I was looking through an American recipe website today, and found myself getting, yes, unreasonably irritated by the various ways in which US culinary language diverges from ours. For instance:
broil = grill
heavy cream = double cream
broth = stock
cilantro = coriander (and yes, I know cilantro is Spanish)
Kosher salt = salt
frosting = icing
ground beef = mince
minced garlic = crushed garlic
There are more, no doubt.
As I say, totally unreasonable – I know what they all mean, and it’s by no means the only way US English has diverged, but it still nurdles my nadgers.
In these days of lockdown, what are you unreasonably irritated by? Do tell.
For the avoidance of doubt, being irritated by Boris Johnson is not unreasonable.
“Led by the science”.
Speaking as an engineer, one arm of science, that’s cobblers. You get results and you have to draw conclusions from them.
Sometimes you draw the wrong conclusions, especially if the data set is very small. If you only test two people and one of them dies, you can not conclude that 50% of the population are going to die.
The resistance to the metric system within mainstream US culture (the scientific community knows better) remains perplexing. Measurements for recipes often come in various fractions of ‘cups’, which is a volume, so flour, sugar, etc is measured by volume, not weight. Seems both wrong and irritating, and sadly MyAmericanMate is no longer around to explain all.
Measuring in cups is much easier, you don’t need to weigh anything.
yebbut…. the cup measurement is a pain in the arse as there are at least three different definitions depending where you are – UK (284ml), US (237ml) and metric (250ml). Whenever I see cups in recipes, I have to figure out which country the recipe originated from (or just do a normal and throw in whatever I think until it tastes about right).
If they are only used in North Anerican recipes then it is clear. Whether you have a cup of that size is another matter. I just use a measurement jug that has cups marked on it.
The attitude to metric annoys me in Canada, road signs and distances are in kilometres, but people generally use feet when talking about smaller distances. Weather stuff is Celsius and they talk of mm of rain and cm of snow. Otherwise inches may be used e.g. for height and weights are generally in pounds. Petrol (gas) comes in litres.
It’s not hugely clear though. A cup of flour, for example, can weigh anything from 120g to 150g, depending on how compacted it is.
Eggs are not all the same size either …
Which is a recipe (sorry) for crap food. It’s maddeningly imprecise – fine if you’re throwing together a stew, hardly appropriate for a cake or bread or pastry.
But a cup of butter is a really painful measure. As is a stick of butter.
The sticks of butter over here (4 to a pack), have lines written on the wrapper showing where to cut for 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup etc.
It’s still incredibly imprecise though. In baking, precision matters. 2-3 grams either way can make a difference. Volumetric measurements are pretty much just shooting from the hip and hoping for the best.
But what’s wrong with giving a weight? Not all butter is in a pack – we keep ours in a butter dish. It’s a small thing but the lack of accuracy is annoying. And as Hedgepig says, accuracy is important in baking.
Also, and I appreciate this might only apply to me, continual reminders.
Say – hyperthetically – your gas boiler has gone wrong, but you have an electric immersion heater on your hot water tank and it is late May, so the heating hasn’t come on for weeks.
Does the fact that the gas boiler service engineer can not visit you until early July actually matter? No, it does not. Is it worth mentioning more than once? No, it is not.
That’s me that is!
Good of you to take responsibility because I’m annoyed with continual reminders too!
Yup, the constant reminders.
When I say I’ll get something sorted, I will get it sorted.
I don’t need reminding every 6 weeks
I like the term “ground beef”, saying “mince” sounds crappy.
Regarding cream/milk, it all goes in percentages in Canada (and to a degree US):
1% fat = skimmed milk
2% = semi skimmed milk
3.25% = full fat milk
10% = “half and half”
18% = single cream
35% = whipping cream
Not sure why it should irritate people. Things diverge, and actually many North American terms were used in British English centuries ago. Get a British recipe book if it causes you too much angst.
I said it was unreasonable, didn’t I, also that things diverge. And I have a ton of British recipe books. I just like to investigate elsewhere.
Where does double cream come in the Canadian scheme of things?
Probably the same as “whipping cream” that hasn’t been whipped.
But over here whipping cream and double cream are different things. Hey ho…
Maybe just a small percentage difference
“Suspenders” are braces by the way, don’t get that mixed up …
you wear suspenders on your teeth ?
