Since I think we haven’t been having enough fun lately on OSNews, I decided it’s time we do something fun for a change. We all have our little pet annoyances when it comes to other people’s comments. Fixed expressions or comment styles that annoy the living daylights out of you. Here are mine.
“My 2 cents”
This has to be one of the most superfluous fixed expression in the history of the internet. Unless you regularly get asked to post other people’s opinions under your own OSNews account, “my two cents” or “but that’s just my opinion” serve absolutely zero purpose. They’re just as annoying empty statements online as they are offline.
“I recently ditched Windows and…”
So, you switched away from Windows to another operating system – full time – and you’re so proud of it that you have to squeeze into every possible story – no matter how unrelated the subject matter. Switching away from Windows doesn’t make you special. It doesn’t make you cool. It’s certainly not information that has any effect on the world around you whatsoever.
Thousands of people switch away from Windows every day. It’s like bragging about waking up in the morning.
“80% of users use only 20% of the functionality”
A standard quote, which is most often used when trying to defend OpenOffice.org. The statement is probably entirely correct, and I’m sure few people use more than 20% of the functionality of the more complex applications out there – the problem is just that for every user, it’s a different 20%. Please, stop quoting the 80/20 rule to justify an application which lacks in functionality compared to its competition.
“I’m not a fanboy…”
Yes you are.
A lack of punctuation
Not using punctuation (which includes capital letters) does not, I repeat, it does not make you cool. It doesn’t make you seem defiant, it doesn’t make you different, it doesn’t make you stand out. It only makes you look lazy and incapable. By not using punctuation you’re advertising your own incompetence.
A lack of paragraphs
Related to not using punctuation, but maybe even more annoying. A lack of punctuation is technically bearable, but a lack of paragraphs makes your comment completely and utterly unreadable. A paragraph is a self-contained unit of discourse which covers a single point or idea. By not using paragraphs, you sound like a raving disorganised lunatic. Please lay off the coffee, and sit on your lawn and do nothing for a while.
Staccato comments
A staccato comment presents an entirely different point in every sentence, making it impossible to follow what you’re trying to say. Like a lack of punctuation and/or paragraphs, this is related to coherency. A comment which lacks coherency is a bad comment.
“What’s the point of this operating system?”
Say you and your wife decide to have another baby. After a lot of hard work, she gets pregnant. After nine difficult months and the troubles of childbirth, youbring a new beautiful little person into this world. You could not be happier. This is the best moment of your life.
Then imagine me walking in, and saying: “What’s the point in yet another human being?”
“I have a MAC.”
I’m sure you do. If you’re commenting on OSNews, you’ve got a MAC. In fact, I’ve got a whole boatload of MACs. I’ve got about as many MACs as I have network interface cards and network adapters. Please, for the love of the gods: the correct abbreviation of “Macintosh” is “Mac”. “MAC” is an acronym which stands for Media Access Control (among a whole load of other things).
“Why is this on OSNews?”
Because I say so.
This is just a selection. I’m sure you boys and girls can come up with a load of other recurring comment annoyances.
How about “X – go go go!”?
I hate it when people reply with something totally unrelated to a thread at the top just to get greater exposure.
Oh, wait!
Edited 2009-08-05 02:34 UTC
Why is this on OSnews?
*ducks*
🙂
Know the difference between your and you’re.
Edited 2009-08-04 16:44 UTC
True. Also, most of the internet seems to have forgotten the difference between then and than. Windows doesn’t have a bigger marketshare then anything. It probably has a bigger marketshare than OSX or Linux, though.
The one that annoys me most often is when people don’t correctly differentiate between it’s and its.
Your, your; than, then; it’s, its – they all sound similar but have totally different meanings. People who make these errors, please take a few seconds to read over what you’ve just written. Using the correct word will not only prevent you from looking foolish, it will also make it much easier for other people to figure out what your saying.
Edited 2009-08-04 20:17 UTC
Hahahaha I just realised I typed your by accident, and now I can’t edit or delete the comment. Maybe I should be more understanding with other people’s typos.
Edited 2009-08-05 03:23 UTC
And did you then think, “well, mine was a typo, but I know the difference. Those other people do it out of ignorance.” That’s what I tend to think when I make similar mistakes, whether it be in grammar or driving. (“Oops, cut him off. But _I’m_ not being a jerk!”) I say we make a call for greater understanding of mistakes in comments! Whose with me?
Tolerance is always a good ting. There is a big difference between nitpicking just to feel smarter, and constructive criticism.
I thought you did that on purpose.
Which is okay in my book because those words were in origin the same, generally have been pronounced the same through history and have often been spelled the same. We get by with just one “when” instead of also have “whan”, so why do we need “than”?
If you think than and then are pronounced the same… you might be a redneck.
They are only pronounced differently because they have been spelled differently. It’s like how people put a ‘t’ in “often”, even though the ‘t’ is long gone. It only remains in spelling. Then people saw the spelling and started pronouncing the ‘t’. It’s still wrong.
Both “then” and “than” come from Old English “þonne” or “þanne”, which regularly changes to “then” in Middle English and is fairly consistently spelled “then” (or “þen”) where we would use both “than” and “then”. If there’s any different in pronunciation, it is solely because of the artificial distinction in spelling.
You are wrong on both counts. Pronouncing the ‘t’ in often, and a difference in the pronounciation in then and than, are entirely dependent on your accent. In Australia we have two general accents, and they loosely translate to country and urban accents. Both accents sound similar to foreign ears.
The urban accent, and UK “received pronounciation” from which it evovled, both pronounce the ‘t’ in often, and they always have.
Additionally, most UK accents, and all Australian accents show a clear difference in the pronounciation of then and than, and they always have.
Uhh, no. Okay, it may be true that different dialects have adopted the spelling pronunciation with the ‘t’ to greater and lesser degrees. Here in America it’s fairly rare (although more common than I’d like). It’s still a spelling pronunciation. You could convince me that it’s not a spelling pronunciation in your dialect if people also pronounce “listen”, “hasten”, “fasten”, “soften” and “chestnut” with a ‘t’ (and I really hope they don’t because that would sound terrible).
Yep in UK English (first!) all those words are pronounced with the “t” – in pretty much all the dialects I can think of. Of course we mangle the pronunciation of most words in our own special accents but the t is nearly always evident.
Anybody else find it ironic that an American is giving the world a lesson in English…..:-)
My pet peeve is “aluminum” gaaarggghhhhh – it’s “aluminium”!
I’m only jealous because we lost the colony!
It’s funny that you say that because when I look those words up on both US and UK dictionaries, not a one shows that the ‘t’ is to be pronounced. Nor have I ever heard a British person say “liss-ten” instead of “lissen” (for “listen”).
You also pronounce the ‘h’ in herb…
As Eddie Izzard said, it’s becausing there’s an effing ‘h’ in it.
