Words or phrases you dislike

[Bob_Blaylock]

I understand — and grudgingly accept — the need for conserving characters in a medium such as SMS messaging, where you're operating under strict message-limit sizes, and with the ergonomic limitations of a cell phone keyboard; but the Internet is not your cell phone. When you're posting to a forum, such as this one, or to almost any other web site, or sending an email, you have a full keyboard under your hands, and more than enough room to clearly and properly express yourself; and I would hope that you have better than a second-grade-level of education.

Most of what you are saying, I do agree with. However I need to point out that many people DO in fact have full internet access on their phones and I regularly post on this forum from my phone while I am out and about. So basically that means I have the same limitations that you have with SMS with the exception of the character limit.

So sometimes my grammar and spelling may seem a little "idiotic" when in fact it's due not having the convenience of a full keyboard in front of me and having to deal with the vibrations of a bus, for example, as I type. Not to mention when I go out in the sticks, signal levels fluctuate a lot causing me to sometimes lose messages, I'm less inclined to spell check my messages after having to type the whole thing out again on a phone keyboard

On any rational basis, my peeve isn't really about people doing what they have to to work under serious limitations; it's about people who don't even try to do something right; who are willing to produce something of absolutely crappy quality, when an insignificant amount of additional effort could have produced something of much higher quality. When you type “U”, instead of “you”, on any QWERTY keyboard, you're not saving any useful amount of time or effort at all. The “Y” key is right next to the “U” key, and the “O” key is just two keys away from “U” on the other side.

But the difference that those two keys makes is astounding. If you type out the whole word “you”, then it looks like you have at least a normal level of intelligence, while if you only type “U”, then it looks like you couldn't possibly have a higher IQ than the lower seventies or so. On a regular keyboard, it is surely worth those two keystrokes for that much improvement in how intelligence you will appear to whomever reads what you've written. Maybe not so much on a cell phone keypad that takes four strokes just to type a “Y” and three to type an “O”; perhaps to some people, it's worth coming across as stupid to be able to save those five keystrokes.

In any event, if you are writing something that you intend me to read and understand, if you're not willing to spell it out, then just don't bother. If I see something written in “txtspk”, I will usually not parse the meaning of what the writer intended to communicate, all I see is “Look how stupid I am! Please make fun of me and insult me and treat me as the illiterate cretin that I obviously am.” It usually takes considerable extra effort for me to actually read and understand what was written in such a manner, and if the person writing it didn't think that it was worth the effort to write it clearly and properly in the first, then I usually will not even entertain the thought that it might possibly be worth that extra effort to try to read and understand it.

Of course, posting to Internet forums from a cell phone creates the problem that someone who doesn't deserve to look stupid may be compelled to look stupid anyway. I suppose if there was some clear way to indicate that as being the case, then, if you catch me in a good mood, I might decide it's worth trying to read what you've posted rather than just assuming that you are illiterate and stupid. But writing something at the had of your posting such as “Please excuse the poor quality of this message; I'm posting it from my cell phone.” would, in itself, use up so much time and effort that it'd probably be less trouble — even on a cell phone keyboard — to simply write out the message properly.

I guess, when you get down to it, anything posted on a site such as this one isn't just about the person writing it; it's about all the people who will subsequently try to read and understand it as well. It's not like you're just sending a text message to one person, who will read it, and then discard it. What you post here is going to become a permanent part of this site; and be read by dozens of people, perhaps hundreds or even thousands of people. Multiply that out by the amount of extra time and effort that each one of those readers has to waste trying to make sense of a badly-written post, and it seems to me that it very quickly works out to be very wasteful, even under adverse ergonomic conditions, to take inappropriate shortcuts when writing something to be posted here. However much time and effort you save in writing such a post, you're causing a lot of other people to waste a lot more than that in trying to read it, assuming that they bother trying to read it at all.

Edited July 12, 2009 by Bob_Blaylock
Seanette and I are having dim sum for lunch.

[Wingnut]

Uber. I almost just used it in another post, then stopped myself. I don't like uber. I uber don't like it.

[prisonchaplain]

I think the phrase, "It is what it is" is dumb. It is what it is? No kidding?

What's especially irritating about this one is that it is always said with such profundity, as if the secret of the universe were being disclosed. (I know...call the missionaries for that...LOL). Seriously though...the phrase means nothing at all. It's just filler, a way of responding without really saying anything.

[Wingnut]

So then is there a problem with "I yam what I yam"?

[Prodigal_Son]

So then is there a problem with "I yam what I yam"?

It depends on if you speak it with proper inflection or not.

[glow_inthe_dark_girl]

I hate when people say Illinois with an S at the end.

um... so whats the s for?

[glow_inthe_dark_girl]

i dont like "dude"...

"that is so not cool" or that is so uncool...

Edited July 13, 2009 by glow_inthe_dark_girl

[Wingnut]

um... so whats the s for?

Because it's the English language and we like to be difficult. Need I say more? :)

[JohnnyRudick]

I yam what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, what I yam, . . .

[pam]

Are you hungry Johnny?

[pam]

i dont like "dude"...

"that is so not cool" or that is so uncool...

haha that is one I say quite often.

