Smw, you didn't hit any nerves with me. My comments were just general ones.

Things that irritate or annoy me? Where oh where to begin....

People that say "you know what?" and wait for you to reply with "what?"

People that stand in line in fast food restaurants, then wait until they're at the counter to start looking at the menu to decide what they want. Personally, if I don't know what I want, I'll let the person behind me go ahead while I make up my mind.

People who use the handicapped accessible stall in a public restroom when all of the other stalls are empty.

People who offer no help to someone who obviously needs help. Along with that, people who stand and watch someone try to do something really hard, wait until they've finished, THEN offer help.

People who say "it was in the last place I looked!" I just want to smack people when they say that! lol

People who tell me my dog is mean or that she has problems. I finally started saying "well, you go get beat on for a while, starved, and shot with a bb gun and see how good your attitude is toward people."

I'm in a wheelchair, so I have the "does she want.....?" syndrome too. Eventually those people will speak to me, and I usually say something like "yes, my Bachelor's Degree earned on academic scholarship from a private university and I would like....." lol

I get annoyed that I can't book wheelchair accessible hotel rooms, and order wheelchair accessible tickets for ballgames over the internet.

I have plenty of things that annoy me.

I hate the "does she want" problem too. My mum is in a wheelchair and everytime someone asks me that I tell them I'm not telepathic you'll have to ask the right person. Usually that makes them very embarrassed!

Also, when I used to work in a bar it would REALLY annoy me when I put my hand out for money and they would put it on the bar which meant I had to pick each coin up individually- grrr! I used to put the change on the bar when they put their hand out for it- I don't think anyone made the same mistake again.

However, my absolute pet peeve is when search engines bring up a list of pages not even remotely related to the search- it just wastes an unbelievably large amount of time.

I have to say I can see both sides. I am an RN and therefore in a special kind of "customer service", but I've also worked in other jobs like concession stands. Agony is making a very good point about communication skills. You can't ever keep everybody happy, but you can always be respectful and convey the feeling that they are being listened to. This will satisfy most people, but some people are frankly j***ks who've maybe had a bad day and are taking it out on somebody they perceive as their "inferior". When I was working in the concession stands let me assure you some people came very very close to having their hotdog shoved up their nostril.

On the other hand I've also been the recipient of excellent service as well as very minimal service. I always make a point of thanking for excellent service, and the other kind I've learned to shrug off. After all, I am not married to those people or their parent so why should I care about their manners? If it were really unacceptable I would speak to the person's supervisor.

I can't stand it when newscasters [ who presumably went to J school] say ' calvary' when they really mean 'cavalry'.

AND this next one ought to win me enemies all over the English speaking world - and I have hesitated to bring it up for months - the phrase is supposed to be 'I couldn't care less!' - not ' I could care less!'. Stop and think about it, and it'll make sense to you.
Phewww. Now I've done it.

Wait. What happened to the 'things that annoy you?' thread I thought I was responding to? Eeek.

Who turned out the lights?

People who don't use adverbs properly make me flinch. It's me. I'm picky. It comes from my undergrad days as a language major.

For example:

1. Our football team played (bad, badly) last night.

2. John felt (bad, badly) about the loss.

3. The medicine doesn't taste too (bad, badly).

4. Our science project went (bad, badly).

5. The air in the sewer smelled (bad, badly).



Answers

1. badly

2. bad

3. bad

4. badly

5. bad

The adverb badly is used to tell how something is done. The adjective bad is used to refer to health or feelings and to complete linking verbs such as seem, look, taste, smell.

1. Mr. Peterson always speaks (good, well).

2. That coach (sure, surely) gets results.

3. Those knives are (awful, very) sharp.

4. The bacon tasted (good, well).

5. The new teacher (sure, really) is smart.

6. Your assignment was done (bad, badly).

7. I am (real, really) sorry to hear that.



Answers

1. well

2. surely

3. very

4. good

5. really

6. badly

7. really

Remember that adjectives modify nouns and pronouns while adverbs modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

I know..picky, picky, picky!

But so, so right Rich. Every single one of those irritates me beyond measure. It is not necessary to use adverbs and adjectives incorrectly . If you don't know, look it up!!

Guess what, ren? This stuff isn't taught any more! I remember in elementary school memorizing that an adverb answers "how, when, where, why, to what extent" and an adjective answeres "what kind, which one, how many". I asked my great niece if she learned this, and she looked at me like I was speaking Latin!

