when a cab driver is behind you beepin, rushing around and on your tail but when your behind them they go real slow and sometimes instead of pulling over and drop passengers off and wait for payment they stop right in the middle of the block

Whenever a speaker splits an infinitive or ends a sentence with a preposition, it hits me like a punch in the face. Also, it is not uncommon for broadcasters, particularly sportscasters, to use the nominative case incorrectly when using multiple pronouns. For example they may say "between he and I." That one is like fingernails running down a chalkboard.

You mean like this: Hey Kly, where you be at?

Let's see, not a huge deal but bugs me if someone (restaurant or someone's house)pours me a cup of coffee and doesn't fill the cup. LOL Know what I mean? I mean a cup of coffee is a CUP of coffee right?

TIS

It's funny, but it doesn't bother me when written or said in a casual, familiar atmosphere. But when it's in a broadcast, staff meeting, seminar, legal proceeding, formal address, I cringe.

the coffee thing doesn't bother me as I've never had a cup in my life, but we tea drinkers get the short end of the stick because the waitresses, who're running around with the coffee pot to give refills, usually ignore the tea drinkers.

How about when you come out of your house and someone let their dog relieve themseleves right on your sidewalk and didnt clean it up. Disgusting

Yes, that IS disgusting. Also, speaking of dogs I absolutely hate it when a dog will not stop barking AND the owners are right there and don't do anything? Especially (and mostly) when I am trying to sleep. That really grinds my gears.

Way back years ago every morning I'd hear the neighbor dog bark for over an hour (early in the morning). Pissed me off. When I politely mentioned to the neighbor, she (airhead) just said "oh he barks at the squirrels or whatever."

TIS

Also something that really grinds my gears are these teenagers that wear their pants down by their thighs and their underwear is out. Who wants to see that? Their pants are so low that they cant even walk right

Grammar snob .

Oh, speaking of grammar, I just thought of this. When I was working at the school, we all had walkie-talkie radios and would communicate to the administrator if he/she were out on campus, the custodians, campus supervisors, etc.

Our health tech (nurse) would many times get on the radio looking for someone and would always ask, "where you at?" That ALWAYS bugged me. Should be "where are you?" Nobody else ever commented/complained about it. One of those little "irks" that did grind my gears.

Oh and you talk about wearing pants hanging down your ass. Boy, that was the style in the school (middle school). I'd get so many dress code violations reported. We had twist ties in the office for when kids were sent up with underwear showing we'd make them use them or get a belt. We all laughed one time when one kid's pants actually DID fall down.

One time, driving home from work, I see a high school kid walking down the street with a cell phone in one hand and holding up his pants which were falling down with the other hand. One of the worst fashion styles IMHO

TIS

To each his own, but I just don't understand the pants falling down thing. I read somewhere that it started in prison. They take your belt away, so your pants droop.

Why emulate such a thing?

Thats pretty good TIS. LOL

My number one pet hate is when people walk slowly in front of you in the street!!! Agh I got place to be and your holding me up!

Thats their way of being passive aggressive. They know it would annoy you, so do it all the more.

Just like a boy racer driving slow and holding up the other seven cars behind it. The peoples perception is that boy racers drive fast, so when one holds you up it all feels deliberate.

Kly, it's part of a long-term dumbing-down trend in teaching and learning basic English--grammar, spelling and composition. All you have to do is pick up a newspaper or read an online article to observe that even "educated" people who have chosen careers as communicators simply can't get it right. When I worked at Bell Laboratories, our president told me that he believed only two classes of professionals had to be precise in communicating--lawyers and engineers (I think he aimed that at me, because I was his speechwriter).

My pet peeve is people who shout into cellphones without any regard for anyone else nearby.

That's one of my biggest, TB.

And I know that I mentioned this one a similar thread a few years back:

When I go into a mega-supermarket, like Stop and Shop or Publix. The bigger stores in New York and Florida almost always have those motorized carriage/carts for the handicapped. When I see someone tooling around the store in one of those, only to find out in the parking lot that they're as able-bodied as the rest of us, my blood absolutely boils.

Fat, lazy bastards .

Is there any way you guys can turn that part of yourselves off?

I have people who dislike that I'm writing a book. So, instead of getting mad at them, I laugh and realise:

Haters only make me stronger and boost my drive to success.

Their negative energy I can use for my positive gain.

In the past, those types of people really got on my nerves and were zapping my strength.

But, I woke up. Can you guys?

Beside the idiotic way people drive...down here in South Jersey the locals have two strange mispronunciations:
draw, saw, is pronounced drawl and sawl. Where did they pick up the "L"?

They also have a couple of common phrases that I don't recall being germaine to New York (from where I come from,,,duh?).

