What is your pet peeve of the day?

[photoguy]

Use of the term "diversity" as shorthand for "racial diversity". "We are striving to increase the diversity of our faculty" almost certainly means only "we want to hire more faculty members of different races than the present ones", not "we want to hire people who have professional backgrounds, educational backgrounds, and perspectives that differ from our present faculty."

Totally agree with this.

Another pet peeve of mine around this is when people say a company isn't diverse because they don't have "under-represented minorities" but are conveniently ignoring all of the minorities they don't care about.

Yesterday found a new one. Morbid obesity.
...

Of all the diners in the restaurant we were the only four of normal weight.

Go to a sushi restaurant and you won't have this problem.

 

[photoguy]

Here's my pet peeve of the day. I don't know in what universe the Dow dropping 9 points is "breaking news".

 

[Walt34]

Heck, I still do the old fashioned two-spaces-after-the-period thing, which many people consider a no-no these days!

I learned that way too and managed to retrain myself. Yup, learned to type on a manual Underwood. Being naturally lazy it was an easy way to drop a bunch of keystrokes. DW still does it and it was irritating (dunno why, there are certainly more important things to be annoyed about) until I sneakily set the software to auto-correct two spaces followed by a period to one space. She didn't even notice.

 

[aja8888]

You mean to tell me that two spaces after a period is not right anymore? Of course I never learned to type (Engineer, here).

 

[beach]

those are the ones who could do w/out a few meals. have you been to walmart lately? one can hardly access the aisles due to the obese motorized chair users. some do not even need them, I saw a woman who got up easily and reached for an item that was above her.

 

[ls99]

Totally agree with this.


........
Go to a sushi restaurant and you won't have this problem.

I enjoyed sushi passing through Tokyo, had some in NY as well. Don't know of any within reasonable driving distance.

 

[Amethyst]

Well, you'd better get over that peeve, because obesity is now the norm.

Case in point: A close relative weighs about 2.5 times what the charts say a woman of her height and build should weigh. She is very militant about rights for the obese, and believes obesity should be considered a disability under ADA. From her, I have learned of a fat-rights movement that believes things like "raise the price of all clothes so that clothes for extra-big people cost the same as regular clothes" and has created a whole new morality/set of manners, such as "you aren't actually paying for a seat on the airplane - you are paying for transportation. It is polite to let the bigger person sitting next to you share any seat-space you aren't using."

Amethyst

Yesterday found a new one. Morbid obesity.

.

 

[Walt34]

She is very militant about rights for the obese, and believes obesity should be considered a disability under ADA. From her, I have learned of a fat-rights movement that believes things like "raise the price of all clothes so that clothes for extra-big people cost the same as regular clothes" and has created a whole new morality/set of manners, such as "you aren't actually paying for a seat on the airplane - you are paying for transportation. It is polite to let the bigger person sitting next to you share any seat-space you aren't using."

Hoo boy. Everybody's a victim and responsible for nothing. What a world.

 

[ls99]

Well, you'd better get over that peeve, because obesity is now the norm.
.......
Amethyst

I think I'll go with the Blues Brothers variant in future visits to restaurants. It is not yet midnight, I am wearing dark shades, and I am happy in oblivion.

 

[sengsational]

.... Heck, I still do the old fashioned two-spaces-after-the-period thing, which many people consider a no-no these days! However, I noticed that the software is smart enough to take out that extra space.

On my Android tablet, if you just hit space twice, it inserts a period and a space. But my peeve is if you hit "period, space, space" (as I was taught on the manual typewriter), the keyboard software will sometimes crash and along with it, the browser. And gone is the post I was typing!

 

[travelover]

.........But my peeve is if you hit "period, space, space" (as I was taught on the manual typewriter), the keyboard software will sometimes crash and along with it, the browser. And gone is the post I was typing!

Computers can be petulant.

 

[pb4uski]

New home construction contractors who put wallpaper directly on unpainted drywall.

A number of years ago I was with a friend was touring a new home he was considering buying and the crew was putting on the finishing touches. There was a guy painting in the kitchen who was painting around a light switch plate rather than taking off the plate, painting and then putting the plate back in place. WTF? I had all I could do not to laugh my a** off and told my friend if that was indicative of the quality of the build that he should run away from the property (which he did for other reasons).

 

[pb4uski]

My pet peeve of the day is my Mom's cable company, Charter Communications. In our area they are going "digital" which means that each now needs a cable box where they did not before. The problem is, each cable box is an additional $7 a month, so someone with 3 TVs is looking at a $14 increase which is a significant stealth increase as a percent.

They offered the first additional box for free for 12 months. Big deal.

 

[M Paquette]

People who can't figure out the connection between living below one's means, saving and investing for a very long time, and someone who can be independently wealthy (without a rich uncle dropping dead) and retire on their own terms.

But that's just me. Silly people...

 

[Lucantes]

Hoo boy. Everybody's a victim and responsible for nothing. What a world.

+1000! Couldn't agree more, in fact that is my pet peeve!

 

[ERD50]

I can't believe I didn't already add this, but a search says no:

Restaurateurs/bars who don't know that Boston is in the USA.

They have a price list for 'Domestic' and 'Imported' beers. Typically a $1 difference, maybe more. Their 'imported' selection doesn't float my boat (Heineken, Amstel), so I order a Sam Adams Boston Lager. Then they charge me the 'imported' price.

When it wasn't too much hassle (no line behind me), I've questioned it. I got a speech as to how they pay more for Sam Adams, etc. Fine, then call it a 'premium' beer or something. You failing at geography is not my problem. This was at a chain, and the guy said corp made the price lists, he couldn't (wouldn't) do anything.

