Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Pet peeves

This is a completely gratuitous post on: Things that irritate me or How to piss me off.

  • Fundamentalist religionuts and any pseudoscientific garbage, but those are just a given.

  • Mispronunciations. Especially people who mispronounce nuclear as nuke-yoo-lar (our favorite former commander-in-chief, for instance), realtor REE-lit-or (I've know actual realtors who can't pronounce this word) and mispronunciation mis-pro-noun-see-ay-shun. Bill is completely unable to pronounce labyrinth and pronounces it lab-er-nith, but that's just cute.*

  • People who say irregardless. The word is either regardless or irrespective, people! Pick one, but don't combine them. From my 1974 edition of Webster’s New World Dictionary, irregardless is defined as a substandard or humorous redundancy for REGARDLESS.

  • Snowboarders, with the exception of Kia, with whom I've never skied, and my son. He irritates me for other reasons. Snowboarders don't seem to have the brain capacity to understand that most skiers go back and forth across the slope, not straight down, and seem to be constantly surprised when skiers turn and go the other way right into their path such that they scream by at 50 mph barely missing and frightening the skier (me, anyway) half to death. In addition, skis make a pleasant shush, shushing sound - snowboards literally roar as they go by. I'm constantly swearing at snowboarders and calling them fracking moron idiots under my breath. Redundant, I know, but it makes me feel better. Ok, I don't always say fracking. Frelling? Smegging? (30 points if you can name all three Sci Fi shows - without a search engine). One ran into me earlier this year on a completely wide open slope with just the two of us on it, and then was bent out of shape when I yelled, "moron" at him (more out of fear and surprise than malice. Ok, maybe there was a little malice).

  • Led vs. Lead.

    Lead (lěd) - a heavy, comparatively soft, malleable, bluish-gray metal, sometimes found in its natural state but usually combined as a sulfide, esp. in galena. Symbol: Pb; atomic weight: 207.19; atomic number: 82; specific gravity: 11.34 at 20°C.

    Lead (lēd) - to go before or with to show the way; conduct or escort

    Led (lěd) - the past tense of lead.

    LED - light emitting diode

  • Fracking big SUVs, perhaps just when they're driven by idiots. UPDATE: Andrew reminded me that it's a general rule that fracking big SUVs are always driven by idiots.

  • People who say Safety Deposit Box. It is SAFE Deposit Box, people! We just watched an episode of Fringe where ALL the characters said safety deposit box over and over and over. I, of course, had to yell, "SAFE! The word is SAFE!" every time. Yeah, okay. I was probably more annoying than they were. Probably. Same thing happened recently with an episode of Alias.

  • Bigotry of any sort against anybody for any reason. Except snowboarders. Bigotry against snowboarders is fine.

  • Cruelty to animals. Humans included.

  • Having the television on just as noise in the background. I'm constantly coming into the living room and turning it off because NO ONE IS WATCHING IT! Unless I'm watching something in particular, I don't like it on at all. I have happily gone without TV for years at a time (I did use it to watch movies occasionally).

When I asked Bill to list things that irritate me, he said, "People who make slight grammatical errors and misproNOUNciations" (I already had that on the list). "And people who don't change lanes soon enough for you." No, Bill. That's just YOU.

*NOTE: Bill says he's not cute, he's ruggedly handsome.

(Note to self - figure out why there are no bullet points. Barry, help???)
UPDATE: Ok, now I have the funky flowers, but I guess they're better than nothing

19 comments:

Hairslave 24/7 said...

Very funny! I agree 100%, especially about the TV in the background. However, if you stop and think about the word smegging (and yes, I looked it up), you probably won't use it anymore!

Hairslave 24/7 said...

and I like the flowers!

Laurie said...

Actually, I do know what smegging (or smegma) is, but they did really use it (in various forms) on one particular sci-fi show for years. They claimed that they had no idea about the origins...

artificialhabitat said...

"Fracking" - Battlestar Galactica
"Frelling" - Farscape
"Smegging" - Red Dwarf

"Fracking big SUVs, perhaps just when they're driven by idiots."

Isn't a general rule that they're always driven by idiots?

Laurie said...

Hi Andrew - I've updated the one about SUVs.

They showed Red Dwarf in this country for a short while, but people probably figured out what smeg meant. Or, more likely, they couldn't understand Lister.

Red Dwarf used smeg almost as eloquently as BSG used frack.

Barry Leiba said...

«people who mispronounce nuclear as nuke-yoo-lar (our favorite former commander-in-chief, for instance)»

Jimmy Carter, you mean?
I do wonder about this one: it's ubiquitous, and so I have to think there's more behind it than a willful refusal to fix it (as is the case with, for example, "eye-rak"). That GWB couldn't say it right is easy to write off, but that JEC and others we can respect couldn't say it right takes us somewhere else.

«One ran into me earlier this year on a completely wide open slope with just the two of us on it»

That reminds me of the Far Side cartoon with the caption "Dinosaur cranial capacity." A stegosaurus is wandering aimlessly in a vast empty space containing but one tree, and eventually bumps head-first into the tree.

«Bigotry against snowboarders is fine.»

And against SUV drivers.

«Ok, now I have the funky flowers, but I guess they're better than nothing»

I like the funky flowers, myself. But you can get rid of them, if you like, by customizing your blog's layout, going into "edit HTML", finding ".post ul", and making sure that it has these:
    list-style-type: disc;
    list-style-image: none;

Laurie said...

Thanks Barry!! I think the reason there were no bullets initially is because I tried to remove the funky flowers before, but didn't actually change the code. And only bigotry against fracking big SUV drivers is ok.

Lesley said...

Oh dear god. If there's a club for people who use the television as background noise...I fear I am the president. Between this and my love of paranormal crap and also baseball, it's a wonder you associate with me at all!!! In my own defense, however, this developed as fallout from the big quake in '94. I lived five minutes from the epicenter and after weeks of significant aftershocks, I just couldn't take any type of quiet or darkness at all. Years later, the habit is still with me!

Cruelty to animals. AMEN, sister. Amen.

"Snowboarders, with the exception of Kia, with whom I've never skied, and my son. He irritates me for other reasons." *SNORT*

I love this post. You've got some sass in your step, sister!

Brother Phil said...

Ninth!

Laurie said...

Lesley - If I didn't associate with people who love paranormal crap, baseball, and TV, I would be very lonely... And I will always make an exception for you! Go Kings! Oh, wait. That's hockey. Or basketball. One of those. I mean Go Dodgers!!

Philip - I'm so glad you can count! I was really worried about it after your head injury.

Kia said...

Glad you made an exception for me, as I am a "Snowboarder" in only the most liberal definition of the word.

Kia said...

How big does the SUV have to be to qualify as "fracking big"? I need a vee-hickle to haul around my snowboard. Also, it hauls the mountain bike, so it all evens out.

Laurie said...

I don't think a Ford Escape counts as fracking big, so you're OK. Fracking big is something like a Hummer or an Expedition.

So is your blog completely dead or only comatose?

Barry Leiba said...

OK, so I just have to send you this photo, which I took on the road in Connecticut the other day. It's not an SUV, but I think we can all agree that it's "Fracking" big.

Laurie said...

Barry, that is Fracking hilarious!

Laurie said...

I think that this explains it...

Wikipedia knows all.

Kia said...

The blog is comatose, and so am I. I haven't thought of anything to write about for months. I'll try to do better.

Anonymous said...

what the hell is fracking, in the real world they use freaking as in "freaking big SUV with a freaking moron behind the wheel"....

Brother Phil said...

I thought the past tense of lead was uranium.