Funny because I can’t think of a single British dialect or accent pronounces the ‘t’ in “listen”, “hasten”, “fasten”, “soften” and “chestnut”. However, I would agree that the the ‘t’ in ‘often’ is always pronounced in British dialects and accents – I really can’t think of any exceptions. Again we usually pronounce ‘then’ and ‘than’ differently, but sometimes the vowel will be silent – the incorrect use of ‘then’ is very rare in the UK.
As for “then” and “than”, they can’t have because it came from the same word whose spelling was not regularly kept distinct until the last few centuries (not until the 1700s was the spelling consistently distinguished between “than” and “then”). And even now that some people do distinguish these words, it’s only in careful pronunciation that people maintain the distinction. Both words are almost always unstressed and unstressed syllables in English are almost invariably pronounced with schwas, regardless of the nature of the original vowel. As such, English phonological rules practically prohibit a difference in pronunciation between the two words.
Edited 2009-08-05 05:07 UTC
You seem to be suffering from the assumption that English follows some kind of logic when it comes to pronounciation.
The vocalisation of the ‘t’ in all of the examples you gave were lost over time, rather than recently gained. It’s just that in a large group of English accents, it was not lost. It is therefore not wrong, just different. In fact it could be argued that pronouncing the ‘t’ is more correct as it is closer to the original.
This statement could not be more wrong. I have to force myself to imagine a sentence where these words are pronounced the same, and no native speaker of either the UK or Australia would ever do so.
The fact that they are both born of the same root is irrelevant. Languages evolve, and they are now two separate words with separate meanings.
Yes, it is true that the ‘t’ was originally there, or else the spelling wouldn’t have had it in the first place. However, it was uniformly lost as part of a general sound change that simplified consonant clusters ending in obstruents (I gave some examples in another post). So the new state of things became that the ‘t’ was not pronounced. Then, some people started deciding that it should be pronounced again since it was retained in spelling. This is an artificial change. I suppose you could deem it legitimate, but I would put it in the same category as “between you and I” — an affected pronunciation meant to make the speaker sound more important and educated.
As for “than” vs. “then” — I highly doubt you do actually distinguish them in all contexts, you just think you do (people tend to assume they pronounce things certain ways because of the spelling or the phonology of the word, ignoring the fact that what actually comes out is sometimes quite different — for example, the ‘p’ in “spit” and the ‘b’ in “bit” are pronounced exactly the same in American English and some dialects of British English and elsewhere, yet I imagine that most people would argue that point with me quite strongly — until I pulled out sound analysis software which clearly shows that they are the same (and if you remove the ‘s’ from the beginning of the recording, you can clearly *hear* it too)).
Certainly “than” can be stressed, in which case, for those people who have adopted the non-historical pronunciation, it would, in fact, sound different from “then”. I myself would say “than” to rhyme with “tan” in those few contexts where it is stressed. But the truth is that that particular pronunciation is, in origin, a spelling one. The fact that even now, so many people still spell it “then” when they aren’t being careful (or don’t know better) should be evidence enough that “than” and “then” are generally pronounced the *same* and always have been.
Note the difference in the strong pronounciation phonetics between these two entries in a UK dictionary:
THAN: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=82226&dict=CALD
THEN: http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=82339&dict=CALD
You may highly doubt it all you wish 🙂
Wow, that’s almost exactly what I said already. The weak pronunciation prevails in the great majority of cases and the strong pronunciation is, in origin, an affected pronunciation.
No. Actually what you said is that using sound analysis you would show that they are pronounced the same. The links I sent you prove that they are not.
The links you sent me showed that they are pronounced the same. You perhaps noticed that two pronunciations were given for “than”, a strong one and a weak one. The weak one is by far the more common since the word is rarely stressed. The weak one is the same as the pronunciation for “then”. Therefore, most of the time they are pronounced the same. I argue additionally that the pronunciation of “than” in the strong case is artificial. But don’t worry, this isn’t abnormal. Most people now pronounce a strongly stressed “an” to rhyme with “tan” since it is spelled like “tan” and “fan” and so forth, but there is no etymological basis for that. Had a strongly stressed form survived* directly from Old English and not arisen from people’s analysis of the spelling, it would rhyme with “tone”, not “tan”.
*The stressed form *did* actually survive in the numeral “one”.
As a Norwegian, I get frustrated when people use all their energy correcting spelling errors and wrong use of then/than and it’s/its and such.
We’re not native English! We do not necessarily know the difference between then and than – nobody has taught us! That doesn’t make us stupid – just uninformed. If the writer is uninformed of the topic, I can understand you reacting. But it’s the finer points in English writing and grammar we are bad at (and the spell check do not help us with errors like that), not the topic at hand, and come on! You are smart enough to correct in your mind while reading, aren’t you?
Now, what I find annoying is when I read a forum that cannot be threaded and a writer entire comment is:
«@RoundTree: YES!»
Without any quote of RoundTree’s comment. Of cause there is a few hundred comments and only ten on each page. Then I have to go backwards and look for the comment made of RoundTree to find out what the writer is shouting YES to. Takes a bit of time that.
Now that’s annoying!
Nalle Berg
./nalle.
I’m Norwegian too, and I believe we were thought the difference between it’s and its in fourth grade. I’m sure then/than was mentioned at some point too.
That being said, if people keep correcting your small mistakes, you should probably take it as a compliment. They probably do not realize they’re talking someone whom native language isn’t English. From what I’ve seen, people who obviously don’t speak English very well don’t usually get the same “grammar nit-picking” replies.
Just FYI, English isn’t my native tongue, either. Why do people take stuff like personal attacks? I said it’s annoying, that’s all.
My experience as a Swede is that more Americans than Scandinavians confuse “their” and “they’re”.
Multiple languages speakers/ writers tend to be more correct than native speakers. Native speakers tend to be lazier, or more correctly, looser, in their language patterns.
The problem with non-native speakers is that they tend to be more literal. Humor, figures of speech, irony, and sarcasm go over their heads. “I’ll be back in a minute” doesn’t mean within a literal 60 seconds. Arguing with them on boards can be a pain because everything is taken literally.
They also don’t understand and mangle figures of speech and cliches, which is where I have my pet peeve – people speaking/ writing outside their level. If you don’t understand what you are saying, no one else will either.
I’ve lost count of how many ways people mangle “for all intents and purposes.” Then we see things way out there: “the tail wagging the pillow” or a “he has a potato chip on his collar.”
Try knowing the difference between leery, wary, and weary.
I’m so weary of people being tired.
And the difference between “to” and “too” and “quiet” and “quite”
Don’t make typos on on the article you’re writing.
“My 2 cents
This has to be one of the most superfluous fixed expression in the history of the internet. Unles you regularly get asked to pos tother people’s opinions under your own OSNews account, “my two cents” or “but that’s just my opinion” serve absolutely zero purpose. They’re just as annoying empty statements online as they are offline.”
This is annoying as well.
Edited 2009-08-04 16:46 UTC
I was going to say the same thing, but then I would be saying the same thing as you, which is another annoying thing to do in comments… as is posting a comment saying that I was going to say the same thing.
