Of late I have been watching a create deal of Create and Craft, a shopping television channel devoted to crafting - thank you Mrs Tellywellies. The demonstrations are excellent, as are the ideas and one doesn't have to buy their products in order to get good ideas.

I have one huge problem with them and it is driving me crazy and that it the constant overuse of the word actually! Unfortunately I am now finding myself saying, thinking and typing it too much too.

So what drives you crazy?

Are we discussing the petty stuff that drives us nuts? I got me a whole boatload of these things.....

My cubby mixes up the word "TAUT" with "TAUNT" - as in, will say "Make sure you pull it taunt". Drives me nuts, every time.

I know it's anal, but I soooooo enjoy hearing the correct word used in the correct context.

Yes, the petty stuff. I think I might count the number of times they say actually within one programme, often it is multiple times in one sentence.

AIR QUOTES. I can't stand "air quotes".

There is something about standing in front of someone who makes a statement and puts up the first two fingers on each hand and bends them while talking that makes me want to snap them like pencils.

Ooooh. That feels better. Thanks, Sue.

Mobile phone shouters every time. I want to tell them to get off the train and stand on the platform, they will be heard in China, no need for a phone.
I mentioned this before, but the ones who are walking in front of me and stop dead when their phione rings.
I now walk straight into the back of them. Oh the joy when the phone falls.

You evil woman.

That reminds of Keith at ShopMobility here. When giving instructions to visitors who are hiring an electric scooter he warns them that they are likely to encounter groups of French daytrippers who will completely ignore polite beeps on the horn and any "Excusez-moi". He tells them to say "Excusez-moi" three times and then to drive through them like skittles!

Well actually Sue, I don't actually find the word "actually" to be actually annoying. I guess it could actually be annoying if it is actually used over and actually over again.
Well actually, it is actually annoying, so could you actually delete this post please, as you are actually chief honcho on this forum.

"Actually" (picture my little curved fingers in the air here) I have so many irritations I don't know where to begin. But I'll list only one so as to not incite more aggravation of you kind people.

Driving in the parking lot, those people who just have to walk in front of the car without looking, and when they do finally see you, don't bother to "step it up" any, just stroll along, like you are not even waiting for them. Grrr -- speed it up people! A couple of times I even said to them as I finally got around them, "just take your time folks -- I've got all day!"

LOL, Jar.

What drives me crazy is people who don't say "thank you" when I've held a door open for them. This discussion came up somewhere and a person, apparently someone who doesn't say thank you, came up with the argument that why should they if they didn't ask for the door to be held. My argument is, if I've taken the time to see someone coming, taken the time out of my day to stop and hold it for you out of simple courtesy, then a simple courtesy "thank you" would be nice. And it's not that I'm doing it because I want someone to acknowledge me, I do it out of kindness. But to hold it and have someone walk through like I'm invisible, or they're the queen, makes me want to NOT hold it next time. But then, I do.

I agree with you ClaraSue. Here in Texas, generally speaking, most people "actually" say thank you. However, when there is someone that seems to sort of take it for granted that I'll hold the door for them I simply say to them You're Welcome. That usually gets a surprised thank you back to me.

My brother (from Connecticut) visited me a while ago and was utterly amazed how polite and friendly people were here.

I don't like it whin my coworkers and husband (and now my daughter too!!) say i instead of e, like in get (git) or when (see above) or lemon (limun, really). I have actually misunderstood my husband because he was saying something about linen in a tomb, an I thought he was talking about mummies, when actually he was talking about Lenin, in his tomb. Obviously, totally different subjects, and my husband got SO frustrated that I wasn't getting it. I keep trying to tell him that if pet is pet and wet is wet then a pet gets wet, it doesn't git wet. And that he's teaching our child bad habits. But he doesn't seem to think it's as big a deal as I do.

Also, for some reason all of my coworkers thought that "viaduct" was pronounced "viadock" and no amount of dictionary pronunciation guide could convince them it was wrong. "Everyone I've ever known has said viadock, and so either you're wrong or all of them are." Um... logic does not follow, folks.