The trouser variety
I have learned something from this -I didn’t know that Cilantro was Coriander – I have eaten meals with is but it was hardly dominant. Just thought it was another poncey inconsequential herb.
Rocket irritates me – isn’t it just a peppery lettuce? And why the fuck do they put it on Pizza?
And Baked Beans are Baked Beans not Pork and Beans.
And in the States it’s arugula…
Rocket on pizza is great. Particularly when idly also has feisty spicy Italian nduja sausage. I’m salivating just at the thought of that….
There’s a rather fine Jamie Oliver recipe with prawns in a chilli and white wine sauce on spag with rocket stirred through at the last minute. It is utterly lush.
One of my lockdown recipes has been walnut and rocket pesto. This followed the wild garlic pesto made after a foraging expedition in the local woods.
Going to make some wild garlic pesto tomorrow, is there a recipe you recommend? @thecheshirecat
Sorry, I’m very imprecise with quantities.
Loads of wild garlic leaves. They will need a good wash as birds seem particularly fond of roosting above them (have I put you off yet?). Do aim for the younger leaves, which are getting harder to find by late May; once the white flowers appear, the leaves start getting leathery. I have an hachoir – oh yes – for chopping these finely.
Crushed garlic, but not too much. You want the kick to come from the leaves not the cloves.
Pine nuts. Salt. I grind these together with a pestle and mortar; the granular salt helps break down the nuts.
Grated Parmesan.
Good olive oil, enough so that it will easily mix throughout your pasta, rather than ending up in cheesy clumps.
That template will then serve well for any pesto. You swap your wild garlic for rocket, basil, whatever. You swap your pine nuts for walnuts, and so on.
Yum. Do you toast the pine nuts?
Hmmm. No. Should I? I’ll try that next time.
Isn’t it wonderful that a thread on things that irritate you unreasonably becomes a recipe exchange forum?
Yes, absolutely – but see below. You need to keep a very close eye on the little buggers to get them right.
Just picked a large amount of rocket on the allotment, shall try some rocket pesto too.
It gives them a bit more flavour, I find, but whether it would make any difference to your pesto would depend on the other ingredients I guess. I do it for stir fries.
I always toast my nuts, if it’s OK to say that on a family website. It brings out the flavour.
Bollocks! Double bollocks! You’ve just reminded me that I toasted some pine nuts to go with lunch (pizza from a pitta bread base and a salad). I took the pine nuts out of the over a few minutes before the pizza because, of course, there is a split second between deliciously toasted and bitterly burnt, and then … forgot them. At least I now have a tasty mid-afternoon snack.
I dry roast them in a frying pan – much easier to keep an eye on them.
Fair enough, but the oven was already on. I got them just right; it’s just that I then forgot about them.
Thank goodness you didn’t suggest measuring in cups.
Shall be having a go later.
Thanks @thecheshirecat.
Have to use pine nuts as my glw has a nut allergy.
There’s some serious wild garlic on a bridleway on one of my mountain bike routes but can I find it? No! I know it’s there somewhere – you can smell it from 20 yards away! I fancy trying it in scrambled eggs (on wholewheat toast), a current comfort food of mine. With HP Sauce, obviously. And ideally sauté mushrooms. OK, and a couple of rashers of bacon…
That does sound rather lovely, will track it down.
Edit. Soz Cheshire, that was in reply to Twang though of course I’m sure yours is lovely too😬
Broiling
In Jabberwocky after the poem has finished, the character of Humpty Dumpty comments: “‘Brillig’ means four o’clock in the afternoon, the time when you begin broiling things for dinner”.
Did it travel across to the US or vice versa?
According to Collins Dictionary it was commonly used up to about 1800, after which it gradually died out, presumably being overtaken by grill. (‘ME broilen < OFr bruillir, to broil, roast; prob. by confusion of bruir, to burn,' since you ask.) We still have broiler chickens, which are any chickens reared for meat.
So it looks like we were there first.
Grill comes from French I think
Air fresheners in cars REALLY irritate me.
Me too. And those plug in ones for the home. And spray air fresheners. Any kind of artificial scent plays havoc with my sinuses. I once had a horrible row with my father (now deceased) and he came at me with an air freshener, and gave me a full nozzle load in the face.
See also: Lush.