I hate it when people don’t proof-read their comments or their articles, Thom! 🙂
Maybe if people spent a little more time making operating systems and a little less time making ANNOYING BABIES then I would finally have UNIX on my microwave!
ROTFLMAO – Admit it, you aren’t rolling on the floor are you?
You probably aren’t laughing so hard your ASS is falling off either
Well of course it literally means our arses drop on the floor! Didn’t you know? I always carry some super-strength glue with me so I can just pick it back up and glue myself together!
And people who post the same thing you just posted… but say it better. 😉
And people who can’t add a reply to a comment in the proper place. %-(
And people who make comments that are absolutely nothing to do with the price of bread these days.
But somewhere along the way you lost your head and accidentally glued your arse to your shoulders!
mental image…. ROFLMAO… no really.
Right. And your A is still firmly connected to the rest of you. Isn’t it?
Just because of this magnificent article I finally got myself together to register here …
I guess I’d have to say that my #1 Internet forum annoyance is editors who use the phrase “boys and girls” in referrence to their readership. (Outside of romperroom.com, of course.)
Edit: Oh yeah. And people neglecting to provide a useful subject line for their posts…
Edited 2009-08-04 17:05 UTC
i hate the “boys and girls” thing almost as much as i hate individuals who feel the need to address everyone as, “kids” or “kiddos.” notice the lack of capitalization
Edited 2009-08-08 05:57 UTC
I think the time has come to retire (or severely limit the use of) such gems as FUD, troll, EEE, monopoly, year of the desktop, “Windows haz teh spyware”, etc.
All so overused that it’s ridiculous.
Agreed, if we can drop “1970’s OS”, “no one wants to work in the cli all the time”, “it lacks applications” and “it’s not easy” too.
And “it haz no photoshop, so it sucks!!!†;>.
(and “it haz no suport for hardwaer†as well)
Indeed, these terms are often misused. (You chose the word “overused”. However I think that misuse is really the key.) Both “FUD” and “troll” started out as useful, descriptive terms. However, they have lost most of their original meaning today. I don’t have an easy answer for the “troll” case. But FUD has a pretty straight forward one. Whenever I am tempted to use the term “spreading FUD”, I take the extra trouble to expand that to “spreading Fear, Uncertainty, and Doubt”, and ask myself if that use is appropriate. If so, I use it in that explicit form. If not, I choose a more appropriate term. If one is going to accuse another of doing such a thing, it’s worth spelling out explicitly. Otherwise, the actual meaning which is likely to be conveyed is simply “he’s saying things I don’t agree with”.
Edited 2009-08-04 18:50 UTC
I disagree with the comment about asking the point of a new OS. In regards to the baby analogy, the point of a baby is to satisfy the parents desire to have one. But websites that post time of birth, weight, length and all the other details of a new baby are generally of interest only to the parents and their immediate family.
If you’re writing a new OS to show how ‘leet you are and demonstrate your coding prowess, why should I care? If an OS isn’t designed to improve on all of the other OS’s in at least one area, then why should I invest my time in reading about it, much less bother downloading or learning to use it? I want to know how it’s different, how it improves my computing experience, what it can do better than than the other options out there. What itch does it scratch?
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with writing an OS just because you can. It’s a great way to teach yourself lots of interesting details about how OS’s and computers function. But if that’s all you’re doing, then I really don’t care. Have fun, more power to you but I’m no more interested in the details than I am in hearing about that oh-so-adorable expression Junior had on his face when you burped him last night.
You’ve never watched “It’s Alive!”, have you.
What if my little useless OS grows up and turns into the Windows killer? OSNews is about that, it is about bringing news about mainstream and alternative/academic/hobbyist OSes; we want to know about them, we want to see them growing up; that’s why we read OSNews [sorry, I should have said “I”]
And that’s the reason you don’t bother to comment on the damn thing!
There is a special place in hell for people who write posts making claims for which there are counter-examples which they know are are extremely obvious to most other readers, and then end their posts with “Oh, wait!”. If ever there is an Internet forum death penalty, it should surely be for that.
That has never happened in this forum.
Oh wait!
… I was sure “ditching windows” DID make you cool … and unique … and more attractive …
5. Ad hominem attacks – when you don’t like what someone posts, you proceed to berate them as – Freetard, Mac Fanboy, Ballmer Booty Buddy, etc. – instead of rebutting their comment.
4. Comments about the rating system – get over it! Maybe Suzie doesn’t like you, but then again, Mikey does. You may make these kinds of comments only if you are still in junior high school.
3. Pointing our people’s grammatical or spelling errors. We get it – you are a master of linguistics. We bow to you, but please give it a rest. For some people, English is not their primary language. Stick with the point of the comment, or don’t read it if it bothers you.
2. Comments with no title – “Comment by Twinkie”. Help me out, I can’t read everything on the net. Give me an idea whether I want to spend the next 60 seconds of my life basking in your wisdom.
1. Top 5 lists in comments!
5. Ad hominem attacks – when you don’t like what someone posts, you proceed to berate them as – Freetard, Mac Fanboy, Ballmer Booty Buddy, etc. – instead of rebutting their comment.
But ad hominem attacks are fun! And besides, if one has no real argument to offer, what is one to do?
4. Comments about the rating system – get over it! Maybe Suzie doesn’t like you, but then again, Mikey does. You may make these kinds of comments only if you are still in junior high school.
It is annoying that people don’t use it properly, like I do.
3. Pointing our people’s grammatical or spelling errors. We get it – you are a master of linguistics. We bow to you, but please give it a rest. For some people, English is not their primary language. Stick with the point of the comment, or don’t read it if it bothers you.
English rocks, learn it.
2. Comments with no title – “Comment by Twinkie”. Help me out, I can’t read everything on the net. Give me an idea whether I want to spend the next 60 seconds of my life basking in your wisdom.
Subject lines are a pain. The message board code should just snag a random 40 characters from the body of the message and splice it into the subject.
1. Top 5 lists in comments!
🙂 And I hope you don’t take this message seriously.
I agree to an extent. e.g. OSNews reader “spellcheck” seems to have made it his goal in life to rudely and bluntly correct as many spelling and grammar errors, made by other posters, as possible. Sometimes it is the sole purpose of his post. And he’s certainly not the only offender.
However, as English is not a first language for many fellow participants in Internet forums… I feel that it is courteous to make a correction here and there, in a good-natured way, as an addendum to a response on the main topic. Constructive feedback can be very helpful to one using a second language.
I don’t usually like people correcting others, though I agree it can be done nicely in certain situations, but the funny thing is that most of us non native English speakers don’t make the most usual type of mistakes that you find out there.
People who use then when they mean than, your when they mean you’re, alot when they mean a lot and (my personal favorite) should of when they mean should’ve are mostly (but not only) American. Which is natural, since foreigners learn the language by studying/reading, and we pronounce the words as they’re spelled (with our own accents), while native speakers learn by listening and only later they learn to write.
