Comedic "things you would ban": minor things that irritate you

[birchesgreen]

Surely an English teacher would know that language changes. We don't use "thou" or "forsooth" these days, well unless you are Jacob Rees Mogg perhaps.

 

[ABB125]

Surely an English teacher would know that language changes. We don't use "thou" or "forsooth" these days, well unless you are Jacob Rees Mogg perhaps.

That's a rather declivitous path you're taking there...

(I'm not sure if "declivitous" is actually an archaic word, or merely superfluous in the modern vocabulary. I only discovered its existence a few days ago!)

 

[Gloster]

It may have been mentioned already, but the excessive and ungrammatical use of good. ‘I’m good with that.’ ‘Are you good?’ (In the second case I am tempted to say that I haven’t been good for years.) If you mean that something is acceptable or want to know if it is, say so using words that mean that the statement can’t be confused or misunderstood.

My father had a little bit of doggerel:

There was a little girl
With a little curl
Right in the middle of her forehead.

When she was good
She was very, very good
And when she was bad she was...much more popular.

 

[D821]

Surely an English teacher would know that language changes. We don't use "thou" or "forsooth" these days, well unless you are Jacob Rees Mogg perhaps.

"A language is a constantly evolving entity", as I once heard.

I'd like to add to the list people who make reference to "kids" as being a word to describe young goats, and not children.

 

[Calthrop]

That's a rather declivitous path you're taking there...

(I'm not sure if "declivitous" is actually an archaic word, or merely superfluous in the modern vocabulary. I only discovered its existence a few days ago!)

This has been, also, my first encounter with "declivitous". The New Shorter Oxford Dictionary gives for it, as well, a slightly shorter equivalent: "declivous". The only time I have ever hitherto come across this small family of words, was very long ago -- and involved the noun "declivity", in a cited instance of "facetious verbosity". This was the sentence: "I was descending the declivity with such excessive velocity that I lost my centre of gravity and was precipitated upon the arterial highway".

 

[ABB125]

"I was descending the declivity with such excessive velocity that I lost my centre of gravity and was precipitated upon the arterial highway".

In other words, you fell over!

 

[Calthrop]

Never say in two words, what can be expressed in twenty ...

 

[yorksrob]

People requesting modern songs on Radio 2.

 

[duncanp]

People requesting modern songs on Radio 2.

And I would ban pointless trails on Radio 2 every half hour

There might be a case for trailing a one off special program, but not routine trails for the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, or trails that begin "...on BBC 1..." or "...on BBC I Player..."

Someone who wants to find out what is on BBC1 or BBC I Player is not going to sit glued to Radio 2 in order to find out what to watch or listen to.

 

[yorksrob]

And I would ban pointless trails on Radio 2 every half hour

There might be a case for trailing a one off special program, but not routine trails for the Zoe Ball Breakfast Show, or trails that begin "...on BBC 1..." or "...on BBC I Player..."

Someone who wants to find out what is on BBC1 or BBC I Player is not going to sit glued to Radio 2 in order to find out what to watch or listen to.

I agree, especially when said trailer has been heard fifteen times already !

 

[Bletchleyite]

Expanding on that theme:

People - ususally young - saying "I was like" instead of "I said" or "I was saying".

That to be fair has a different meaning. "I was like" is more a way of saying "I reacted like this:" involving fully acting the reaction including body language. Language changes, I guess.

and

People - usually young - saying "Can I get....?" instead of "May I have....?"

Best answer to that is "Yes, of course, it's over there"

I think that is an Aussie-ism that possibly got in via the various Aussie soaps?

 

[duncanp]

I agree, especially when said trailer has been heard fifteen times already !

In fact, can we just ban the present management of Radio 2.

Glad to see that Paul O'Grady is back next Sunday (22nd May) at 5pm.

Whoever decided that he should only be on for 13 weeks at a time should be banned from ever working on any radio station again.

And can we please bury the shouty trail "...Listen Live, on the BBC Sounds App!!.." (after almost every new bulletin) at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Really gets on my nerves.

Sir Terry Wogan must be turning in his grave.

 

[yorksrob]

In fact, can we just ban the present management of Radio 2.

Glad to see that Paul O'Grady is back next Sunday (22nd May) at 5pm.

Whoever decided that he should only be on for 13 weeks at a time should be banned from ever working on any radio station again.

And can we please bury the shouty trail "...Listen Live, on the BBC Sounds App!!.." (after almost every new bulletin) at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Really gets on my nerves.

Sir Terry Wogan must be turning in his grave.

Yes it will be good to have Paul and Malcolm back bickering !

I believe he goes off to do his telly programmes.

 

[Madge Wildfire]

I would love to ban women who talk like croaking frogs, especially on TV. Apparently, it is an American craze called Vocal Fry, and it is mega annoying (well, to me anyway).

 

[py_megapixel]

I would like to ban companies that we buy electricity from being called energy "suppliers".

What on earth are they actually supplying to their customers? It's not energy... National Grid does that.

 

[GoneSouth]

I would like to ban companies that we buy electricity from being called energy "suppliers".

What on earth are they actually supplying to their customers? It's not energy... National Grid does that.

I think they’re essentially privatised tax collectors

 

[Runningaround]

Nationwide adverts who are just people going on and on talking absolute rubbish. Have they read to much internet forums or is it just that banks have removed so many face to face staff they no longer know how people talk in person anymore?
The ones that do talk like this are sitting on their own at the corner of the bar and aren't people that should used for marketing your product

 

[32475]

To prevent anyone answering ‘Good’ to the question ‘How are you?’ which is a relatively new fad and annoyance, the question is adjusted quite simply to ‘Are you well?’