[RachelleDrew]

Elderly people who pronounce the word "sundae" as "sun-duh". Or "diabetes" as "diabetus". It's beyond aggravating and most of the time when they speak that way it takes me a few minutes to figure out what they were trying to say. Then they have the nerve to look at me like I'M stupid. Get bent.

I dislike hearing "that's so gay" or "that's so retarded".

I get homicidal when I hear "ummm" or "like" more than once. There should be an allowance of one "ummm" or "like" within a 30 minute period. I hated taking orders from customers in drive-thru for that very reason. "Ummm, like I want an ummm Dr. Pepper.....ummmm do you like have curly fries? ummmm".

Working in fast food for as long as I did made me a severely hateful person. I have very little tolerance at this point for listening to other people speak. It's kind of sad when a sixteen year old working the drive-thru at McDonald's could speak in a more eloquent manner than 9 out of 10 of her adult customers.

Oh, I nearly forgot. Any combination of "heezy", hizzouse" "hizzo". That was only cool for about ten minutes almost ten years ago. There is a reason it's no longer hip to use those terms, it didn't take long for people to figure out how stupid they sound.

Edited July 13, 2009 by pam

[Dravin]

um... so whats the s for?

To make it fit in with Arkansas, island*, aisle and debris. :)

* Okay, some people say Is-Land but most pronounce it Eye-Land.

[JohnnyRudick]

OK, ya know?

I think, ya know, that y'all beginning to sound like, ya know,

A bunch of snobs.

Ya know?

[Prodigal_Son]

How about "creek" being pronounced "crick" ??? My mother, in her late 50's, moved to Utah 10 years ago and started changing the way she pronounced this and other words... how flaky is that?

[pam]

Well my mother says "warsh" or "worsh" for wash. Hey I'm making a trip to Worshington. Drives me batty.

[pam]

How about "creek" being pronounced "crick" ??? My mother, in her late 50's, moved to Utah 10 years ago and started changing the way she pronounced this and other words... how flaky is that?

Well my big thing in Utah..People, mountain has a "T" in it.

[Wingnut]

Elderly people who pronounce the word "sundae" as "sun-duh". Or "diabetes" as "diabetus". It's beyond aggravating and most of the time when they speak that way it takes me a few minutes to figure out what they were trying to say. Then they have the nerve to look at me like I'M stupid. Get bent.

Heehee...have you seen this? YouTube - DIABETUS

Well my mother says "warsh" or "worsh" for wash. Hey I'm making a trip to Worshington. Drives me batty.

That's not uncommon in New England. In fact, when I lived in Maine, we were talking at work one day about funny names we knew. I mentioned that I had known a girl in high school whose mom was named Linda. She married a man whose last name was Linder, so now her name was Linda Linder. My co-worker said to me, "You know what's funny? If she lived here, people would call her Linder Lindah."

[pam]

Heehee...have you seen this? YouTube - DIABETUS

That's not uncommon in New England. In fact, when I lived in Maine, we were talking at work one day about funny names we knew. I mentioned that I had known a girl in high school whose mom was named Linda. She married a man whose last name was Linder, so now her name was Linda Linder. My co-worker said to me, "You know what's funny? If she lived here, people would call her Linder Lindah."

Well that would be one thing if she lived in New England. But to have grown up in Oregon and lived a majority of her life in California.

And to think she gets upset when people say OreGON.

[Wingnut]

And to think she gets upset when people say OreGON.

Oh my gosh...having lived in Oregon for nearly years, and then moving to New England, I totally get this. In Connecticut it wasn't too bad, but in Maine, the people were awful with correct pronunciation of the word Oregon.

[Vort]

Oh my gosh...having lived in Oregon for nearly years, and then moving to New England, I totally get this. In Connecticut it wasn't too bad, but in Maine, the people were awful with correct pronunciation of the word Oregon.

Easterners have a good time with Washington city names, too. I heard Spokane pronounced Spo-Cain, Puyallup pronounced pie-allup, Sequim pronounced see-kwim, Yakima pronounced ya-KEE-muh...you get the picture.

But it doesn't bother me. On the contrary, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one who messes these things up. When I married my wife, we played a game of Monopoly, and she laughed heartily at my pronunciation of Reading Railroad as "reeding". Hey, how was I supposed to know?

[pam]

You mean it's not pronounced that way? lol

[Vort]

You mean it's not pronounced that way? lol

Spokane: spo - CAN

Puyallup: pew - AL - up

Sequim: skwim

Yakima: YA - kim - ah

Reading: RED - ing

[bytebear]

I also lived in New England, so I can relate to a lot of this. They were so particular about pronunciations. I remember being told that no matter how the locals said it, the correct pronunciation for Nevada was Ne-VAH-da. I did find it funny that a friend would get annoyed at the lazy L in Utah. I can't even give it phonetically, but it was like you say your L with your tongue barely touching the roof of your mouth.

Oh, and Grandma lived near a crick and had a rut cellar.

I also remember having an argument with a roommate (surfer dude in SoCal) and the whole argument consisted of us both just saying dude in various intonations.

Edited July 13, 2009 by bytebear

[Wingnut]

I now have relative identity crisis, too. I grew up saying Ant (Aunt) Nancy, but my husband insists that it's Ont (Aunt) Nancy. I say Ont sometimes, but it feels really weird on my tongue.