IOW, for an American, then and than (and the other examples) sound pretty similar when they learn to speak, while for a Spaniard (and presumably German, French, Russian…) they simply sound (and look) different (because of our strong accents and because we first learned the word written on paper).
I should have added that we non native speakers obviously make more and bigger mistakes. They are just different ones. As an example, a Spaniard can easily say “Last night I dreamed with you” (it is how we say it in Spanish), while a native speaker would never make such mistake.
And yes, we also make many spelling mistakes in our own languages.
Actually, in Spain the amount of grammar and spelling errors is above some other spanish speaking countries I’ve lately been in; this came as a surprise to me when I first moved to Spain.
I believe this is a common trend in many countries but one could argue that it was in Spain where the spanish originated, so “they must know”.
3. Pointing our people’s grammatical or spelling errors. We get it – you are a master of linguistics. We bow to you, but please give it a rest. For some people, English is not their primary language. Stick with the point of the comment, or don’t read it if it bothers you.
You obviously haven’t spent much time in the more forum-like places. When someone with no punctuation (or way too many exclamation marks everywhere), no paragraphs and 90% of the words written incorrectly tries to tell you something it really starts to push on certain nerves. In those cases it’s rather clear that the OP isn’t even trying to write well and they more often than not get called out for it.
I was thinking more of the little errors (like your you’re), not a total lack of care. However, I do have a couple pet peeves about word – one that drives me up the wall is LabTop. I see that all the time on Craigslist. Ibuh dontibuh wantabuh buybu yourbuh labtop!
That’s the most awesome thing I’ve read all day!
Maybe you’re right. I saw “Your Invited” on a sign in the lobby at my BANK, so maybe I should just lower my expectations of average human intellect.
Don’t mind. It isn’t that obvious in the english language, especially when used by non-native speakers who are still improving their skills.
It’s much worse here in Germany where illitracy is a “common good of the society”, and mainly influenced by incorrect translations and “imports” from the english language, such as the over-use of apostrophes, accent grave and accent acute in places where they simply don’t belong. While the english language doesn’t know many concatenated nouns, they’re common in German, and destroyed by “idiot spaces”.
Iff I woult write in, Englis ass mosst German`s write theyr own langwish to day it woult, loog like thiss !!Its hart to reed and evenn, to under stand wha’t thiss coult mean is’nt it ??
So don’t mind, the english language is much more (spelling, hyphenation, grammar, punctuation and structure) error tolerant than the german one. 🙂
Labtop… do you use it in a laboratory, or for labour? Well, this word does exist in German, too – among other words that are even untranslatable into English.
“3. Pointing our people’s grammatical or spelling errors. We get it – you are a master of linguistics. We bow to you, but please give it a rest. For some people, English is not their primary language. Stick with the point of the comment, or don’t read it if it bothers you.”
This has always struck me as rather strange logic. If I were going around French or Japanese forums making the same mistake over and over again and consequently looking like a complete doofus, I’d rather like it if someone told me what I was doing wrong, rather than everyone ignoring it (but still thinking I’m a complete doofus). That’s why I try and point out – in a friendly way – common mistakes in English, sometimes. Hopefully it’ll help the person making the mistake not make it next time. If it’s just a typo, yeah, there’s no real reason to point it out.
Highlighting the fact that one is only expressing one’s opinion is a valid conversational technique. Very often, people take their own opinions so seriously that they do, in fact, forget that what they are espousing is opninion. Explicitly referencing the fact is an affirmation that one consciously acknowledges that. It’s an overt indication that differing opinions are considered to be worthy of respect.
Sadly, I have to agree with you. I say “sadly” because sometimes it’s pretty obvious that someone considers their opinion to be fact in the way they write it. When this happens, it often generates flames for no apparent reason.
Example: “You should never do XYZ.” (where XYZ is often simply something the author doesn’t like).
Simply modifying the statement slightly, you can quickly turn the brazen comment into something much more friendly and discussion-worthy: “In my opinion, you shouldn’t do XYZ.”
It’s often like magical flame-retardant-goodness to add that something is in your opinion.
says who?
time to throw “my 2 cents” in, because i “recently ditched windows”, a platform which “80% of users only use 20% of the functionality”. i now have a “MAC”, but “am not a fanboy”. i think “80% of users only 20% of the functionality” of “MACS” as well. so, “what’s the point the point of these alternative operating systems”, when people don’t use all their functionality? on a side note, why is this article on osnews?
Is that good Thom?
I have 2^48 MACs
This is sort of the “ditched Windows” thing, but I pick when people describe their hardware for no reason, and in excruciating detail.
“Yeah, I just ditched Windows on my Core i7 Bloomfield (oc’d to 3.2) with 6GB of OCZ DDR3 CAS8 (1800 @ 1.72v) plugged into my Foxconn BloodRage X58, cooled by 7 Antec 120mm fans (dropped to 5v) in a heavily modded Cooler Master Storm, powered by my PCP&C Silencer, with a Saitek Eclipse III keyboard (red LED). Linux rocks on it, though it did take me three days to get sound (RealTek ALC889), and it still only plays out the left speaker. It still blows Microsoft Windoze away.”
“my 2c”
(Just for my own protection, no, I don’t own any of that.)
Well, those listings are a testament by first time, juvenile money spenders on stuff they don really need, but are so proud of owning. Don´t worry, It’ll pass. I know from personal experience
The difference between loser and looser.
Your and you’re. They’re, their, and there .
I could go on, but I’m annoying the hell out of myself now.
Then you sir must be a looser, because your a native english speaker and there not.
Or should that be…
Then you Sir must be a loser, because you are a native english speaker and they are not?
Or… oh wait.
Get real, we weren’t born in an English speaking country, this is not our native language.
On the other hand, English is full of bugs and ambiguous sentences and you always need to add words to clarify. Try speaking something like spanish or german or french and then we can “annoy” ourselves by your lame attempt to even count from one to ten.
On wait! (<– reference to article).
I think you are wrong.
“In 2003, an estimated 75% of the adult population of working age had numeracy skills below the level of a good pass at GCSE and 56% had literacy skills below this level.”
http://news.parliament.uk/2009/01/adult-literacy-and-numeracy-repor…
You can download the full, sad 35 page PDF. Gosh, I know English lawyers and other academics who can’t put 2 and 2 together. I can totally see where this report is coming from.
Thanks for your contribution. I totally forgot about ‘their’ and ‘your’.
Oh, thanks, next time I’ll check my numbers. Make that count from one to five… shall we?
Can’t decide between them which one is most annoying :
“Linked by Thom Holwerda”
“Written by Thom Holwerda”
😉
I think I know what you mean, kinda like “Comment by Moulinneuf”
Nope , hate is not the same thing as making a joke about a somewhat excellent Managing editor being annoying.
Thom, you are really driving this site into the ground.
Eugenia, where are you? Give me back my OSNews!
This is a constructive and helpful comment. It is very on-topic. Well done.
{sarcasm}
Edited 2009-08-04 18:59 UTC
IIRC, Eugenia said she left because she was sick of us all.