Miki or Emma?
Bet they smell better.
And they can’t spell Colour !
At least we get that right in Canada!
Or pronounce aluminium…its has 2 i’s in it not one! Twats!
It was originally named as Aluminum by a British chemist. Aluminium is the later variant.
People that don’t use their indicators (or ‘turn signals’ as they insist on saying here). People that do are in the significant minority.
In Britain is largely limited to powerful German cars such as Audis and BMWs, the sort which pride themselves in their engineering, which makes it even stranger that they never seem to come equipped with functioning indicators.
And, of course, indicator stalks are removed before use from cars used as taxis or private hire cars.
And air fresheners installed instead.
Hmmm, “… largely limited to powerful German cars …” – The repeat offender that came to my mind immediately was our former neighbour who drives . . . a Toyota Yaris.
I haven’t gathered statistics but I’d say that this offence (“driving without due care …?”) is committed by a drivers of a broad range of car models. But then I drive a (moderately) powerful German car (but a VW).
Well observed in Canada (and US), almost completely ignored in UK.
But, but …. doesn’t turning the indicators on drain the battery ?
Kosher salt is different from normal iodised (iodized?) salt.
https://www.bonappetit.com/story/what-is-kosher-salt
But…but…iodis(z)ed salt doesn’t taste bad, like that guy says. It just tastes of salt. And it’s by far the easiest way of warding off iodine deficiency. I used to be a sea salt boy until I discovered that it’s mostly full of microplastics…
I love sea salt, and its a big industry in Spain, so your last comment adds a hand trowel of misery to my day. Please tell me this is fake news, before I go googling sea salt microplastics.
Sorry, not fake.
I googled. I was aware of the general problem of microplastics in the environment, but hadn’t noticed these salt studies. Thanks for alerting me. I’m not sure what the correct response to this information should be. Professor Sherri Mason, who led the research, adds a good comment in the last paragraph:
“I hope what comes from this is not that [consumers] just switch brands and try to find something that’s table salt or mined salt,” Mason said. “People want to disconnect, and say, ‘It’s OK if I go to Starbucks everyday and get that disposable coffee cup …’ We have to focus on the flow of plastic and the pervasiveness of plastics in our society and find other materials to be using instead.”
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/sep/08/sea-salt-around-world-contaminated-by-plastic-studies
That reminds me…z instead of s.
Which is why I did it. Canada generally goes for British spelling but for dates anything goes so 1/12 could be 1st Dec or Jan 12th depending on who is telling you.
I thought, from a culinary perspective, that it was used for its larger grain size.
Leaving the lead of the kettle plugged in the wall, but not also into the kettle.
Aargh!
And now people know this, they do it more just to annoy me
I also get irritated if the 3 light switches on the gang witch don’t line up
(more OCD than irritability really)
How old is your kettle? Mine has a base that is plugged into the wall. Has been like that since I left home some 30 odd years ago!
A recent-ish addition to the kitchen is the kettle with a base (admittedly about 10 years ago), relieving me of the headache.
The old kettle(s) worked – why replace them?
Because the new ones are improved.
And you can’t leave the plug out!
A fairly common occurence, when I used to do electrical repairs to housing association properties, was waterlogged kettle bases knocking the power out.
The undersides of the bases are not generally waterproof and they can sometimes short out when an over-filled kettle boils over.
Under the heading “unreasonable” I think my hatred of unnecessary competitiveness is up there.
Most people I think regard a competitive edge to be the stuff of life but not me. Let’s say there’s a competitive cooking show – the “bake off” formula is about right, I think. People’s efforts are assessed and some win, some lose. I saw one the other day done a bit differently and contestants were insulting each other and saying things like “he is going DOWN!” and stuff like that. Boring. Tiresome.
This may be straying into reasonable irritation, but I’m sick and tired of having my privacy valued. Websites I visit all the time forget all my previous visits. If I ate all the cookies I accepted I’d be the size of Cyril Smith.
I can remember when t’internet were all green fields, before the c**nts moved in and ruined it. This morning I got a text from Amazon, and a simultaneous security alert (‘detected from Mozilla Firefox (Desktop) near England, United Kingdom’). I log on to Amazon every day.
Every.single.bloody.morning Twitter sends me an alert about a login from ‘a new device’ and invites me to review it. That would be the device I logged in on yesterday, the day before, and every day for two years on the same device. What’s the matter with these people?
