realised 'fuck me! their life story has more plotholes than the entire run of red dwarf...'

Dungeon-Dave · Post by **Dungeon-Dave** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:17 pm 0

piku wrote:The way I see it is that the point of language is to allow us to communicate.

Seconded.

If people lack the time and effort to check that they're communicating effectively, they shouldn't make additional demands on people to understand them. I dislike leetspeek and txtabbrvs since I find myself having to scan the passages several times to work out what is being said - I usually give up since an indication of bad forum posting[1] generally indicates bad attitude and impatience on the part of the forum poster.

"I'd rather decipher the mis-spelt typings some someone with a valid point than wade through reams of the boring prattlings of a smart arse" - yeah, but at least you recognise them for being boring prattlings early on in the chunter. The danger is the valid point being camoflaged in poor communication, thus losing its value.

(did I spell camo right?)

[1] I'm thinking of all those threads in the "banned from counter-strike servers?" forums. Luckily I don't see that poor level of communication over here.

kalmar · Post by **kalmar** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:20 pm 0

Tony Blair annoys me: http://politics.guardian.co.uk/green/st ... 81,00.html

I'm not just saying that.

Spirit · Post by **Spirit** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:31 pm 0

Patronising pedants annoy me, I'm fine with something wrong being pointed out but for fucks sake stop trying to make out I'm stupid over it!

MrsSnake · Post by **MrsSnake** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:43 pm 0

When a shops debit machine refuses my card. It's always my cards fault according to them, despite me using it in half a dozen shops before that one with absolutely no problems.

No it's not my card, it's your bloody machine!

thalamus · Post by **thalamus** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:45 pm 0

gravy wrote:I'm with Swith on the Graham Lister like spectacle raising over malformed internet grammar and spelling so I feel no shame over my missing query

But honestly, if you're going to get preachy about the misuse of written English it's probably a good idea to make sure what you're writing is up to the standards you're asking of others

Your all gay.

RageMatrix · Post by **RageMatrix** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 5:51 pm 0

Parents who don't take personal responsibility for parenting their own children "Nintendo allows my children to look at porn on the web!!!", etc....

Actually, people in general who don't take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Harlequin · Post by **Harlequin** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:06 pm 0

RageMatrix wrote:Actually, people in general who don't take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Indeed. Especially those who blame their actions on other people or on their drug habits (such as alcohol abuse).

PVB · Post by **PVB** » Tue Jan 09, 2007 6:15 pm 0

swith wrote: Hey, what can I say. Pedants annoy me I can't help it. I'd rather decipher the mis-spelt typings some someone with a valid point than wade through reams of the boring prattlings of a smart arse

But, but, I thought you loved me?

Okay, okay, I'll tone it down. A bit.