What’s the point of being so damn negative toward Thom? If you don’t like the site, go away, don’t read it.
Eugenia walked away from it due to all the crap she had to put up with, pretty soon if people don’t offer constructive critism, instead of insults, then the maybe they’ll say screw it, and then we’ll have to put up with slashdot and digg.
They do it for free, the least you can do is try to show a little support, instead of acting like a d*ck.
Here, here, I agree. Just basic manners would help so many. BTW, I’m not sure I would call him a duck, though.
Isn that; Hear, hear? As in hear what the other had/has to say?
Ah, sooo annoying… me.
It’s disputed. There are credible arguments for the intention being ‘here, here’ or ‘hear, hear’. It originated verbally, hence the confusion.
I have been reading, and think I have maybe 3-4 comments on OSNews, since it’s inception.
Perhaps I was in a grouchy mood when I made that comment, but I’m entitled to my opinion. The site just isn’t what it used to be. I am not out of line lamenting that fact, because it’s been a daily stop for me for over a decade and has always been one of my favorite web sites.
Could I have been more tactful in stating my concerns? Of course.
There’s also nothing wrong with just coming out and saying what you think, provided it doesn’t do anyone any real harm.
I’ll also tip you guys off to something: this article was going to generate a lot of comment traffic, and Thom knew it. More impressions=more ad revenue.
I wouldn’t worry so much about whether or not I hurt Thom’s feelings. My comment provoked several replies. I should get a commission.
Thom, if you need my paypal account email so you can send my payment, just message me through AV Enthusiast. No need to thank me.
I’m not sure Thom gets any of the ad revenue.
Nobody appreciates sarcasm and boorishness anymore
How do you know it doesn’t do real harm? The editors take enough crap around here, for essentially giving us this website and forum for free, that you’d think that there would be a bit more gratitude, but no, people think it gives them the right to say insult the editors.
I’m sick of this sense of entitlement that people seem to have these days, I say grow up, and if you don’t like the site anymore, than leave.
Reality , the editor have an arsenal , and backup ( other editor and moderators ) at their disposal to get ride of people and comments they don’t like , want or consider harmful to themself …
Beside , you have to be seiously mental to think everyone is gonna agree with you 100% of the time or gonna be liked by 100% of the people on the planet in every subject you discuss.
Compared to what ? Most of the insult and crap is not adressed at them at all.
That would be David Adams , Thks David ( work on your Ads , not enough of them ) …
**People** use there real names …
They think ? No , but they are certainly passionate enough to care to oppose your views , it’s when nobody care that you have to worry.
Right ? No , but the possibility is there , again at the Editor and Moderator choice , if you can dish it , you better be prepared to face the consequence of your actions.
For every BluenoseJake who say something insulting or stupid there is a multiple thousand Moulinneuf who read and agree with the site and editors and say nothing …
But yet you feel you entitled more then others and are trampling on others rights on someone else website …
If your really sick , your lucky enough to live in a country where the citizen value is above making money and have universal healthcare , use it …
Good , feel better now ?
No , It’s one of my favorite site(ssss) , I even like reading your comments , but I don’t give up my right to an opposite opinion , view , rant to your’s or my right to post because you disagree with me …
Or It’s time for you to take a vacation. You take things here too seriously.
You know, having people disagree with you, and being as ignorant as the OP was is two different things. I think that people deserve a little respect, especially people who put a lot of hard work into a something that they don’t get paid for – like this site.
Just like you said, not everyone is going to be in agreement 100% of the time, and I disagree with both him and you. While everyone is entitled to an opinion, people don’t have to be so damn rude when expressing it.
“My 2 cents”
I think it is a passive way of saying it is OK if you disagree with me. Or more like saying I don’t want hundreds of negative comments for a topic that is Opinion driven. Tech Sites deal with a lot of negative people who just want to fight all the time, but others really don’t want to.
“I recently ditched Windows and…”
Often to indicate that you can get buy and survive without Windows… Yes it is a bit lame, as we know you can do so. Heck I haven’t use Windows as a primary OS for 15 years. Stating that you can do so doesn’t really aid in the argument, because there is that one feature that someone will need.
“80% of users use only 20% of the functionality”
80/20 is not something a lot of people realize, it is good for expressing Good Enough. However the reciprocal is true true 20% of the users use 80% of the features, meaning you will have 20% complaining about missing features.
“I’m not a fanboy…”
Not. You may like a particular feature without blindly loving it for the sake you love it. Stating that you say like something in Apple or Windows without getting blindly discredited.
A lack of punctuation
This is an Internet site, some people just don’t have the time to make everything perfect. Often misuse of punctuation creates more static then not using it.
A lack of paragraphs
The Tab Key brings you to an other control. So it is training people not to type paragraphs. Also being that it is a quick comment things sometimes become longer then you expect. For people who do not excel at the english language they may not catch that easily. It doesn’t discredit their point they are just not good at formatting the language.
Staccato comments
Much like the previous comment. Want to get your point across but just can’t format it easily and quickly.
“What’s the point of this operating system?”
Well sometimes you want to know the itch it is suppose to solve. Unlike the child metaphor an OS is a tool to be used to help your computer solve problems. If you are going threw the effort to make something and make it a bit different then why did you choose to do that is a valid question.
“I have a MAC.”
It is kinda a gap in Writing rules actually it should be Mac’ not Mac or MAC. But Mac’ is an Acronym Normally we use capital letters for Acronyms. But for this Case it is just a shortened name.
“Why is this on OSNews?”
A question, as users we like to see content to stay focused. We really don’t want an other Digg which has gone to complete garbage. If we let the site slide to much it could move into that direction.
I was surprised by the insightful “survival” argument. Indeed, I feel that someone who says this, does it mainly to convince himself of this once again.
Someone replied in the most recent “exploding iPhone” article’s comments, that he hates Microsoft because he can’t get around it.
Though Thom states that thousands of people ditch Windows daily, it does NOT do away with the facts that:
(a) you feel on an island because those thousands of people are NOT in your direct vicinity; mostly you’re only one of the “geekish few” in the eyes of others;
(b) it remains hard to live completely Microsoft-free.
But let me be pragmatic to that latter point: I purposefully chose Office over iWorks because Office *is* still better. I don’t mind quality Microsoft products (their computer hardware is good, too).
What about something I like.. STFU!
“Comparing apples to oranges.”
One of mine is starting the first sentence of one’s post in the subject line and then continuing it in the body of the post.
Enthusiasts whom believe they are experts. World of difference folks.
On a side note, talking heads on TV that start their sentence with “The reality of the situation is this..” or “The fact of the matter is this…”, these are most common in political discussion.
My political discussion favourite is the key phrase ‘these people’, which means ‘these subhumans about whom I could not give a toss’.
“whom”?
So my pet peeve is hypercorrection like using “whom” for “who”.
Earlier in this thread, I appended an edit to a comment in which I accidentally forgot to supply a useful subject line, noting that failing to supply a useful subject line is an Internet forum annoyance in itself. (It would be nice if the forum software would alert the user to having forgotten to supply one, instead of simply defaulting to an unhelpful one, BTW.)
