I hate when people use phrases that are shortened to the point of incompleteness. I am not talking about the now mainstream internet lingo, like IDK, my BFF Jill?, which is its own brand of infuriating. I am talking about when people say things like, "I am on my way to grab a vegan spring roll and a mineral water. Would you like to come with?" My opinion of ending things with prepositions notwithstanding, this is the sort of sentence that would make want to cause as much offense as possible: by walking away without even answering the question and ordering a hamburger at the nearest, greasiest location that served one. Then kicking a nearby dog for good measure.
There are others, too. See you in a few. A few what? Seconds? Days? I know you are probably thinking something along the lines of, "That's clearly context related, Engineer." You know what else is context related? Your face. How is that better than saying, "See you in a few minutes," or "See you in a bit," which is the same length. Or, if you're really that lazy, "See you"? That removes the completely ambiguous and unnecessary statement of "a few." My seventh grade biology teacher used to say, "No naked numbers!" and this reminds me of that. She said she meant that we were to always include unites with our numbers, but I always thought that she secretly was just a little prudish and wanted to repress 4's sexuality. I'm not going answer these people until they tell me with whom or a few what. Finish your sentences, jerks.
I never really got on board with calling Ultimate Frisbee just "Ultimate" either. I feel like that would be like calling Super Mario Brothers "Super." [Don't misunderstand me: I'm not saying that Super Mario Brothers isn't super; I am saying it should be called "Mario."] I really hate things that are described by their modifier rather than the modified word. Consider this example: if someone offered you a peanut butter and milk, you would probably say, "What, like on a stick?" But you'd be missing out, because he really meant peanut butter cookies, and it wouldn't be your fault! Nobody calls peanut butter cookies just peanut butters, or pound cake pound. How come Ultimate Frisbee gets this exception? I don't have time to ponder this question, because I have to go in a few. Hey, do you want to come with? No? Well, I hope you keep reading How.
4 comments:
I think ultimate gets away with its name because:
a) people have an obsession with shortening names of things, and 'ultimate frisbee' has way too many syllables
b) 'frisbee' is playing catch
c) nothing else is called ultimate, except maybe one of those faux fighting shows on tv, and nobody cares about those.
Ultimate gets away with it because no one with any sense plays it.
And I absolutely hate it when people say "You wanna come with?" or anything along those lines. If you're going to shorten the sentence then shorten it and don't be a pansy about it. It should either be "You wanna come with us/me?" or "You wanna come?" Of course when said at the wrong time it would have an unexpected sexual innuendo.
I think you're a genius Luke. And lighten up, Steve.
I am one of those weird people who actually reads license agreements and terms of service for software and after reading your post was looking at the Blogger Content Policy. At first glance when I saw that "hateful content" based on "veteran status" I thought vegan status and was thinking that you were in trouble!
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