Online Writing Forums at TheNextBigWriter

w. e. turner · 05-06-2012 09:17:56

I know everybody has certain things that tend to really piss them off or, if not totally make them angry, at least tend to irritate them.

Reading the paper today (beginning with the sports pages, of course; I AM a guy, you know) I ran across one of my favorite pet peeves and later ran across another in the news section.

The first is the multiple mentions in the baseball coverage was that a certain batter had specified number of "RBIs". This is something that always tends to drive me up a wall.

"RBI" means "Runs Batted In." Why the hell do sportswriters insist on pluralizing it? Do they really want to say "Runs Batted Ins"? Do they really want to sound that stupid? OK, ladies, I know that sportswriters are usually former or failed "jocks" and that most "jocks" don't care (and many of them almost seem to prefer) that they sound stupid, but Jesus Christ, do they have to shout it out to the world that they are so damned ignorant?

The other pet peeve I found in todays paper is similar. I saw (and it seems to be almost common usage nowadays) reference to a vehicle's "VIN number." "VIN" is an abreviation of "Vehicle Identification Number." It is a coded number that applies to a specific vehicle, whether it be car, truck, trailer, airplane, motorcycle, trolley or almost anything else that moves and it contains a great deal of information about that vehicle. Information contained includes the type of vehicle it is, the year it was manufactured, the manufacturer, the style (pickup, passenger car, number of doors, etc.) plus a great many other bits of information.

But to call it a "VIN number" is saying "Vehicle Identification Number Number" and, to me at least, it sounds just as ignorant as saying "Runs Batted Ins".

Now, I know I sound like I'm just a bit of a curmudgeon (does that really surprise anyone?) but that is just me. It comes with the territory.

But, actually, I'd kind of like to hear from others about their pet peeves.

So this is your chance to vent, people.

What do you run across in your daily lives that tends to irritate you?

I know this can get a little personal and irritating, folks, but try to not get too vindictive, please.

Last edited by w. e. turner (05-06-2012 09:23:39)

vern · 05-06-2012 10:20:01

I was just wondering why people have "favorite" pet peeves. Does one really prefer getting upset with one trivial thing over getting upset with another trivial thing. As my friend's six-year-old grandson responded to a question on a recent phone conversation, "That makes no sense." lol

But, yeah, I think quite a few of those people in various media - newspaper, tv, radio, etc. - just try to be different/obnoxious in their presentations. To paraphrase an old saying, "It doesn't matter what you say/print as long as it gets someone's attention.

Of course there are the ones which are just stupid "jocks" or such so I just consider the source. It's the ones which are presumably more educated and have vast resources to provide things more accurately (such as tv anchors) and still insist on changing the pronunciation of common words which should bring out the shotguns pointed at the tv. The talking heads seem to be smiling and saying, "Look at me, I'm a blathering idiot; won't you please keep listening?" Unfortunately, it does no good to change the channel, there's just another bobblehead doing the same thing.

Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. Take care. Vern

PS: If it will make you feel any better, I think the problem with using acronyms is that they become a new word and it's not like sounding out the individual words they represent. So it changes the sound to the ear and the way it trips off the tongue. For instance, if you say, "He had ten RBI" it sounds more cut off than if you say, "He had ten runs batted in." RBI sounds more singular than when you sound out the individual words with the plural "runs". Just an added thought.

Last edited by vern (05-06-2012 10:34:14)

duchesnay · 05-06-2012 11:23:39

Learned something there W.E.
Thanks for starting this tread. I have some pet peeves about websites and Publishers.

Websites:
1. Is it dead or just comatose? Those sites that give no indication if there are still functionning, the latest entry is three years old, there is no last published add-on etc. Some of these sell merchandise. Would you thrust people who can't maintain a website appropriatly and consider their visitor's first impression.

2. It's calls itself a writer's website, there to support and invite everybody and anybody for weekly writing contests. A blog form with daily topics that quickly end up being about the same group's personal issues as well as writing. They know each other, share a local workshop and email behind the scene. False representation really bugs me. Do your thing, just don't pretend it's something else.