However, I find it even more rude and annoying when certain users go out of their way to supply a completely pointless and useless subject line. For example, the dork who inisists upon using “Honk! Honk!” as the subject for each and every one of his posts. Personally, I think that such antisocial behavior should be grounds for bannishment from the forum.
8 MACS
I dislike when people split a sentence between the comment title and the body of the post, because I don’t read the titles.
As in, people who close their comments with “’nuff said”, implying that they have made the definitive statement, effectively negating any further discussion.
So basically, most things you say can annoy various people. Well that’s life.
For me a comment written in correct english (granted that we’re talking about english forums only), has decent punctuation and expose points in a trustworthy manner (aka not to troll for fun, defend to death without logic, etc), is a good comment.
It doesn’t matter if theres “but that’s just my opinion” or other things. People often write it to protect themselves, because they fear that they could get attacked for their comment (textually only).
And that was just one example. I’m pretty sure that the way a I write piss off some people in some ways I don’t even realize
Yeah, an English teacher once told me to stop using phrases like “in my opinion,” since it’s implicit and obvious in most cases that what I was about to write was always just going to be my own personal opinion. Since then, I have endeavored to not use such phrases.
Now, I sound like even more of an ass than I did before, and people react far more negatively to what I say.
People get into the habit of saying things like “in my opinion” for a reason.
Is that your opinion?
BTW the subject in all my replies today is ‘RE:’ because the site isn’t pickup up the subject of the post that I am replying to.
Sorry if it isn’t obvious which post I am replying to – but I reckon everyone should use the nested view. Heck one of the things that annoys me most about this site is that it offers three different ways to view comments – they should just choose one and stick to it.
One thing is for sure, the lack of said fun is alleviated!
“A lack of punctuation
Not using punctuation (which includes capital letters) does not, I repeat, it does not make you cool. It doesn’t make you seem defiant, it doesn’t make you different, it doesn’t make you stand out. It only makes you look lazy and incapable. By not using punctuation you’re advertising your own incompetence.”
Comma splices. Use semicolons instead.
You are opening a website, posting articles, and accepting comments.
Please live with this, that’s the way it is for such an environment called INTERNET.
One thing I find myself annoyed by are comments which are rather clearly specific to the author’s home country, but fail to indicate which country that is.
I recognize that my (US) countrymen tend to do this frequently, but I don’t tend to notice this as well. I expect that I am probably guilty of this on occasion (although I do try to catch it).
I don’t like reading what I have to say. Sure, its occasionally insightful, but more often its an attempt to condense a large topic into a few short sentences. I often know I’m leaving stuff out on purpose.
They often end up like this:
Me: blab blah blah point #1.
Otherperson: Yada blah blan what about point #2?
Me: Yablah blah Oh yeah Point #2. I just didn’t say anything about point #2 due to space/time issues. Blah blah <lame attempt at humor>
10. ignorance
9. ignorance
8. ignorance
7. ignorance
6. ignorance
5. ignorance
4. ignorance
3. ignorance
2. ignorance
1. what else… oh, stupidity
There, you asked for it.
Ignorance and stupidity I can live with. What really gets my gall is an unwillingness to learn.
My biggest pet Peeve are the point by point flame wars of ever expanding point by point dismissals of the previous comments in the vain of “I dismiss your reality and submit my own in it’s place” *ad*nauseam*. This is especially annoying when perpetrated by a single person with a large chip on their block. It’s one of the reasons I would not event read the comment section for half a year.
However, I’m addicted to hard news. I want to know what new technologies are out and what is happening to Linux, Windows etc. Sometimes comments can be insightful when adding some facts to a story, correcting statements or expanding on a niche. Usually I skip them altogether and almost never post myself.
OSnews works well on my blackberry which is something I can’t say for a lot of sites. And when I say well I mean it looks good, loads fast and does not waste lines and lines of space on a pointless menu al la slashdot.
Edited 2009-08-04 19:32 UTC
Why is this on page one?
😉
Why is this on OSNews? This has NOTHING to do with operating systems. This should be on page infinity^infinity.
I’m with that phrase, “On the internet, no one knows you’re a dog.” I could be typing this with my front paws and operating the Enter key with my tail, and I could be talking complete nonsense, but no one will be any the wiser. That’s the really annoying thing about internet comments: the ones that are completely incorrect and based on almost no knowledge of a subject can seem just as plausible as the ones that are spot on from someone who really knows their stuff. Treat with caution!
I’ve always like the idea that everyone on the Internet is a FBI agent pretending to be a Woman(or Man if that is your idea of fun).
What makes you think she’s not?
As annoying as not capitalizing sentences or proper nouns is, it’s annoying too the pOInTleSS uSE of cAPITAl lETteRS! And please, please, PLEASE, numbers are not letters! G3t it?
Finally, know the difference between affect and effect.
So on OSnews I should not say “I have change OS”, I should not question the usefulness of a new OS being developed and stating that you are citing an opinion (versus a fact) is not welcome …
Let me give you another one: slow news day makes for childish article.
Most annoying thing for me: throwing accusations of trolling against anyone who says or does something you do not like or agree with. It is an ugly and dishonest habit; a way of discrediting the poster when you are unable to refute their comment. The words “troll” and “trolling” have been so overused and misused that they have lost their original meaning. Browse through any internet forum and you will reach the same conclusion: discussions on the interwebz always end with someone calling someone else a Nazi, troll or anti-semite. Post any kind of opinion or comment that goes against the general attitude of the forum, and someone will ask you to “stop trolling”.
Edited 2009-08-04 21:14 UTC
i recently ditchd windows to switched to mack. my 2 cents is that it is soooooooooo much better than linux. windows sucks. whats the point of windows neway? but the ui is slitely betr. gratz to those who codezorz their own osez. esp in asseblee. i just had like eight diet cokes. wwwwwweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!
I hate the hate, and there seems to be so much of it.
It relates to the whole “I said this about my OS choices, that’s why you suck, ’nuff said” thing, I guess. The old saying “I don’t dislike you, I just dislike your behavior” seems to have gone out the window and we’ve moved on to, “I dislike you”.
Maybe I’m dense, but isn’t behaviour inseperably linked to personality? If someone has repulsive behaviour, is it a stretch to say you find the person repulsive? Or do we just hate the behaviour of Jefrey Dahmer and we don take offense to Dahmer himself?
The abuse of words like “Troll”, “Windoze”, “M_$”, “Spirit of the GPL”.
And the exagerated paranoia towards Mono.
Edited 2009-08-04 22:28 UTC
During the last weeks, the worst thing was thousands of users feeling sooo clever and each posting something like the text below, no matter how many others already mentioned it:
“What? Windows will ship without a browser? How can you go online and download a browser then?!“
I also hate [sarcasm] or [irony] tags.
(Nothing against [offtopic] tags though – they really serve a purpose)
Ahh and I also hate “SCNR” or “sorry I just had to post this” or anything like that, it’s the same as the above tags, it just takes the joke out of everything because of it’s pseudo-excuse-nature.