Kudos to the Mods for not putting us through ordeal by fire hydrant when we log on. Yesterday I had to play Captcha whack-a-mole on a completely kosher mainstream website. John Lewis, was it? Gah.
YES! Only today I was moaning to Mrs. T about the number of times I say yes to cookie and other stupid permissions which are valueless because no one reads the bloody conditions anyway.
Can I add that if I leave this place for more than 20 minutes on my phone I have to log in again which is beyond tedious.
Doesn’t happen on my iPhone…
*winks*
Doesn’t happen on my Samsung tablet either, just my phone.
Just you, for security purposes
I don’t blame you.
What the hell is a crosswalk anyway?
It’s a thing that goes under a traffic light.
It’s what I do when I leave in a huff.
Split infinitives.
Spilt initiatives.
I’ll just leave this here.
“Over the weekend, our good friend and former colleague, Sam Langford, passed away suddenly and shockingly. They were only 23 years old. In their time at Junkee, Sam (or Slang, as we called them) essentially defined what the news and politics beat was meant to look like. They were fiercely intelligent, appallingly talented, and passionately furious about the state of the world.”
Probably not what you were thinking of, but ‘passed away’. Died. I always use died.
Ha! Yes. My grandmother was in the Salvation Army, and when she died she was promoted to glory. I’ve been waiting for the same thing to happen to Southend United ever since.
While we’re on the subject, in the current emergency “x has sadly died” is irritating. You don’t know that, x may have been thrilled to bits. What you mean is “Sadly, x has died.”
I loved the misprint I once saw on an obituary. He deceased was “sadly pissed”.
When I lived in Somerset the local paper printed a correction which read, ‘last week’s obituary column should have read “his influence will live with us forever” and not, as printed, “his insolence”‘.
I remember a cutting in Private Eye years ago: “In loving memory of a very dead dad.”
Were “they” identical twins in a job share?
With the same name.
Weird parents naming children in that way.
Political correctness etc….
“Appallingly talented” is a rather strange description for a presumably much-loved friend and colleague. I think I’d want to find a better alternative to “appallingly”.
Irritatingly?
Yes, they certainly was a singular talent.
What on earth is that?
https://junkee.com/sam-langford-tribute/254332
“Talented is too short a word”
I mean, it’s not that short, really, is it?
I would describe talented as about average length.
Obituaries don’t come more horrifically flamboyant than that.
When you get a London bus and people leave their bags on the seat next to them as if they’ve paid for two seats. I get particularly irritated when it’s the front seat on the top deck. This is where everyone knows you ‘drive’ the bus. My local bus in London is the 91. The ‘Crooshonders’ (Crouch Enders) are particularly bad for this and seem to get put out if you ask them to move their bags. I only do this when I’m on my own as the FPO thinks I’m being petty!
They’ll probably get away with it in these CV-19 days. Boo-Hiss!
None of that nonsense in Canada. And we always thank the driver when we get off.
I always say ‘morning/afternoon/evening’ to the bus drivers. Sometimes I even get a reply or a smile!
I always thank the driver as I get off the bus. As do lots of other people, I’ve noticed.
That’s nothing. I always tell him (or her – it’s a modern world) that if ever he (or she) needs a lift anywhere himself (or herself) I’d be only too happy to reciprocate.
We get that on the trains too. You are all very nice people, and it’s appreciated.
The use of the word ‘creative’ gets on my nerves, especially when used as a noun.
oh man wait til you hear it get verbed. “Send it down to Design to creative the fuck out of it”
See also: ‘verbed’ 😉
Chiz iz verbin’.
I iz. I verbified purposefulnessly
In the wise words of Calvin (and Hobbes) ‘verbing weirds language’.
⬆️
Things that irritate me unreasonably – seeing threads with 99 comments on them.
Me too!
The way the comments thin themselves out on my phone’s screen and I have to tilt it sideways to read and then I have to right it again further down the thread. 🤦♂️
Huh, first world problems. I can’t read any comments at all on my phone, just the OPs. I can see they exist in updates and read them if they’re short enough, but clicking on them or the OP gets me nowhere. The mods were baffled.