3. The ever increasing amount of advertisements on some website pages. You need to upgrade your PC's memory to be able to access these because they take so much from your hard drive. The actual content is now dwarfed into a three inch column, interrupted with even more adds. Crazy.

Publishers:
1. If you have a bestseller, you delay and delay the next entry in a series to the point it's three to five years between installments, and that's counting the time frame between the paperback version and the next hardcover. As a reader, you need to go read the last few pages of the last book, to refresh your memory and enjoy what's next.
2. Changing the name of the title of a book, published by another house, fooling the buyer into thinking: Hey, this guy's got a new book out! Till you look at the inside page, hopefully before you buy it and see it was on the bookstore shelves 15 years ago.
3. Adding page space to make a book seem more subtantial than it is, using a line and a half between text, double lines between paragraphs, using huge margins, big fonts, chapters separated by several blank pages. If you buy online, good luck.

w. e. turner · 05-06-2012 14:14:46

vern wrote:
I was just wondering why people have "favorite" pet peeves. Does one really prefer getting upset with one trivial thing over getting upset with another trivial thing.

Actually vern, when you're old, decrepit and irritable like me getting ticked off about something trivial helps keep you going. If everything was always hunky-dory, I'd be bored out of my skull in no time at all. Getting my dander up helps keep my blood flowing and keeps me going on; if for no other reason than to try to find something else to piss me off, be able to vent about it, and so on.

The trick is, I think, to vent a little bit now and then to keep from letting the internal pressure build up to a point where you blow a gasket--or an artery.

Last edited by w. e. turner (05-06-2012 14:17:09)

Van_Garr · 05-06-2012 16:15:54

Pet Peeves. This could be interesting.

When it comes to writing, I don't really have any that come to mind. Overused dialog tags might be the only one.

When it comes to work, I have a few, but the most irritating one is when people ask if I work here. Well let's see, I'm wearing a name tag, a uniform that sometimes consists of a shirt bearing the logo of our store, and using a handheld computer to scan things. I've been tempted on a number of times to tell them no.

vern · 05-06-2012 16:25:20

w. e. turner wrote:
vern wrote:
I was just wondering why people have "favorite" pet peeves. Does one really prefer getting upset with one trivial thing over getting upset with another trivial thing.
Actually vern, when you're old, decrepit and irritable like me getting ticked off about something trivial helps keep you going. If everything was always hunky-dory, I'd be bored out of my skull in no time at all. Getting my dander up helps keep my blood flowing and keeps me going on; if for no other reason than to try to find something else to piss me off, be able to vent about it, and so on.

The trick is, I think, to vent a little bit now and then to keep from letting the internal pressure build up to a point where you blow a gasket--or an artery.

Well, yeah, but how do you go about arranging them into favorite to least favorite? Does it really matter which one gets the ole heart pumping faster? How does one get to that special status of favorite and be held in such high regard over the others?

Do you use a stethoscope or count pulses to determine the most effective pet peeves? I'm looking for a good way to rate mine so I can cull the least productive ones and get more pump for the money with the ones left cause I just can't keep track of all of them to give them their rightful respect. Any assistance along this line would be greatly appreciated. Take care. Vern

Last edited by vern (05-06-2012 16:29:50)

JElizabeth · 05-06-2012 16:40:12

duchesnay wrote:
2. Changing the name of the title of a book, published by another house, fooling the buyer into thinking: Hey, this guy's got a new book out! Till you look at the inside page, hopefully before you buy it and see it was on the bookstore shelves 15 years ago.

Wait, is this real?! I've never heard of such a thing. Who the hell does this???

Wayne, I love your thread. And your pet peeves. How come "comprised of" isn't in there?!

The following are like nails on a chalkboard to me:

1) people mixing up affect/effect
2) when restaurant owners write "ice" tea instead of ICED. I refuse to eat at such an establishment.
3) "irregardless"
4) idioms used as metaphors in creative writing. Okay, we all know it's impossible to write something that's never been written before, but at least TRY to be creative.
5) this is only somewhat grammar-related, but it is an acronym, so... the whole "LGBT" thing. I don't get why the "T" has to be there. I know that's really culturally insensitive to me and blah blah blah, but whatever. Transgender people are always saying that gender identity has nothing to do with sexual identity. Okay. I don't get what that has to do with the GAY community.