Ahhhhhhh and I hate mentioning crystal balls and popcorn… some already do that in real-life conversations… arghh that’s so unfunny, I can’t believe it. Admittedly, it’s funny for the first time, but it gets really dumb if you read it all day.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh and I also hate “fail” and “epic fail” and generally everything that gets sooo overused by every feeling-so-cool commentor. Now I even hate the word “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh” because of my own overuse
Edited 2009-08-04 22:35 UTC
Actually I find them quite useful, sarcasm and irony is not something that is easily understood by everyone, especially those who does not have English (or whatever language) as their native language.
Whether you think something is sarcastic/ironic or not depends on your knowledge of the subject at hand, the situation, the one who made the remark, and a lot of other things. An example is when a new member of a forum/newsgroup asks a (perhaps dumb) question and one of the regulars makes a sarcastic/ironic reply (perhaps by saying something like “never heard of that before” for something that is in the FAQ). For the regulart is will be obvious but for a newcomer it won’t.
For that reason I think that you should avoid using sarcasm and irony as much as possible, unless it is bloody obvious it is meant as such (but than again, as I just pointed out, even if you think it is bloody obvious, others might not). If you still want to use sarcasm and irony I think it best to mark it as such, either using a tag, or perhaps by a smiley (but those can me misinterpreted).
* Linux is just a KERNEL. WE KNOW. There is no one here who is not aware of this. *Giving a crap* is another thing altogether.
* (x) license isn’t free! Yeah, you know what, you either have a freedom to hoard your mods or you have a freedom from that. It’s the oldest ongoing license argument anyone has as regards software. BSD and GPL define freedom differently and arguing these stupid semantics serves no purpose, derails threads, and rehashes pricesly the same argument over and over again. Two opinions exist on what freedom entails, and that’s just how it is.
* “Stop spreading FUD.” This indicates or suggests that the person posting something is using a tactic he knows is dishonest for the purpose of pushing an alternative. Having a contrary opinion or just being flat-out wrong is not FUD. FUD is a dishonest and calculated *marketing* or *sales* technique. I’m sick of reading accusations of this.
* (x) (usually or even always Linux) is all about choice. Declaring something doesn’t make it so, nor does the attempt to gloss over the basic facts of life that there are two sides of every story and that few things are always all good or all bad. Choice/variety or redundancy/dilution – it’s all a matter of perspective.
* Corrupted spelling of words – Microsoft, Lunix, and many others. I lose respect for the poster enough that I grow angry I’ve wasted my time reading that individual’s comment up to that point.
EDIT: Hahahah there was a dollar sign for the S in Microsoft but I see osnews “corrected” it for me.
Edited 2009-08-04 23:08 UTC
11. Written by Thom Holwerda…
First post!
Most. Annoying. Use. Of. Puncuation. Ever.
I’m not a fanboy but here are my 2 cents I woke up this morning and decided to ditch windows and found that the 20% of functinoality that 80% of users use is still there and still works great I can’t say how glad I am that I switched finally full time on another note what’s the point of this HelenOS I mean really they should just use a MAC (I have a MAC btw no HAckintosh for me!) or a Linux kernel at the very least, but all I can say is why is this story frontpage on OSnews while CentOS updates are page2 really wtf Thom!!!!
1. “I just installed Ubuntu and I’m trying to update it but it says I need to free up 300 megabytes!”
Just because Ubuntu can run in 2.3 gigs of disk space, does not mean that you shouldn’t give it more space.
2. “I’m trying to install my ATI Xpress 200 graphics card driver on Linux but when I do I just get a blank screen!”
Ever heard of reading the release notes for the driver? Then you’d find that your GPU is not supported by the ATI driver.
is this very post. I hate it how people start a sentence in the subject line and finish it in the post.
My 2 cents I have a MAC and I recently ditched Windows.
I’m not a fanboy, but 80% of users use only 20% of the functionality
What’s the point of Linux and why is this on OSNews
OSNews should provide a “Not Funny” (-1) category.
Yeah! I say we take em’ out back and beat the sh!t out of em!
Sounds like you need to lay off the coffee there Thom.
The lack of punctuation, specifically the apostrophe, is like another fire ant bite to my brain.
I never post my opinion.
I didn’t recently ditched Windows (it was a long time ago).
I am a fanboy … and proud of it.
I don’t own a Mac! But I do have a MAC.
😀
“Some plasmoid still make plasma crash, sandboxing anyone?”
People who make a suggestion and follow it on with “anyone?” …
In Brazil there was another annoying comment (in beginning was funny), which is to say “Ronaldo” (the footballer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronaldo) to any comments, just to seem nonsense. Was very popular in blogs, youtube comments, etc.
In English, “Malkovich” (after John Malkovich) has been a popular name for that.
Why am I posting this. OK, this is not a phenomenon you can attribute to non-native speakers, only. It really shows that English isn’t taught properly anymore.
It is “should HAVE”, which turns into should’VE in abbreviated form.
It is a real concern for me that people ‘talk’ like that because they obviously fail to see that a sentence with “of” does not make any sense whatsoever.
Maybe you should print this out and put it up the wall. I know there are many offenders out there
Here is the today’s reason.
You are complaining about people that “switched away from Windows to another operating system – full time – which are so proud that they have to squeeze it into every possible story – no matter how unrelated the subject matter”
How about people squezzing in every story statements that are probably completely unture and unverifiable like “Thousands of people switch away from Windows every day”.
Is that a fact? And is that really related to the topic of the article?
Are you aware that this is a very common manipulation technique? Like saying “From the author of the great Blah Blah” on the front cover of some book which you want to borrow the glory of the other.
People not paying attention will think “this book has to be at least as great as Blah Blah”. It implies that Blah Blah was great but the implication is not the point of the statement, the point is the new book is great too. Which makes the implication slip unnoticed and seem inherently true although no arguments have been raised about it truthfulnes. And more often than not, Blah Blah is a stupid book which you would not read.
Back to “Thousands of people switch away from Windows every day”. I tried to find some statistics. Got nothing. So it may not be a fact. So why bring it up? Are you not afraid that you will loose credibility and eventually readers?
I clearly should’ve added:
“11. People who take the internet too seriously.”
Sure, why not dismiss my comment with a little humor. That will make it go away …
The official hatred thread ! Time for ego battle.
Actually I don’t remember seeing it on OSNews but I’ve seen it on other sites where people write “should of” instead of “should have / should’ve”. It is not one of the most annoying things but it is annoying.
Edited 2009-08-05 09:08 UTC
– Use Linux
My personal favourite, seems to be people’s answer to everything
– I don’t use Windows
Hmmm, yeah, that makes you special
– I AM STUCK WITH THE CAPS LOCK ON
Grrrr, hate this one
And finally, people who reply to others like they wouldn’t dare to face-to-face.
Since all those perfect english speakers “hate/dislike” our errors, let’s not read OS news anymore or let’s start writing in spanish.
