Some Random Annoyances [To those of you who are annoyed by sentence fragments, I apologize in advance.]

"Less" when "fewer" would be correct. It's not that it's a bad infraction, but I made this mistake for a long time, and so I always notice it.

"Irregardless". This irritates me so much that I begin to react when someone says "irrespective", and then have to calm back down.

This may seem hypocritical, but people who correct your speech or grammar at times which are inopportune for you.* For example, I was speaking to the VP of my group at work, and for some unfathomable reason, I mispronounced "larynx" (it was bizarre, since I know the correct pronunciation, and had always used it previous to this encounter. Must've been nervous). A co-worker, who was not even involved in the conversation, corrected me in this manner: "what's a lair-nix? I've never heard of one. Most people have a lair-inks". I wanted to punch him in his throat and say "I meant the thing right there".

Management speak. Mix and match: synergies, synergy, synergize, best-of-breed, best-in-class, productize, productizing, leverage, paradigm (when "model" or "structure", will do), "impact" and "architect" as verbs in general, "architect" as a verb when you could just say "design", "opportunity" for "problem" (this is only annoying when the speaker never uses "problem"), "bottom line", "we need to put or [company group type] hats on", and the one which annoys me the most, "proactive" (almost always said when "preemptive" was meant). I realize that some of these words and phrases are necessary to avoid wordier constructions, but they are still annoying, and usually ungrammatical. If management folks would vary their speech more, I could live with their more occasional use. But they do not vary their speech.

Meetings scheduled for more than two hours with no scheduled bathroom breaks. What is wrong with a person who would schedule a meeting like that?

When sports announcers say "the [team] are within two" to mean that there is now a two point difference in the score. No, the team are not within two, they are within three.

When football announcers use the non-word "defensed" to mean "defended against" or "contained".

When announcers use the words or phrases, "he's a gamer", "he's a competitor" or "take [his/her/their] game to the next level".

When announcers who are older, or have no on-air history of it, adopt slang when calling games. Hearing these guys use phrases like "take it to the rack", "pass the rock", and "that bitch got punked, y'all", is painful.

When sports announcers always say the full name of the league and never its abbreviation. I'm pretty sure this is because they are told that saying the full name will pad the broadcast, if by only a few seconds. Perhaps I shouldn't resent this, given how stupid or pointless much of the stuff they say is anyway. Perhaps I end up being spared a couple of dumb comments which were crowded out by this habit of theirs.

Incorrect use of infer/imply.

"Thru".

"Back in the day", unless you're breaking off some rap lyrics.

"Ultraconservative".

"Radical right-wingers". Right-wingers aren't radical, they're reactionary.

"Politically Incorrect". If Bill Maher is politically incorrect then the phrase no longer has meaning.

Che T-shirts. Except for the ones here.

In a text, randomly, or in alternate paragraphs or chapters, changing the gender of pronouns when discussing hypotheticals or procedures where one's sex has no bearing on the subject matter, because the author perceives it as less sexist, or is afraid others will see him (or her, heh) as sexist if he (or she) sticks to the masculine. And I don't care if you go feminine, just pick one or the other if the subject doesn't demand gender-specificity.

People who pay no attention to anything in a parking lot but themselves, and so walk straight down the middle of a lane when it is busy. Or even if it isn't. It drives me crazy either way. What is wrong with you people? Are you stupid? Or are you so self-centered that you don't care if the people who are driving (and remember, that used to be you just a few minutes or hours ago) can't make progress because you meat sacks can't walk three feet to your left or right? Makes me want to teach them a 2500 pound lesson. Jerks.

Bumper stickers. With a few exceptions, but they are few.

People who call you on the phone and demand, "who is this?", without first saying who they are. Once, upon receiving one of these calls, I said to the guy, "who the hell are you?" Unfortunately for me, he replied, "your father." (and it really was)

Vanity plates, unless extraordinarily clever, or displayed on the cars of my friends.

"Like" supplanting "uh" as a verbal placeholder.

When someone declines your invitation to something by telling you how much they hate whatever it is you've invited them to. Actually, what's even worse is when someone who has overheard the invitation, but who hasn't been invited, and isn't involved in the conversation, interjects how much he or she hates the thing or activity put forth. Remember larynx corrector guy above? Yep, he does this too.

People who write lengthy parenthetical statements (like me). Well, that last one was short (although if you've read this entire post until here you know that some of my parenthetical digressions can be lengthy) but I'm sure you see what I mean.

People like me who use ". or ." inconsistently.

That Guy Crouchback still hasn't fixed his link to me saying "[Gately] gave up updating for Lent and never took it up again". It makes me cry.


*I don't think it's hypocritical, since I very rarely correct someone else's grammar or usage, and only then when I am alone with them, and very gently. But YPMV (Your Perception May Vary).  ¶ 17:12