Redundant words in descriptions on menus. Pan-fried salmon. What were you doing to do? Fry it in a beer glass? Or telling you which county the animal/vegetable was grown in, like you knew or believed there was a difference depending on administrative boundaries.
Hand cut chips. Who gives a toss?
Fancy restaurants in general are my bugbear I think. Opportunistic, overcharging, pretentious places. I like good food with no fuss, not a cheese board with 12 types of local cheese arranged from mild to mature in a clockface pattern, costing £18.
Yes @cheshirecat, yes. Pan fried, of course it’s bloomin’ pan fried. Really daft.
“Please enter your PIN Number”
and what does the N stand for? So I need to enter by Personal Identification Number Number
See also: the PM at work who constantly refers to the “LCD display panel”.
So that’s a Liquid Crystal Display Display, then.
Twunt.
In bookselling I had to get used to ‘ISBN Number’.
I’m not seeing much irrational annoyance here so it’s basically your standard “things that you mildly hate” thread.
At least no-one’s mentioned cyclists.
Substandard curation on my part, soz.
So it’s not really new then? The abhorrence towards Cyclists? It’s just a hatred of the French. (I knew it was them!)
Around here? Where it’s 4 way stops and pedestrians get priority and the only bastards who refuse to stop are cyclists?
Yes. I hate them and would cheerfully clothesline them if I thought I could get away with it.
What an utterly despicable and obnoxious post. You appear to be encouraging attepted GBH.
Just think about all the extremely dangerous cyclists who cause all those road deaths though /sarcasm
Let me elaborate a tad.
Alexandria, where I live, is a grid city, built on blocks.
At each block intersection, there are either traffic lights or 4 way stop signs. By law, all traffic in Alexandria, including bikes, have to stop at the stop signs. Two prevailing laws here:
1. You let all the traffic that got there before you go first. If in doubt, the vehicle to the right (ie, 90 degrees to your right) goes first.
2. No matter what, no matter where you are in the “go” order, everyone stops for pedestrians.
Where I live it’s a 4 way stop. My dog almost got killed yesterday by cyclists who just kept going and didn’t stop.
I’ve almost been hit countless times, because around here, the cyclists think the law doesn’t apply to them. Paranoia and excellent peripheral vision – which I don’t have because of eye surgery – are good life enhancers.
Can I ask exactly what my reaction should be? My dog ain’t big. She’s about 21 pounds, and looks like an elderly shrunk labrador. She walks to heel well, and knows to only cross the road after I’ve said “OK”. Cyclists apparently disregard her, and me, because stopping and restarting is too big a burden and my needs come a poor second.
So, yeah, a bit tongue in cheek, but I stand by my sentiment. Bastards, most of them, who wilfully disregard the law around here.
Are you going to justify their frequently attempted GBH?
They are cunts to a (I’m just guessing here) man, of course. My point about road death numbers stands too, of course.
Strawman. We’re not talking about deaths here, we’re talking about collisions with bicycles riden by fuckwits.
It’s really not. I am talking about death here. I am comparing the outcomes from collisions between a fuckwit on a bike (around 100kg including rider) and a car (ton, ton and a half) driven by a fuckwit. Surely you can see the difference? if you can’t the statistics are readily available.
The statistics tell me that however many times more people are killed by fuckwits driving cars, it has no relevance or bearing upon the level of irritation caused by fuckwits on bicycles. They are still fuckwits on bicycles.
No doubt. I see your point about being irritated, irrationally or not.
I’m sure we could both relate many instances of fuckwits on cars nearly killing us while we use the road, legally, safely, as cyclists. Perhaps I should start a different thread called “Things that terrify me for fucking good reason”?
Are you going to remain so ridiculously OTT? A standard attempt to tar all with the same brush.
I’m with @Sitheref2409 here.
It’s not just to cities with multi-directional junctions that the lycra bullies have extended their obnoxious behaviour. I live in a small village surrounded by quiet lanes that have been adopted by several local cycling groups. Sadly, when I say ‘adopted’, what it means in practice is ‘aggressively claimed as having full and exclusive rights to’.
They never signal their approach, they hunt in packs, they swear loudly to each other in blokey chum fashion as they pass, they don’t give horses, pedestrians or dogs sufficient room as they pass, and if you challenge them on any of these behaviours they tell you to “Fuck off mate”.