Of course she learned calculus in fifth grade; I learned it (somewhat) as a freshman in college.

Ah, the good old days.

People who pull out of a side street in front of me, so that I have to slow down to way below the speed limit--and then those same people refusing to drive more than ten miles per hour below the speed limit.

People who use cell phones while driving. Whenever I see someone driving erratically, then happen to get to where I can see the driver, 98 times out of 100 that person has a cell phone glued to his or her ear.

Store clerks who don't care about the customer.

Waiters who forget about my table at a restaurant and you see them yucking it up with another table nearby. I generally tip well, but not in that case.

Having to sit next to someone on a flight or wherever, who hasn't bathed in what seems to be three weeks.

People who post like this: "do u like what u c here? i post this 4 u.".

Entertainers who think their opinion of the way the government runs is worth the world hearing about. And actually, anybody who thinks their status in life makes them any better than the average man or woman on the street.

Men using demeaning talk toward women.

Drug use in sports.

Piercings in odd places.

People who say bad things about Americans or people from Utah.

Quote:

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The adverb badly is used to tell how something is done. The adjective bad is used to refer to health or feelings and to complete linking verbs such as seem, look, taste, smell.

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Oops! I mustn't play the teacher, but most of the problematical examples are with 'verbs of perception' used intransitively. (I doubt if how versus something else gets us very far). So one says:

1. That sounds good/interesting.

2. The meal tasted good.

3. That seems fine.

4. That looks original.

5. That smells awful.

HOWEVER, if these verbs are used transitively, that is with an object, it's generally a different matter:

'Seem' and 'look' (in this sense) are copulas ('linking verbs') and can't have objects.

6. She sounded the alarm immediately.

7. Henry tasted the tea fastidiously.

8. I want to smell the place thoroughly.

As for copulas more generally, there is, however:

9. I'm well, thanks.

10. They remained well though most of the others fell ill.

Recently, I've been struck by the number of people who say for #9:

11. I'm good.

Finally, an adverb can modify a whole sentence, as in:

12. The suspect reportedly collapsed at the police station.

In #12 there's no question of the suspect having collapsed reportedly rather than, for example, suddenly. The adverb doesn't say anything about how, why, when, where.

Grammar is more complicated meets the eye.

Edited by Leau to change the title back to the original.

Thanks for the clarification, Bloomsby! At work we've had many discussions about exactly those cases. In Dutch there is usually no difference in writing between adverbs and adjectives so English was giving us a bit of trouble.

That particular point is notoriously hard for native speakers of Dutch and German and some others when learning English, Leau.

However, I think that by far the hardest thing for (nearly all) foreign learners of English is the use of simple, continuous and emphatic tenses.

Don't get me started about those tenses!

The strange thing about those adverbs (combined with the verbs you mentioned above) is that I use them correctly most of the time but that I had a hard time convincing two of my colleagues (who are both in uni studying English!) that what I did was right!

Wow, that was a quick response, Leau!

Thanks; I stand corrected.

Well, it is very complicated indeed.

[quote
Another thing that annoys me is when people change the title of a thread - please don't do it. Thank you.

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I hope you're not meaning me, as I only clicked reply to the original post of the thread.

jubal, I think Sue was referring to the brief period when the thread was changed to the title "customer service".

Quote:

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Guess what, ren? This stuff isn't taught any more!

---

It certainly is taught here in our schools. I don't know about UK schools nowadays.

I guess that was me
Gosh, I didn't realize something so small would actually annoy people. I tend to save my annoyance for when it counts - does wonders for my blood pressure!

Catamount, that's just part of getting to know a site like this one...finding out what the rules are. When somebody changes the name of a thread with no warning, it's confusing and makes the place messy - impossible to archive in an orderly fashion, too.

Things do not annoy me; people and their actions annoy me. Particularly annoying are politcally correct, liberal, activist types who are constantly "offended" by one thing or another. Such people usually have some kind of neurotic need to tell other people how to live their lives, and are self-declared arbiters of what is and is not acceptable behavior. Illinois has recently passed a law allowing communities to ban smoking in bars and restaurants. If a bar owner wants to allow his customers to smoke, what right does the state have to forbid him to do so. If you don't like smoking, take your business elsewhere. If you don't want to work in an establishment that allows smoking, get another job. This is the same argument liberals use to defend any type of smut you can think of (if you don't like it, change the channel), but when you try to apply it to them, they have hissy fits.