I know I say "Actually" way too much. I also type it too much.

Morrigan

Definitely viaduct, not that it comes into conversation very often around here.

I used to have a constant battle with my ex-husband over bath, path, grass etc. It seems to be a north/south divide in the UK as whether it is 'a' or 'ah'. I say bahth, pahth, grahss, he uses a short a as he is from Lancashire.

Jar, it is the norm here for the door to be left to slam in your face, even if you are loaded down with packages etc. I make a point of not saying'You're welcome', but "Thankyou" in a big voice like one would to a child. Well it satisfies me anyway!. Some are so amazed if you hold the door open that they are speechless anyway. (Well maybe). This is not the home of thought for the needs of others.

When someone tells you that you don't know what you're doing and to get away from what it is you are doing ... I dunno, like putting a crate on a trailer for instance ... and so you get away and then that someone then has a little hissy fit because he then has to do it and then he does it the exact same way that you were doing it.

Anyone want a guess what happened to me this morning?

You could turn that problem into a benefit, Copago, if you do what my sister-in-law does.

She'll ask my brother-in-law to do something around the house and he'll say that he'll get around to it. Of course, he never does get around to it. So when she decides it's time the job was accomplished, she'll start doing it but will deliberately make a real hash of it, so that he can't resist taking over and saying "Here, let me do it". And, voila, the job gets done! She's a really smart lady!

It really annoy me when like, people say like, like all the time, like it's "actually" really really like, annoying. Some people...like, yeah.

It also annoys me when people mix up well known classical computers. I have found so many people that think Moonlight Sonata and the Pachelbel Canon are by Mozart.

My boyfriend and I also have arguments over how to pronounce dancing, I say it with the nasally "a" sound, and he says it with the "ah" sound.

I say everything else that Sue mentioned with the long "a" sound, but I've been brought up saying dancing the wa I say it.

To mention one more thing that annoys me, is when people sit there and say "Oh, I'm curious about you and your boyfriend because I want to know how nerd relationships work"

Why would it be any diferent to normal relationships, except that we are probably more respectful of parents and other peoples' opinions.

Kudos to MG's sister-in-law! I bow to her.

Where you brought up outside of SA, Lioness? Or perhaps your parents? I'm in western NSW, near Broken Hill, and there's a fair few people from SA around here. You can pick them a mile away from the dance/dahnce thing.

Ah, the "likes" have it all the time!

I was working in a library when a girl came in and said "Do you have any books on, like, dinosaurs?" I replied, "What's a like dinosaur?" The kid, of course, did not get it. But it did make me feel a lot better!

And while we're at it, there is a tendency to write (and,I suppose, to say) "then" instead of "than". It demonstrates a total ignorance of the English language.

Nope, brought up in SA.

My maths teacher had a habit of, when students would say in answer to a question "like, 2 or something" he would reply "like 2, 3 is like 2, so is 22, which do you mean?"

I'm guilty of saying "like" too much, but when I realise that I'm saying it I stop.

'totally' is also overused and wrongly so,in my view.

Yeah, all my sister's friends like totally overuse both of those words like all the time.

When we moved back to South Africa about 14 years ago, everyone would say 'Yes, No' and the beginning of a sentence. I never could understand why and it drove me crazy, but thank goodness they have stopped now.

What drives me crazy is when I hear people pronouncing the word "aunt" like "awnt".

I was taught in Catholic school that "aunt" and "ant" are homophones. Recently, I looked in the dictionary and they are phonectically said the same way. The "u" in "aunt" is silent, making the word "ant" and "aunt" sound and said the same way.

I just want to smack someone in the head with a dictionary every time I hear the word pronounced wrong.

Then smack me around the head as we don't say 'ant', it is more like 'aren't' here.

I have just checked my Oxford dictionary and it says 'aunt (ahnt)'.

Same source, 'dance - (dah)'