Many have left their Audi or BMW keys at home while they are out terrorising the neighbourhood, but presumably also behave just as badly when behind the wheel, as it’s their personal lack of consideration along with their selfishness and ignorance that determines the way in which they treat their fellow road users.
Just as it’s probably not fair to assume that all cyclists share this appalling mindset, it’s not fair to assume the same stereotyping can be applied to car (or van) drivers either. But neither is it ridiculously over the top to lose one’s rag at those vermin who do fit the bill.
If cyclists want respect on the roads (and I’ve largely stopped cycling precisely because we/they don’t get much respect) they need to get their own house in order within the cycling club milieu. Otherwise, maybe there’s a case for licensing bicycles, so that the lunatic fringe will have to face the possibility of legal recourse to punish their worst stupidities? They are after all on public roads, on which recognised rules apply to ALL who use them.
Stand out words.
No argument that cyclists should follow road usage rules. As above though,however annoying you find them (and as a cyclist so do I) they are road users in the same way car and truck drivers are, whilst rarely being as lethal.
And they are users of footpaths, users of bridleways, users of pavements, users of one-way streets the wrong way, cutters of corners etc. etc. etc.
Yes they are. My point – again – is that they don’t tend to kill people on the roads, unlike car drivers.
(mildly…) bikes are allowed on bridleways*…
* dodging the mountains of shit left by people on horses… : o)
Yes of course. As long as they follow the rules applying to the use of bridleways. Which far too large a number do not.
I can tell you that I have never had a near miss round these parts with a car.
Cyclists? Let me count the numbers.
It reminds me of the Corbett/Barker/Cleese sketch.
Car drivers are Cleese; cyclists are Barker; poor old pedestrians are Corbett.
The stats, though. Jesus. Is this thing on?
Here’s the stats. Anyone on a bicycle trying to get somewhere is bound to profit from traffic patterns in its favour. I think we all know that and agree with that. It’s the fucking smugness that accompanies it though that makes us all hate you all en-masse. Ergo, if y’all are cycling, make sure you educate in whatever fashion, your fellow riders.
The more you bash on about this, the more you sound like Rod Liddle – who last weekend in the Sunday Times made reference to stringing piano wire across a road at cyclists’ head height.
Yebbut, that’s prob cos he likes to drive his car too fast all the time, like 75% of the car driving wankers I encounter on the roads on a daily basis.
Yes. It’s not the bikes. They are cunts no matter how they travel.
@MC Escher.😂😂😂
Oooo, I hate that, it makes my piss boil.
(0h, cyclists, misread it…….)
I got it 😀
Unreasonable? I think this one fits.
There was a TV ad years ago for Kit-e-Kat where a jaunty song tells us all about the energy-giving vitality of the product, helping your cat live to the full. A cat is seen jumping from a tree onto a wall…sprightly and alert.
“Yeah, right, well YOU can fuck off!” says my friend, at the screen. He wearily explains that he has had a hard week and he just wants some rest. I tell him that the ad is referring to cat food and is about cats…but he maintained that such ads are propaganda, trying to turn us into something we don’t want to be.
Very minor grammatical irritant, but I notice more and more people using “try and…” as in “I’m going to try and get up early tomorrow…” or “I’m going to try and cut the grass this weekend…” Very minor I know but it gets on my wick – whats wrong with “try to…”?
And don’t get me started on They’re / Their / There…it’s a lost cause at this stage.
That’s not grammar. That’s a stylistic choice. “Try and” is a long-standing idiom, and there’s nothing grammatically wrong with it.
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/were-going-to-explain-the-deal-with-try-and-and-try-to
Oh and while we’re here split infinitives aren’t a thing and don’t exist in English 😉
Thanks @hedgepig – I didn’t realise it was such a long-standing contentious issue. That’s me told! But even if it’s not entirely incorrect it still bothers me.
Oh no probs, we all have our bugbears 😊
At the risk of being recursive, which some might find really irritating, “gripe threads” on the Afterword Blog irritate me unreasonably.
😂😂😂
I’m generally trying to put a positive spin on things and try to remain optimistic, probably because if I indulge myself in how crap everything is I’d never re-emerge. I just left a What’s App group a mate set up to see us through the lockdown as it has descended into spittle flecked furious ranting about every single thing which happens, all of which is apparently a cunning ploy to murder OAPs/children/the general population/hamsters etc etc. I don’t need it thanks. Anyone heard any good jokes?
