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Really minor annoyances

HellsBells said:
See now, “grinds my gears” boils my piss. It’s very American. Whenever I hear it, I immediately think “that should be “boils my piss”. “
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My dad taught me grinds my gears. He's an engineer (like my long lost degree) but it's very literal. If you get something in gears it causes instant failure and noise.
 

BiG said:
I’ve been tempted to wrap presents in aluminium foil in the past. Well, it’s shiny and you can fold it over. Tie a ribbon around it - bobs yer uncle.

I even googled different coloured tin foil. But its expensive iirc.
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After having a stroke, my dad lost the use of one arm. We decided to wrap presents for him in material with a ribbon, then he could easily unwrap them one handed.

My mam commented on how posh they looked (we bought some nice Christmas material), so we explained and said they are reusable and we can use them for future presents. She didn't quite get it, swarmed in like a vulture to nab the material "this will be great for the church craft box" and off it disappeared, where it probably still sits 10 years later unused. It probably cost us more than the presents, so it was back to cheap paper the following year.
Tex said:
The cling film box being made of such crappy cardboard these days that it completely collapses when you’ve only used half the roll. You can’t bin it off cos you need the flap with the serrated edge so every time you use it you’ve got to carefully reposition the whole thing and swipe quickly to get a clean cut otherwise everything spills out on the floor and you now have a piece of cling film the size of a postage stamp in your hand while the rest has wound itself back around the roll and made the ends invisible.
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I'm with you on that, I just can't work it.

My mam has a plastic dispenser box and it is great. Just one of these, close the lid and it is easy. None of this stretched diagonal shaped cling film that would not fit the thing you wanted to cover at her house.

Another minor annoyance. Wanting something relatively cheap and simple for years, but still failing to remember to order it when I place an amazon order, even when I'm thinking of things we need to top it up to £35 for free delivery. Add to that food fly net covers. We have some, with a couple of holes in and they are yellow and manky now. God knows what swarms of bacteria we cover food with to keep flies odd. Probably only £5 each to replace.
 
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Tex said:
I detest ‘competency’. What’s wrong with ‘competence’?

Years ago I was invited by email to take a ‘competency’ test. I replied “please don’t consider this as arrogancy or ignorancy, I don’t mean to insult your intelligency but I don’t feel motivated to complete your competency test.”

(Aye aa naar neebody likes a smart arse!)
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The ever increasing, incorrect use of 'competency' for 'competence' drives me mad. 😠

Competence and competency are two different things:
• competence - the ability to do something successfully or efficiently.
• competency - a particular skill that is needed to do a job competently.

The reason people mix them up, and have started to use the word 'competency' incorrectly, where the word 'competence' should be used, is as a result of organisations increasingly peppering job adverts/ person specifications etc, with lists of the 'competencies' required to do a particular job.

The paragraph below shows the correct use of the words 'competence', 'competency', 'competencies', 'competent', and 'competently':

This organisation values competence. We will therefore recruit competent employees, who possess the appropriate competencies, to do their jobs with competence. Any employees lacking a particular competency, will be trained in that area, until all employees acquire all requisite competencies, and are therefore deemed to have developed sufficient competence, to do their jobs competently.

Here endeth the lesson, from a really frustrated ex-teacher (hate calling myself that - 'ex-teacher' grrrr!), who really, really misses teaching! 😟
 
Becs said:
Norwegians tell the time differently. Half means half way to the next hour.

Eg: Half eight is half past seven to us.
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Exactly the same in German!

halb vier - literally "half four" - is, in fact , half past three.

The Germans rationalise this, by saying that the half 'belongs' to the next hour!
Don't know if the Norwegians have similar reasoning?
 
Steel_Straight said:
Exactly the same in German!

halb vier - literally "half four" - is, in fact , half past three.

The Germans rationalise this, by saying that the half 'belongs' to the next hour!
Don't know if the Norwegians have similar reasoning?
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Yes similar reasoning.

We have to use 24 hour clock when my daughter-in-law is here to make sure we're all ready to go out at the same time 😁
 
BiG said:
It irks me when Americans (tv announcers, news broadcasters etc) say “[something happened] Tuesday” (rather than “[something happened] ON Tuesday”.

Similarly when then say “August 5th” (rather that “5th OF August” or “August THE 5th”)

And it rankles that they express dates as MM/DD/YYYY (instead of DD/MM/YYYY)

The first two are irrational - the last one is a totally justified annoyance
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I have to draft things for Americans regularly and have to concentrate on those very points you mention as they don't flow naturally at all

They also like a comma in dates e.g - 28 May, 2025

Mad they are
 
AmblerThorn said:
I have to draft things for Americans regularly and have to concentrate on those very points you mention as they don't flow naturally at all

They also like a comma in dates e.g - 28 May, 2025

Mad they are
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Work based American stuff that used to annoy the fuck out of me included different sized paper and different type ring binders.

That doesn’t seem a great deal until you have to reproduce 50 copies of a training workbook that’s about 3 inches thick, to prepare for workshops across Europe. And you only have one original on stupid sized paper on a ring binder with three clips instead of two or four.

And then you discover that the corporate American methodology for training delivery isn’t in any way interactive, experiential or facilitative … no group discussions, exploration of principles, practical exercises, group work, breakouts … stuff to make it interesting and appeal to different learning styles …it consists of somebody at the front of a room reading the workbook out while everybody else reads along with them. At least that’s what it was like in the nineties and noughties. f***ing annoying. Coz you have to redesign the programme to deliver it to Europeans and Brits who expect something a bit less robotic
 
BiG said:
Work based American stuff that used to annoy the fuck out of me included different sized paper and different type ring binders.

That doesn’t seem a great deal until you have to reproduce 50 copies of a training workbook that’s about 3 inches thick, to prepare for workshops across Europe. And you only have one original on stupid sized paper on a ring binder with three clips instead of two or four.

And then you discover that the corporate American methodology for training delivery isn’t in any way interactive, experiential or facilitative … no group discussions, exploration of principles, practical exercises, group work, breakouts … stuff to make it interesting and appeal to different learning styles …it consists of somebody at the front of a room reading the workbook out while everybody else reads along with them. At least that’s what it was like in the nineties and noughties. f***ing annoying. Coz you have to redesign the programme to deliver it to Europeans and Brits who expect something a bit less robotic
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Attending training sessions where you have to endure break out sessions, group discussions with presentations and practical exercises. Please just let me sit at the back and daydream for the day.
 
mickb2112 said:
Autocratic dictatorships who call their countries "The Democratic Republic Of....."
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Good one. The Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. Quite possibly the least democratic government in the history of planet earth!

And the Russians don’t do socialism any favours either by calling themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Yanks still cower in fear at any mention of the ‘S’ word.
 
Tex said:
Good one. The Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. Quite possibly the least democratic government in the history of planet earth!

And the Russians don’t do socialism any favours either by calling themselves the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Yanks still cower in fear at any mention of the ‘S’ word.
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I’m not entirely sure the USSR still exists.
 
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