They add a "ya' know what I mean?" to the end of something they are trying to explain to you. So I respond, "Yes, I know what you mean, do you know what you mean?" To me it is an abbreviated way of saying, I am too inarticulate to tell you what I really mean, so help me out and tell me what I meant to say to you. They also say, "no problem" instead of "you are welcome", and "have a goo-won, (good won)" instead of "have a nice day".

People who incorrectly use it's and its, to, too and two,your and you're and they're, their and there.

TB, I'm amazed that my children have no clue about what I consider "common knowledge". For example, my daughter had no idea who Ferdinand and Isabella were. The simple fact that they financed Columbus's journey was drilled into my head from an early age, I was shocked that the names meant nothing to her. I asked a carpool of her friends and only one, who is a history junkie, knew the answer.

SB, ignorance of the basic stuff we were taught in grade school---English, History and Geography--is pandemic, not only among kids, but amog young people with college degrees.

Teddy Kennedy, when pushing for more money for basic education in those areas, said decades ago that it was a practical investment: "These are the people who'll one day be administering your Social Security and Medicare accounts."

I see that all the time in the papers my students submit (it shows up sometimes in the posts here - one of them is 70's v. the correct 70s). I am startled that so many of my female students never heard of Roe v. Wade.

How about the people that are dirty as all hell and are on the road with a sign need money for food traveling imagine that they would travel and not have any money on them. or the sign says will work for food, that really grinds my gears

Can't believe it. I'm watching The Tonight Show and what shows up on screen during one of Jay's segments: 70's.

Our local paper is full of that kind of stuff. But I guess we'd expect better of "The Newspaper of Record." Right??

A few years ago, the New York Times had an interesting feature article on a wealthy retired NYer who owned and flew a LearJet. His generousity was that, if you needed an organ transplant, and an organ was available at some distant hospital but you needed to get there within a few hours, he'd fly you there. The reporter wrote: "Mr. Smith declined to identify the source of his wealth, stating that he did not want to be portrayed as 'to the manner born.'"

Oh, dear. Why do they do that? Where are the editors?

I once worked as office manager of an architectural firm that specialized in Construction Management. The architects used to submit their reports either in longhand or via mini-cassette and part of my job was to type them up. I was appalled at their poor grammatical skills. It's not like they had five years of college or anything.

They don't call it the dumbing down of society for nothing .

Is there any way you guys can stop being annoyed and just act positive towards the percieved offence by laughing at it?

Or is it something you have to do to believe your alive?

DeMeo, could you enlighten us on the secret of just acting positive. Laughing doesn't seem to work for me. It's not something I have to do to believe I'm alive. I have many other indicators that tell me I'm alive. Your wisdom in this matter is greatly appreciated.

It all depends on a persons environment. Some are brought up in such negative surroundings that they can't break the cycle and each setback they encounter just lowers their self esteem.

To survive this planet and its people, you need to look into yourself and your strengths. With me, this took years and after much trouble from narcissists and passive aggressive people I learned one important thing:

That it is their problem and not mine. They can drag themselves down all they want, I'll carry on doing what I'm doing even though they feel offended by it.

I've really tried to include others, so that they could benefit from something that I have benefited from. They aren't interested, because it was "my idea" and they weren't the centre of attention. Some people like to be the ones calling the shots and control things from its beginning to its end.

Bettering yourself is easy if you know what to do. Now, JK Rowling is a great example. The Harry Potter writer who now has many millions started writing because she was broke and living in a cold home. She couldn't afford the heating.

She got off her ass and did something about it, unlike those people who say to your face "I wanna be rich someday". When that 'someday' arrives, they realise they have aged many years and are no better off. Some people stupidly believe that somebody would give them the money or they win it on that dream - the lottery.

For most people, living in society today with the money they earn, things don't stretch far enough. These people will never recover into the position that helps them. The average savings in my country is between £5,000 to £8,000 (so the information says). But to make any real return in a great rate, you'd have to have £30,000 and above to even get that. Plus, locking it up for years which most people can't do. They simply refuse to change their circumstances and some carry on spending like it was going out of fashion and running up debts.

So, the secret to acting positive is to look into yourself and what you can do. Its also about not caring what others think of you. If you wanna write a book like me, then do so. Some people will go against you because it threatens them and how they believe you should be.

Most can't progress because we live in a society and most people are connected to others through family and friendships and this helps strengthen the negative outlook you have, and the one that utimately destroys your drive to success.

The world is a dark place, but to make some change and try and help others you first have to help yourself.

I woke up and saw that things aren't always as they seem and the smiles on the faces of people I see are mostly fake and hiding some dangerous agenda.

God, where did you grow up? In a dungeon?

Not quite, but I did grow up through the tough economic times of the early 1990s and remembered how little money I had.

So, as an adult, I made sure I had plenty. And I don't mean a few k. I'm talking a lot more.