An old Yorkshireman is lying in his bed, dying.
With a very weak voice, he asks “Is my wife here?”
“Yes, I’m here dear” she replies.
“Are my children here?”
“Yes. Your children are all here.”
“Are my grandchildren here?”
“Yes, grandad. We’re all here.”
“Then why is the light in the kitchen still on?”
A man was dining alone in a fancy restaurant and there was a beautiful woman sitting at the next table. He had been checking her out since he sat down, but lacked the nerve to talk with her.
Suddenly she sneezed, and her glass eye came flying out of its socket towards the man. He reflexively reached out, grabbed it out of the air, and handed it back.
‘Oh my, I am so sorry,’ the woman said, as she popped her eye back in place. ‘Let me buy your dinner to make it up to you.’
They enjoyed a wonderful dinner together, and afterwards they went to the theatre followed by drinks. They talked, they laughed, she shared her deepest dreams and he shared his. She listened to him with interest.
After paying for everything, she asked him if he would like to come to her place for a nightcap and stay for breakfast. They had a wonderful, wonderful time.
The next morning, she cooked him a wonderful breakfast with all the trimmings. The guy was amazed. Everything had been so incredible!
‘You know,’ he said, ‘you are the perfect woman. Are you this nice to every guy you meet?’
‘No,’ she replies. ‘You just happened to catch my eye.’
“I could care less.”
But I don’t.
That one really does my head in. Not only annoying as fuck but makes no logical sense either.
BBC newsreader Huw Edwards leaning on the desk while presenting. Sit up, man!
And his umming and erring while reading a script you presume he wrote.
He’s got a good barber though.
To be fair, English is his second language …
Huw Edwards is the world’s most boring man.
He’s realised that by leaning on the desk, someone might take an interest in him and clearly he succeeded in that aim.
Well, here’s a funny thing. We are not alone…
Double negatives.
Especially when I ain’t done nothing.
I must be unreasonable if I get irritated by this as I don’t see regular references to it elsewhere.
Typos in books.
You would have thought that a book that is going to be published would be proof read to within an inch of its and the proofreader’s lives, but apparently not.
From recollection, Hooky’s book on the Hacienda was riddled with typos but pretty much every book I read has some.
I’m about halfway through Jeremy Hardy Speaks Volumes which is a wonderfully funny read and I thought I was going to get through it without spotting any errors. But sadly not and on page 162 the word ‘expect’ appears when it should read ‘except’.
I do wonder if I could get a job proofreading if the need/desire arose.
I suppose I best give this the once over before posting.
There’s just not enough money in publishing books anymore, for things to be properly proofread. I blame Amazon. And buy almost all of my reading material from them.
It does peeve me a little bit that posters on this blog (and in other places too) don’t seemingly proofread their posts for trypos, autocomplete errors etc. before hitting Psot.
I suspect it could be that some people (and I’m one of them) can successfully proofread any writing but their own.
Indeed. I create our year end accounts at work from scratch, 55 pages of numbers and words. They are nurtured by me for weeks, go to detailed review by our auditors and the audit partner reads them before signing. They could be scarcely be scrutinised more. There’s always a typo we somehow all miss.
That said, it is annoying, and I find them regularly. Derek Pringle’s book I’ve just read contains the phrase “I was served my just deserts.” And he writes for broadsheets.
Is ‘just deserts’ not correct?
Yes it is. “Deserts” as in “the things one deserves”. Why people think it’s “desserts” is beyond me. How would that make sense? “He did a bad thing, but luckily now somebody has provided him with his rightful black forest gateau, phew”.
That’s exactly what I thought it meant. If you’re good, you’ll get a lovely pudding. If you’re bad, you’ll get a pile of dog turds for pudding. That kind of concept.
Oh. Well. It doesn’t! 😊
@hedgepig
Thanks for this, it’s the pronunciation that led me down the erroneous path.
I will henceforth never make this error again. And delight in telling people who do…
Clearly Mr Pringle knows this as he writes for broadsheets.
😁 you’re welcome!
I was once sent a letter applying for a job by someone who said she was a good rpoofreader.
She could spot gay pirates?
