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Thursday, January 07, 2010

Annoyances

I suppose all of us have our little annoyances, pet peeves that get us going. Here are a few of mine. What are some of yours?

Without music. On the NBC a cappella singing competition "The Sing-Off"
, one of the judges described one group's performance as "totally without music" (or something like that). Wrong. You don't need instruments to have music. Unaccompanied singing voices is music too.
Tradition smadition. Sometimes it is annoying to hear folks parroting the traditional tradition line of one Sacred Harp book over another, or one area's practices over another. Tradition is good; I approve of it. But, in fact, all have changed some.
Get your decades right. Just as many didn't figure out that the new millennium began on January 1, 2001 rather than January 1, 2000, it seems some think we just concluding the first decade of this new millennium -- for example, 50 most popular names of the decade
. Wrong. There was no "O" year, so decade combinations run from 1 to 10, not 0 to 9.
Hot water heater? If the water were hot, you wouldn't need a heater!!
I forgot. AND my number one pet peeve -- the fact that increasingly I can't remember names, things, places.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Robert, I'm glad you touched on the decade tradition more in depth from a comment made from a previous post. When some doomsdayers' predictions did not come to pass on 01/01/2000, they started searching for an explanation, and brought up this very rule. Of course, as usual, they were wrong, as the world did not end on 01/01/2001. I guess if anything would be a pet peeve, it is man continually thinking he know as much as God. If he could just somehow be convinced otherwise.

Some others off the top of my head:

Excuses for the sake of not being truthful. I always think of a conversation I had with a gentleman once. He said he had not been to church in over a year, because something always came up. Have you ever heard someone say they have not been to a ball game in over a year because something always comes up?

Then there is the matter of stereotyping. I find this is usually done out of ignorance on a particular topic of any sort.Certain things just seem to cross their minds out of lack of anything else. One that stands out would be those who always associate Catholics and eating fish on Fridays.

Another one would be the argument that it must be right because that's the way it's always been done. Well has it really? Some might be surprised that it really hasn't always been done that particular way.

The notion of "keeping up with the Joneses" would be another one. Usually this ends up in a retreat rather than keeping pace.

Lastly, I think of so many who are famous and noteworthy that get away with wrongdoing just because of who they are. Look at all of these athletes who receive nothing more than a slap on the wrist. After it's all over with, they are more revered than ever before.

Jim1927 said...

Where are you from? If I was from, I wouldn't be there. Question asked about where you live!!!!
When I say England, they immediately assume I am in England.

Many Americans respond with "yep" when you say thank you for something.Now, what does that mean?

Where is heaven and hell? Why, heaven is up there ad hell is down there. So, heaven is up in the clouds and hell is in the centre of the earth. Hmmmm. Fit that into theology.

Cheers,

Jim

R. L. Vaughn said...

A lady at work would constantly (and correctly) chide us for saying "Where are you at?" instead of "Where are you?"

Anonymous said...

A pet peeve of mine is people who correct others' language as if it were incorrect, when in fact it is just a perfectly valid dialect!

Anonymous said...

We must stand behind all of the misstatements we have made in the past, and in the future. Whether politically uncorrect or not, we just wonder if they will become more few? Anyway, verbosity only leads to unclear, inarticulate statements.