I should email corp about it.

-ERD50

 

[Finder]

You mean to tell me that two spaces after a period is not right anymore? Of course I never learned to type (Engineer, here).

+1
Until now I thought two spaces after a period was the correct usage. Another thing I learned from this forum.

 

[FI by 2024]

+1
Until now I thought two spaces after a period was the correct usage. Another thing I learned from this forum.

Ah, one of my favorite pet peeves. There is a surprising amount of information written on this topic, but I think this sums it up nicely. Sorry for the long quote!

Bottom line up front: since we almost always use proportional type on computers, this short-term and relatively recent "rule" is outdated. Unless you are using monospaced type, you should only be using one space.

"Every modern typographer agrees on the one-space rule. It's one of the canonical rules of the profession, in the same way that waiters know that the salad fork goes to the left of the dinner fork and fashion designers know to put men's shirt buttons on the right and women's on the left. Every major style guide—including the Modern Language Association Style Manual and the Chicago Manual of Style—prescribes a single space after a period. (The Publications Manual of the American Psychological Association, used widely in the social sciences, allows for two spaces in draft manuscripts but recommends one space in published work.) Most ordinary people would know the one-space rule, too, if it weren't for a quirk of history. In the middle of the last century, a now-outmoded technology—the manual typewriter—invaded the American workplace. To accommodate that machine's shortcomings, everyone began to type wrong. And even though we no longer use typewriters, we all still type like we do. (Also see the persistence of the dreaded Caps Lock key.)

The problem with typewriters was that they used monospaced type—that is, every character occupied an equal amount of horizontal space. This bucked a long tradition of proportional typesetting, in which skinny characters (like I or 1) were given less space than fat ones (like W or M). Monospaced type gives you text that looks "loose" and uneven; there's a lot of white space between characters and words, so it's more difficult to spot the spaces between sentences immediately. Hence the adoption of the two-space rule—on a typewriter, an extra space after a sentence makes text easier to read. Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s. First electric typewriters and then computers began to offer people ways to create text using proportional fonts. Today nearly every font on your PC is proportional. (Courier is the one major exception.) Because we've all switched to modern fonts, adding two spaces after a period no longer enhances readability, typographers say. It diminishes it."
http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/technology/2011/01/space_invaders.html

My bigger pet peeve is that my work's styling guide specifically says to only use one space, but I am constantly "corrected" on this. I sooooo hate to be corrected by people who don't actually know the rules.


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

 

[beach]

I can't believe I didn't already add this, but a search says no:

Restaurateurs/bars who don't know that Boston is in the USA.

They have a price list for 'Domestic' and 'Imported' beers. Typically a $1 difference, maybe more. Their 'imported' selection doesn't float my boat (Heineken, Amstel), so I order a Sam Adams Boston Lager. Then they charge me the 'imported' price.

When it wasn't too much hassle (no line behind me), I've questioned it. I got a speech as to how they pay more for Sam Adams, etc. Fine, then call it a 'premium' beer or something. You failing at geography is not my problem. This was at a chain, and the guy said corp made the price lists, he couldn't (wouldn't) do anything.

I should email corp about it.

-ERD50

You are so right about people and geography, et al. A few years back, while watching a TV quiz show one of the celebs was asked a question regarding NM (in the USA) regarding the state....don't remember what the question was. She asked if mail was still delivered by pony express

If you ever watch Jesse Waters on fox you will hear the dumbest of the dumb.

 

[sengsational]

Here's the thing, though: Monospaced fonts went out in the 1970s.

         Sometimes                  Other
         a                          times,
         non-propoportional         I'm 
         font                       glad
         is                         it's
         not                        available.
         a 
         good
         thing.

 

[pb4uski]

You are so right about people and geography, et al. ....

I recall when I was just out of college we did spring break in Florida and met up with some local hotties and they asked us were we were from and we told them Vermont. They then asked if that was in Stowe.

At least they were easy on the eyes.........

 

[ERD50]

         Sometimes                  Other
         a                          times,
         non-propoportional         I'm 
         font                       glad
         is                         it's
         not                        available.
         a 
         good
         thing.

I sure wish this forum supported a mono-spaced font outside of that 'code box'. That box will put up scroll bars if you enter more than a small amount of text, which makes reading harder.

So there, another pet-peeve - no mono-spaced font support for replies in this forum!

-ERD50

 

[Chuckanut]

I can't believe I didn't already add this, but a search says no:

Restaurateurs/bars who don't know that Boston is in the USA.

Be glad you're not from New Mexico.

One Of Our 50 Is Missing - New Mexico Magazine

“Monday I took a friend in the brokerage business to dinner in New York at the Plaza Hotel, at its Trader Vic’s. When we were through, I attempted to pay with my American Express card. After some delay, it was returned and I was informed that the hotel accepted American Express only from within the U.S. boundaries.
“My attempts to refer to the treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo were rejected coldly and with disdain. After some negotiation and a threat to call the Mexican consul general in New York City, my credit card was finally accepted, but only after my broker friend guaranteed our bill.

 

[robnplunder]

Hoo boy. Everybody's a victim and responsible for nothing. What a world.

My sentiment, exactly.

My pet peeve of the day is posters putting words in another poster's mouth. E.g, one poster may say, one may need $2M to retire in California. My pet peever will respond with "so, one can't retire with $2M in California." Worse yet, my pet peever will read a post with glass half empty and respond with snide remark, snappy answer, etc.. This does not happen in ER.org forums often but prevalent in other sites.

 

[Chuckanut]

Hoo boy. Everybody's a victim and responsible for nothing. What a world.

Of course! I'm glad you finally understand.