At least, we (those who don’t speak english as our primary language) took the time and effort to learn the basic skills required to communicate; whereas you (the native english speakers) can barely mumble nonsense in other languages (French, Spanish, etc.).
I’d love to see you trying to everyday express yourselves in a foreign language, where everyone would probably run circles around every single mistake.
As annoying as “youre/your” errors may be, trust me, it gets worse from the original poster’s point of view. A gentle correction is appreciated (but not by everyone), if it helps and explains the cause.
As a side note, English speakers on these forums seem to be very “correct” about their english language and feel almost “offended” by our mistakes, however, I invite you to play World of Warcraft for 10 days (trial) and tell me what you see there. Your teenagers and not-so-teenagers make horrible mistakes that make you wonder if they teach english at school in the USA at all.
Whenever you feel that “hate” because of a grammar error or typo or whatever, do yourself a favor, go to a spanish speaking forum and try to post something there.
Oh wait! (<— I had to).
Hi there!
I’ve spent an hour or so reading all these comments looking for something specifically good for the article I am currenly writing. It is about forums and what they should be like. Well, I feel I am bound to thank you all for providig me with so much material for my article, not so much about comments themselves though. What I was actually interested in is the psychological aspect of forums.
Saying thanks, however, is not the only reason I decided to post this comment. I also wanted to see if a comment that does not express any opinion, does not criticize and doesn’t ask any question is able to cause a reply.
😀
You should post a link to your article, I’d love to read it.
Poor grammar does not even begin to compare to the banality of comments lacking intellectual coherence. The Internet as a medium, unfortunately, makes coherent thought rare, thanks to instantaneous gratification.
The most annoying thing:
Be the ++149th to post a comment on interesting news…
…And be pretty sure that nobody will even read it.
|-)
Did I hear something?
Are you sure nobody reads the last one?
One thing I dislike is the use of programming operations used inside english text, particularly the inverse equality, i.e. “your != you’re”
I used to dislike regular expressions as a way to “correct” someone’s previous statement, i.e. “tim: C is easy to program, bob: s/C/perl/g”
your increment operators are rare though.
And for the number one most annoying thing about Internet comments.
*drum roll*
Complaining about Internet comments.
Of course I see this in comments, but like misspellings and mispunctuation I give it a pass because the writer might be a non-English-speaker.
But I also see this in articles by supposedly professional writers; sometimes the articles are even edited by putative professionals.
Look it up: “Comprise” means, conceptually, “contains.” It’s not “A is comprised of B, C and D,” it’s “A comprises B, C and D.”
I was able to ask William Safire about this on a radio call-in show; he said, “Unfortunately, the use is probably going to change,” so I guess I’m merely standing athwart comments, yelling “Stop!”
I once made a sarcastic comment to a user in an online forum about whitespace and punctuation. Have a look here. See posts #7, 12, 16, 18, 20, and my response in #25.
http://forums.canadian-tv.com/showthread.php?t=27856
Mark
The other one is fully comparing Linux to everything.
One of the best examples is Solaris V Linux. Everyone has their own OS preference but why should it be always one operating system over the other?
OSnews is news about operating systems. Sure most people on here hate windows but everyone needs someone to dislike…
On a slightly unrelated note…
I hate Noel Leemings for trying to pawn low end user junk off as a business notebook replacement in a insurance claim…
I’m annoyed when stupid fanboys from linux camp say something bad about Windows knowing absolutely nothing about it, its internals and so on. The most stupid thing to say is that Windows is not customizable. Yeah, right! Whole industry works on customizations for Windows for tens of years and they did not realized that one point yet! Hey guys at Stardock! Stop fooling us with screenshots – YOUR SOFTWARE DOES NOT WORK!
Oh, and by the way. It is summer time! Why are you still sitting in front of your display?
Whether or not it is summer time depends on which hemisphere you are in. Some of us are in the UK so being summer is no reason to step away from our displays – the only difference the season makes is whether I take a coat or an umbrella with me when I go outside.
I just posted this yesterday. I complained about many of the same language issues that are appearing in these comments.
http://btnews.info/?p=721#more-721
“Staccato” comments are straight shooters who don’t blah balh blah I have stuff to do.
I have children, but I’m awsome. As far as the kids that tagged our building. Why? If you’re not going to do it right, don’t do it. Not everyone loves their kids or works hard for them. It can be really easy to make children.
“I have a MAC.” translation “I’d like to start a flamewar fanboeeeyz.”
Here are some more:
People think that we care about their pet peeves. (damn, I know I got myself on that one. Go Logic!) [that’s right, I hope my Capitalization IS like a fire ant in your brain.] {here tak’e some apos trophies and spelingus errorz too}
Paragraphs that are not indented. (It’s a peeve not a law. :> [I’ll bet you hate these :> too] )
Comments that feature full paragraphs instead of making short sweet points. Paragraphs are only for detailed points.
Comments that are condesending to thier readers.
Comments that I am a fanboy when I just f..ing told you I’m not. ;> You don’t know me.
(p.s. Lots of love, tis just my too scents)
I think the one thing that really aggravate me on forums/comments/etc. are the pedantic nerds.
You know, the one who completely disregard your argumentation to instead discuss at length and in painfully annoying detail why some example you provided is inaccurate, even if it doesn’t invalidate your argument.
That phrase is equivalent to “IMHO”, or “I don’t claim to be an authority on this matter — please accept the following with the same humility with which I present it”.
Since it bothers you so much, let us know how to you clarify which of your statements are derived from your expertise and which carry less authority.
I suspect that what makes the phrase annoying… and it *is* annoying… is a combination of the facts that it it (1) doesn’t make a lot of sense, and (2) so many people try to get “creative” with it in stupid ways:
My 2 dollars (Inflation! Ha! Ha! Ha!)
My $0.02 (Normalization! Ha! Ha! Ha!)
My 0.02 Euros (Internationalization! Ha! Ha! Ha!)
My 2 pesos (I don’t even know why that’s so funny! Ha! Ha! Ha!)
Also, “IMHO” generally comes at the beginning of a post. It’s an up-front statement regarding how the comment is intended. “My 2 cents” is an afterthought. All in all, if the intent is to soften one’s post and add a sense of modesty, there are far better choices of phrase.
And is it just my imagination, or is the OSNews board screwy today? Blank pages… Blank subject lines… Strange anomalies…
Edited 2009-08-08 23:01 UTC
I think that 80-20 rule applies well to word processing software. Majority of people are writing letters, job applications, specifications, etc. Another words, smple texts with titles, subtitles and paragraphs. Majority of people don’t create their own styles, don’t include mathematical formulas, don’t link documents, don’t write books, etc.
Many people are annoyed with automatic bullets and numbering and some other things that are there to make their life easier. They are lazy to learn a little bit more about word processing software. Pardon me, I should have said “We are lazy….”.
So 80% people do use same 20% of functionality, indeed. Wordpad included with Windows, only with text justification feature added, that would be Tao of word processing…