 

[D821]

What's wrong with saying good? You could still use it as answer to your second question.

 

[D6130]

What's wrong with saying good? You could still use it as answer to your second question.

'Good' is an adjective; 'well' is an adverb. If someone asks how you are, the correct answer is to use an adverb ('are' being a verb). If, on the other hand, someone asks you 'how was your breakfast?', the answer would 'good' because good is an adjective describing 'breakfast' which is a noun.

 

[gg1]

What's wrong with saying good? You could still use it as answer to your second question.

IMO there's nothing wrong with the answer, it's the uses of an insincere 'How are you?' or 'Are you well?' as a substitute for hello/hi/good morning etc which grates.

 

[37078xotTE]

People going massively off topic on forums !!

 

[D6130]

IMO there's nothing wrong with the answer, it's the uses of an insincere 'How are you?' or 'Are you well?' as a substitute for hello/hi/good morning etc which grates.

'Are you well?' is a common greeting in many parts of Yorkshire....and has been for many years. It's used much more than the stereotypical 'Ey up!'.

 

[gg1]

'Are you well?' is a common greeting in many parts of Yorkshire....and has been for many years. It's used much more than the stereotypical 'Ey up!'.

Well I didn't know that, I thought it was an Americanism rather than a Yorkshirism

 

[61653 HTAFC]

This could possibly go in the "You know you're getting old when..." thread, but I'll put it here.

It really grinds my gears when people (usually younger, but not exclusively) refer to an individual vinyl record as "a vinyl". It's called A RECORD. We don't call books "a paper" or trains "a metal" do we? So why are records allowed to suffer this indignity?

 

[Bletchleyite]

This could possibly go in the "You know you're getting old when..." thread, but I'll put it here.

It really grinds my gears when people (usually younger, but not exclusively) refer to an individual vinyl record as "a vinyl". It's called A RECORD. We don't call books "a paper" or trains "a metal" do we? So why are records allowed to suffer this indignity?

You actually do seem to get that sort of thing in various "enthusiast"/professional circles to use slightly "offbeat" or overgenericised terms like that as a bit of a signifier of being "in". Here are a few:

Computers are almost always referred to as "machines" by IT people
Canoeists/kayakers refer to their "boat"
US railroaders tend I believe to refer to a train as "equipment"
The airline industry and frequent flyer circles sometimes refer to "metal" instead of aircraft in some cases, e.g. "This flight will be operated by American Airlines metal"
People who do an activity where helmets are normally worn almost always call it their "lid"

So I guess this has sort of arisen by the way listening to vinyl records has become a small, specialised "club" of sorts, with everyone else streaming (or at least using CDs or MP3s).

 

[61653 HTAFC]

You actually do seem to get that sort of thing in various "enthusiast"/professional circles to use slightly "offbeat" or overgenericised terms like that as a bit of a signifier of being "in". Here are a few:

Computers are almost always referred to as "machines" by IT people
Canoeists/kayakers refer to their "boat"
US railroaders tend I believe to refer to a train as "equipment"
The airline industry and frequent flyer circles sometimes refer to "metal" instead of aircraft in some cases, e.g. "This flight will be operated by American Airlines metal"
People who do an activity where helmets are normally worn almost always call it their "lid"

So I guess this has sort of arisen by the way listening to vinyl records has become a small, specialised "club" of sorts, with everyone else streaming (or at least using CDs or MP3s).

No issue with any of the others, it's just that "vinyl" is a material not a medium. If I got my hands on a really old "78" that was made of shellac, it would still be a record, but calling it "a vinyl" would be wrong on two counts rather than just one.

 

[Paul Jones 88]

Passengers on Southeastern asking me about trains because I've got a bag that is vaguely in Southeastern colours, I am not staff so go away, I don't know what time the train to Wadhurst is coming, and to the woman who asked me how long the train to Paddock Wood is, 160 metres, love.

 

[adrock1976]

I would ban BT Openreach from mucking around in the street cabinet just along the road from me, as everytime they muck with something, the internet connection constantly keeps on dropping every couple of hours for the next 7 to 10 days or so. I am not the only person this has happened to.

A good idea would be for them to leave the cabinet alone for at least 6 months or so, so as to save the constant need to constantly muck around with things and causing internet connections to drop constantly.

 

[Runningaround]

Passengers on Southeastern asking me about trains because I've got a bag that is vaguely in Southeastern colours, I am not staff so go away, I don't know what time the train to Wadhurst is coming, and to the woman who asked me how long the train to Paddock Wood is, 160 metres, love.

Do you think it's the bag or that you might look like you know something about trains? Considering the forum you're on it's not a wild assumption they've made
If there aren't any staff around in an unfamiliar station there are certain things I look out for in seeing who may know their way around.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 17 May 2022 ==

I would ban BT Openreach from mucking around in the street cabinet just along the road from me, as everytime they muck with something, the internet connection constantly keeps on dropping every couple of hours for the next 7 to 10 days or so. I am not the only person this has happened to.

A good idea would be for them to leave the cabinet alone for at least 6 months or so, so as to save the constant need to constantly muck around with things and causing internet connections to drop constantly.

You can claim back compo for each day if your internet speed drops below a level between your house and their things.