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pet peeve thread


gwnn

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Well, difference in weight between Enschede and Calgary (elevation 1000m, give or take) is measurable, but not noticeable. Between Enschede and Everest, maybe; but the other things that one would notice atop Everest would mean that the change in weight is a very low priority...
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  • 4 weeks later...
I can't believe I went 51 posts here without mentioning foreigners (mostly Eastern Europeans I think) trying to be respectful by writing You with a capital Y. It gets me every time.
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I recently made some modest use of LinkedIn. Since then, I have received identical messages, supposedly from three different people, expressing joy that I am now back on LinkedIn. I did not even know that I was LinkedIn to them, and I am fairly certain that they don't give a flying squirrel whether I am or am not making use of LinkedIn.
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I recently made some modest use of LinkedIn. Since then, I have received identical messages, supposedly from three different people, expressing joy that I am now back on LinkedIn. I did not even know that I was LinkedIn to them, and I am fairly certain that they don't give a flying squirrel whether I am or am not making use of LinkedIn.

Well, let me take the opportunity to express my joy to see your contributions to BBF.

 

Rik

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I can't believe I went 51 posts here without mentioning foreigners (mostly Eastern Europeans I think) trying to be respectful by writing You with a capital Y. It gets me every time.

 

They probably find our practice of capitalising "I" instead of "you" difficult to get used to. The opposite, which of course they do in their native (Slavic, though there may be others) languages does, it must be admitted, seem more courteous. And they may think that the uncapitalised version is the equivalent of the familiar "you".

 

So don't be too hard on them.

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I'm not hard on them, I'm just suffering inside :) In Hungarian it is quite common to use "Te" or "Ön," for example (te is the familiar pronoun and ön is the formal one, so they capitalise sometimes either of them).
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  • 1 month later...

I live in the Boston area, so last year's capture of Whitey Bulger, and the trial that began last month, have been big news. I have no problem with that. What bugs me is that they always have to say "James (Whitey) Bulger". Either say "James" or "Whitey". I'm not sure why, but hearing them both bugs me.

 

It's in the same class as "formerly known as Burma", which reporters seem required to say the first time they mention Myanmar in a story.

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Loud construction work going on outside my window before about 10 in the morning.

 

Makes me wish I knew the local laws about that stuff.

 

 

Loud construction work good......

 

 

no louid construction bad......

 

ten am....really?

 

:)

 

 

I CAN SUGGEST 1000 PLACES OR MORE IF YOU NEED SILENCE. 75% OF EARTH IS OCEAN OR SO,

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serial or multiple murders have 3 names not 2.

...

but see John Wayne Gacy...etc...

Hmm, never real noticed that, but you're right: John Wilkes Booth, James Earl Ray and Lee Harvey Oswald. But not Sirhan Sirhan or Jack Ruby.

 

I think what bugs me is that "Whitey" is not part of Bulger's name, it's his mob nickname. It feels unseemly that professional journalists should be calling someone by their nickname.

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It feels unseemly that professional journalists should be calling someone by their nickname.

 

This happens all the time if it's how the person is widely known. No one has ever called the former U.S. president James Carter, for instance. Or speaking specifically of people known as Whitey, no one called the former baseball player Edward Ford.

 

There are limits, and cases like this one where the nickname is in use but not universal sometimes end up looking kludgy. But the general principle is to identify people in ways that make them recognizable.

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This happens all the time if it's how the person is widely known. No one has ever called the former U.S. president James Carter, for instance. Or speaking specifically of people known as Whitey, no one called the former baseball player Edward Ford.

 

There are limits, and cases like this one where the nickname is in use but not universal sometimes end up looking kludgy. But the general principle is to identify people in ways that make them recognizable.

But they never said "James (Jimmy) Carter" or "Edward (Whitey) Ford".

 

If a person was mostly known by their nickname, that's fine. If they said "Edward Ford", no one would know who they were talking about. It's the combination that bugs me. Either he's James or he's Whitey, but he's not "James Whitey"; it's not his middle name.

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