I’m late to this one, but sloppy language use is my bugbear.
Someone’s just emailed to tell me he’ll “revert back to me tomorrow”.
No, you’ll revert to me tomorrow. The “back” is unnecessary.
See also “descending down the stairs”, “being reborn again”, “personal PIN number”.
It shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
“Reverting” to someone is pompous shite anyway. You mean “get back to” or “reply”. People using what they think are fancy or businesslike words where there is a perfectly clear, simple (and often more concise) alternative is bloody annoying.
Though to be honest, I think I find people “correcting” others’ language more annoying than any language mistake. Half the time the person doing the correcting is just regurgitating half-remembered Victorian style tips from school, which they’ve internalised as “grammar rules” and think make them look smart.
That’s me told. Imagine getting paid for it though.
Haha oh I think it’s ok if you do it for a living, isn’t it? Cos then you’re effectively being asked. If someone says “could you check this email for grammar”, that’s different from someone going AH I THINK YOU MEAN “TO GO BOLDLY” unsolicited
What I was hoping to hear… 🙂
“Outwith” is the word I keep seeing in letters and emails where I work. I hate it. It’s an obscure legal word, and a Scottish-ism at that, and people just seem to think it makes them sound clever. Just say “outside”!
‘Outwith’ is an odd one. Perfectly acceptable if you’re Scottish, a bit ‘cultural appropriation’ if you’re not
But how about when a smarty clever clogs (me) casually mentions it is used to avoid confusion with the word without, which can also mean the same thing or, confusingly, something completely different.
As in: “There is a Green Hill Far Away, WITHOUT a City Wall”, which doesn’t actually mean the green hill doesn’t have a city wall, it means it is outside the city wall.
Just wanted to clear that up.
“Come on outwith, come on inwith, you’ll not see nothing like the Mighty Smith.” Good job Dylan rewrote that.
I can’t liiiive…. outwith or without you
Growing up, my dad would always pick us up on these – and Americanisms (“skedule”)
A particular bugbear became to “meet up” (“what’s wrong with meet?”) and he’d have been having apoplexy about the relaxation of the lockdown measures & being able to “meet up with six other people”. I even find myself saying “meet!” to the tv.
In a former life as a very junior civil servant in the Department for Trade and Industry in the late 80s/early 90s, I remember drafting a response for our Secretary of State, Nicholas Ridley, stating that he’d “met with” members of a particular trade body or some such, only to have it returned that with an exceedingly sniffy hand-written note which made it very plain that although the SoS might meet people, he would *never* “meet with” them.
Well yes…”meet six people” would do perfectly well. You can only meet other people, you plonkers.
Less is always more in my experience.
Except that ‘meet (or meet up with) six people’ would mean a group of seven, which isn’t allowed.
“Would of” instead of “would’ve”
A reasonable jury would acquit
Exactly. It’s so widespread in common usage and on that there interweb though.
A chap I work with always says “at the present time” in virtually every sentence.
I often wonder why he says four words, when “now” or “currently” does exactly the same.
“At this precise moment in time…”
FFS, Trevor, you mean “Now”.
This is the same Trevor who, when asked “What’s the time, Trev?” will reply:
“The time is an abstract conceptual unit of relative measurement of deviations in the fourth dimension”
No, Trev, I mean is it lunchtime yet?
I’m quite enjoying WFH.
Since it’s unreasonable irritation, can I add…
People who don’t know “renown” is a noun, and the adjective is “renowned”…I know I’m wasting my time with that one.
Likewise, just saying that people who finish with “Just saying” ought to have a boiling oil enema till they’re cured of the habit. Saying.
Same goes for cliché. ‘It’s so clichéd,’ not ‘It’s so cliché,’ please.
And bias. “Don’t be so bias.”
Companies that claim to provide “solutions” rather than services or products.
What started as a mere selling technique to involve the customer is now so over-used that it has become laughably meaningless: storage solutions, logistics solutions, refrigeration solutions, yogurt solutions, ear wax solutions, processed cheese solutions, soft furnishing solutions – you name it, there’s some business purporting to have a “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist.
Don’t know if they still do, but Tesco used to call the ready meals ‘ready meal solutions’.
The Nazis offered final solutions.
All record shops that called themselves Vinyl Solution- and there must have been several- are, quite deservedly, now defunct.