Annoyances

Because idiots keep buying stuff from them.No profit = no calls

The incorrect use of "apostophe s" to make a word plural instead of a posessive. Example seen recently: "Rick's new ski's are cool."Pedestrians who currently have the right of way but who don't pay attention and stand on the corner talking to their companion or just spacing out, and then when the light changes and they no longer have right of way, they start to walk across the street.scammers and shoplifters.People who want something for nothing.People who talk in the movie theater.Most cell phone use.Men who think it's OK to harass women from their cars and on the street.Cutomers at work who:ask me a question and then constantly interrupt me when I try to answer it.think that because they spent a week or two in some foreign country they are now an expert on the food of that place.confuse, "do I like it?" with, "is it good?"assume that because I am a young-looking woman that I am not a manager and assume that older males are.treat the sample shelf not as an opportunity to taste something to see if you want to purchase it, but as an entitlement to have a snack without ever having any intention of buying anything.use up my time asking for free samples of a million products without ever having any intention of buying anything, and then getting annoyed when I excuse myself to help another guest.leave trash on the floor or on the shelves of the shop, including sticking old chewing gum on the undersides of shelves.who let their children to wander unsupervised to draw all over the shelving fixtures and sign-up sheets, open packages and damage pieces of cheese on the shelf, stuff their faces from the sample shelfpeople, or their children, who drop and break jars, or who damage merchandise in the store, and do not offer to take responsibility and pay for the produict they or their children destroyed.This message has been edited by schrafinator, 08-08-2005 04:02 PM

Here's a few:1. Anyone that talks on their cell phone while driving.2. People that do not use turn signals.3. Having an office anywhere near a genetics lab (God, how I hate fruit flies!).4. Using the word "literally" instead of "figuratively". Especially when they KNOW what they’re claiming is not really truehe literally blew a gasket when he saw thatI literally jumped to the moon when I heard thatthey literally flew like a bird when they went thereKNOCK IT OFF!!!!!!5. And of course, when someone uses the word theory when they should use hypothesis.6. Ok, I have one more. It's the over use by the media of the word allegedly. It literally drives me up the friggen wall () when I hear some news anchor say something like..."Joe Blow was arrested today for allegedly molesting a small kitten, two puppies, and a gerbil". Bull shit! He was arrested because there was sufficient evidence to support the allegations. Whether or not he did it has yet to be determined. I once listened to an NPR story about a murder and in a 3 minute segment they used the word something like 23 times. It was awful. Someone is not arrested for allegedly committing a crimethey are arrested for committing the crime, and a trial ensues that will then determine their guilt or innocence.Look, if John Doe is arrested for a murder and as a TV anchor I say Today, John Doe was arrested for the murder of Jane Doe, I have done nothing wrong. John Doe WAS arrested for the murdersorry Johnno slander there.Or when they (the media) say something like: Jane Doe was allegedly found dead today. WTF?Hey news peoplequit using that word so much and report what DID happenednot what allegedly happened.I’m done now, and I literally feel like an alleged million bucks! edited to add " at the end of gerbil.This message has been edited by FliesOnly, 08-08-2005 04:14 PM

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Another one is the American practice of dropping the second "i" in Aluminium. No disrespect intended to our American friends. But they don't say Calcum, Magnesum or Strontum, so why pick on Aluminium??

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Of course, in America we pronounce the name "Don Quixote", (DON key HO tee), which is how they say it in Spanish, unlike the English who must anglecize EVERYTHING and pronounce it (DON QUICKS ut)....and "fillet" is (FILL et), not (fill-AY) after the English get through with it.etc.

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But what I really dislike is overblown prose: Using a lot of exotic words in an attempt to impress. And usually what is said is not a precise thought at all. It is possible to express any idea, no matter how complicated, in a clear manner.

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Stay far way from literary criticism, or really any kind of advanced humanities.Philosophy especially.

OK we HAVE to be friends (no matter how crazy we drive each other) if we agree on apostrophes used in plurals (which drive me even crazier ).

Somebody mentioned people who do not use turn signals. What bugs me is people who leave them on for miles and miles and intersection after intersection.

Students who don't put any work into the course and then complain that I'm a bad teacher.Teachers who constantly complain how lazy and stupid their students are, and then wonder why they can't build a rapport with their class.

OK, that sounds like a deal!The best/worst example of the incorrect use of "'s" I ever saw was on a sign for, get this, a sign-making business.

Yeah, I know.

That's really bad. But funny it's so bad. I try to tune them out but maybe I'll try to collect some instead. I think the worst one I've ever seen was "cat's." I suppose strictly speaking it's no worse than any other, but I think it bugs me particularly because "cat" is one of those very first three-letter words we all learn when we're learning to read and didn't we learn plurals at about the same time? You know, dogs and cats.

Sign-making businesses!! I think they should, by law, have to employ someone to do nothing all day except check spelling and grammar.When a sign company misspells the name of their home city on their trucks I think its time they turned in their business license.I also refuse to do business with an insurance company who has a sign in their front window that says "Do buisness with us!"If someone like myself, with poor spelling and grammar skills can plainly see these issues, what is their problem??

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One of the commonest mistakes is to use an apostrophe to indicate plurals. It's called the greengrocer's apostrophe, because it's at the greengrocer's that you'll see them: apple's, orange's, pear's, banana's. The Daily Telegraph, a UK newspaper, ran a story on this phenomenon a few years back, and managed to confuse even itself, referring to the greengrocer's apostrophe and the greengrocers' apostrophe in the same article.

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Do you use the same term?

Never heard that term before but glad to see the apostrophe offense is noticed. That term probably won't catch on here, though, as we don't say "greengrocer", at least not in my (western) part of the country --it's "grocery store" or "grocery" or just "the market." Maybe we could call it the Veggie/Vegie Aisle Apostrophe******
[digression]
and come to think of it, that's another pet peeve of mine. Phonetically speaking, it should be spelled "vegie" in order for it to be correctly pronounced "vedgie," but if you spell it with the single "g" then people mispronounce it "eggy" and since they also mispronounce the double "g" as "edgy" you pretty much have to misspell it so that people will pronounce it correctly.Yes, that's a BIG complaint I have, that they stopped teaching PHONICS in most schools decades ago so that otherwise educated people stumble over new words, can't pronounce anything, can't spell anything. Drives me nuts. Must be a liberal plot. Actually, it was. [/end digression]******I'll have to make a point of checking how bad the vegie aisle signmakers are. But most signs are officially printed now, rather than hand-lettered, so they may not be the big offenders any more anyway.This message has been edited by Faith, 08-08-2005 07:07 PM

Faith writes:

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Never heard that term before but glad to see the apostrophe offense is noticed.

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I've noticed it too, though not nearly as often as I used to. But of course we don't have as many small, local grocers today as we did a decade or so ago, probably thanks to Wal*Mart.Wal*Mart itself is in dire need of a visit from the grammar police, but not for abusing the apostrophe; rather, it seems that every Wal*Mart store I've ever visited confuses 'less' with 'fewer'. The two words aren't interchangeable.Incidentally, I agree with you about phonics. It was a system that worked, apparently better than anything that's been devised since.

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"I think younger workers first of all, younger workers have been promised benefits the government promises that have been promised, benefits that we can't keep. That's just the way it is." George W. Bush, May 4, 2005