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pet peeve thread


gwnn

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By the way, I have found the following useful in these traffic situations: Suppose I am arriving at a four way stop, and I see another guy arriving on the crossing street a little ahead of me. Of course he can move on through first but he might be one of these "Oh no, please, you go first" types. I stop a tad, maybe 4 feet, short of the usual stopping place. This seems to communicate. He goes through, I go through.

I do this too, for the same reason, and it speeds things up here too. :)

 

Similarly, drivers here are often reluctant to pull onto a highway near my home when an approaching driver is signaling a right turn (I suppose the driver might really be planning to barrel right on through). If I move a bit closer to the right when approaching the intersection, though, it seems to reinforce the right-turn message and traffic moves more smoothly.

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Interesting, I have a different strategy in those situations. If we are getting there at nearly the same time and I intend to let him through, I slow down a little early but keep rolling forward about a second after he stops. That seems to make it obvious that he has stopped first so he will go.
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Interesting, I have a different strategy in those situations. If we are getting there at nearly the same time and I intend to let him through, I slow down a little early but keep rolling forward about a second after he stops. That seems to make it obvious that he has stopped first so he will go.

Good idea. I'm going to try it here.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Outfits like Stumbleupon which email with a message, " it's been so long since you've visited us, please come back we'd love to see you again"; then when you click on the link you get an insistent message, "who are you? log in." I leave, but it's irritating, as clearly they already know exactly who I am and when I am on the site.

 

Also sites which demand you log into Facebook to make a comment. Don't do that either. Why is so much on the internet now under the direction of control freaks?

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These things about Facebook have gotten completely out of hand. Recently my younger daughter posted a picture someone took of a small pond near where she grew up. She somehow (I don't know the techniques or the lingo) tagged the picture to me. Now when someone I don't know makes a comment about a picture taken by someone I don't know I get a message informing me of this.

 

Let me state for the record: Mostly I totally ignore any message arriving from either Facebook or LinkedIn about anything. My daughter, the one mentioned above, has taken down her Facebook page because she was spending too much time on it. My older daughter largely dropped it sometime back. I sense a rebellion brewing. I don't feel the need to have 437,603 close friends and I gather quite a few others are coming to the same conclusion.

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These things about Facebook have gotten completely out of hand. Recently my younger daughter posted a picture someone took of a small pond near where she grew up. She somehow (I don't know the techniques or the lingo) tagged the picture to me. Now when someone I don't know makes a comment about a picture taken by someone I don't know I get a message informing me of this.

 

Let me state for the record: Mostly I totally ignore any message arriving from either Facebook or LinkedIn about anything. My daughter, the one mentioned above, has taken down her Facebook page because she was spending too much time on it. My older daughter largely dropped it sometime back. I sense a rebellion brewing. I don't feel the need to have 437,603 close friends and I gather quite a few others are coming to the same conclusion.

 

Changing your notification settings is hard?

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Changing your notification settings is hard?

Probably not, but I don't know how to do it. I don't even know just what a notification is. I got these things saying I have a notification and I should click on something. I did it for a while, usually it was nothing of even peripheral interest if I could find it at all, now I usually ignore it. I have never missed anything of importance as far as I know (and I suppose that if it were important, I would by now know). We all have to choose what we want to look into.

 

I get friending requests from people whom I have never heard of. I have no idea why. I know from experience that it is possible (on LinkedIn anyway) to inadvertently send such a request. I once made some sort of error, I never discovered what, that sent requests to everyone in my address book. I had meant no such thing. It had happened as I was trying to deal with a friending request from someone on bbo who, it turned out, also had not meant to send the request to me. You don't, they tell me, have to be alive to vote in Chicago and I am thinking the same is true of friending on Facebook.

 

Anyway, for now, I just let it float by. I may deal with it someday but I can't see that I am under any obligation to do so.

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People interchanging "affect" and "effect" at random e.g.

In the same vein, people interchanging "insure" and "ensure." I find split infinitives grating also, but am getting more tolerant with age.

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These things rarely have any affect on me, I insure you.

 

 

Actually, I find I make many more mistakes of this sort when typing than I do when I am writing by hand. I rarely typed anything until the computer revolution, and it rattles my brain. I am getting better, much better, my wife just proofread something for me and some pages had no mistakes at all.

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In the same vein, people interchanging "insure" and "ensure." I find split infinitives grating also, but am getting more tolerant with age.

I can assure you that I always try to ensure that my house will not burn down, but I insure it in case it does.

 

I try to play bridge well, not good. Good is what I like to try to do: well, is how I try to do it.

 

As for split infinitives, I try to completely ignore the issue, but, when the question is one of a dangling participle, that is something up with which I will not put.

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I just got hacked for the 2nd time in a year and spammed my whole contact list. That should be a capital crime.

I agree that this is quite serious but I think you are being just a little bit too harsh on yourself, I hope you will reconsider.

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I just got hacked for the 2nd time in a year and spammed my whole contact list. That should be a capital crime.

 

This happened to me a number of years ago. I was using hotmail with a weak password. Very embarrassing to have all your friends get spammed for eternity. I switched to gmail and a strong password and have not had this problem since.

 

Edit: knock wood.

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This happened to me a number of years ago. I was using hotmail with a weak password. Very embarrassing to have all your friends get spammed for eternity. I switched to gmail and a strong password and have not had this problem since.

 

Edit: knock wood.

 

 

yes stronger password seems to help alot here.

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How about intellectual dishonesty as a pet peeve? When we make quotations surely we should credit the source? Or if we think the source is obvious, at least enclose the quote in inverted commas to show we are not plagiarising?
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"Sign Up or Log in to see what your friends are doing."

 

I don't get it. If they're really your friends, why can't you just ask them? Isn't that what a friend is?

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"sign up or log in to see what your friends are doing." In other words:

 

"sign up or log in to broadcast your ideas to the world at large, especially our advertisers that are buying your activity from us."

 

Legitimately, log in to let your friends see what you're doing makes sense. But usually, when someone tells this introvert that they care about "my friends", who they really care about is "their friends."

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  • 2 weeks later...

The damned misstranslation of "remove" makes me crazy. In Spannish "remover" means to move repeatedly, used mainly on context where "stir" is used in english. It has nothing to do with "remove", yet I see it misstranslated everywhere. Device's manuals, tv programs, even on newspapers.

 

How does it sound to you?

 

remove the mixture until it gets homogeneous

stir the safety band form the top

 

 

Another one comes from "actually", misstranslated to "actualmente" wich means right now.

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