Done. Thanks for the opportunity to vent, Wayne.

duchesnay · 05-06-2012 17:08:00

JElizabeth wrote: Wait, is this real?! I've never heard of such a thing. Who the hell does this???

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Absolutely! Happened with Agatha Christie's Mystery books, first published in UK early 20th century and then again in USA under different titles. There are other more frequent and recent examples, but none come to mind right now.

Sometimes there will be a warning on the copyright page stating, 'this book was previously published under title ______'.

I hang on to some series of books I read 30 years ago and hate to buy the same book twice.

Last edited by duchesnay (05-06-2012 17:28:13)

w. e. turner · 05-06-2012 18:23:06

JElizabeth wrote:
Wayne, I love your thread. And your pet peeves. How come "comprised of" isn't in there?!

JLiz,
I didn't include "comprised of" because I probably didn't read it in the newspaper this morning when I wrote my original forum piece. Besides, I already vented on that to you so you already know how I feel about the phrase. But maybe I should repeat it so everybody else knows about it. I'll look up my comments and post them here later.

BTW, I printed out "By Any Other Name" and am reading it, so look for a review in the next day or so.

maxkeanu · 05-07-2012 10:09:57

My pet peeves - 1). Fiction writers writing about writing fiction or the fiction writer's life.

2). The LGBT or LGB? folks hijacking the rainbow as a symbol. I see rainbows (with rain) everyday. I've always associated rainbows with unicorns and leprechauns. Now, when viewing a rainbow, I think of lesbian leprechauns, transvestite unicorns and a pot of condoms at the end of that rainbow.

Woe is me. Childhood's end.

-måx

Last edited by maxkeanu (05-07-2012 12:00:28)

dagnee · 05-07-2012 10:14:46

My pet peeve is are people who list their pet peeves.<<<<<<JOKE

JElizabeth · 05-07-2012 10:36:03

maxkeanu wrote:
2). The LGBT or LGB? folks hijacking the rainbow as a symbol. I see rainbows (with rain) everyday. I've always associated rainbows with unicorns and leprechauns. Now, when viewing a rainbow, I think of lesbian leprechauns, transvestite unicorns and a pot of condoms at the end of that rainbow.

Woe is me. Childhoods end.

-måx

HAHA. Yeah, I don't embrace the rainbow, either. It's gay.

t.m.hobbs · 05-07-2012 12:33:59

Are you sure W.E. Turner? According to a Wikipedia article and with reference to the Chicago Manual of Style, RBI stands for Run Batted In.

Run batted in or RBI is a statistic used in baseball and softball to credit a batter when the outcome of his at-bat results in a run being scored, except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play. The first team to track RBI was the Buffalo Bisons.

Common nicknames for an RBI include "Ribby" and "Rib."

The plural of RBI is "RBIs". A common mistake is to conclude that the plural should be "RBI" because "runs" is the pluralized noun, but the entire acronym is properly pluralized.[1]

References

^ "Chicago Manual of Style". Q&A. The University of Chicago. Retrieved July 17, 2011.

And Mr. Turner, maybe you could do some research on Joe Posnanski before you take issue with sports writers?

Last edited by t.m.hobbs (05-07-2012 12:55:08)

vern · 05-07-2012 15:16:30

t.m.hobbs wrote:
Are you sure W.E. Turner? According to a Wikipedia article and with reference to the Chicago Manual of Style, RBI stands for Run Batted In.

Run batted in or RBI is a statistic used in baseball and softball to credit a batter when the outcome of his at-bat results in a run being scored, except in certain situations such as when an error is made on the play. The first team to track RBI was the Buffalo Bisons.

Common nicknames for an RBI include "Ribby" and "Rib."

The plural of RBI is "RBIs". A common mistake is to conclude that the plural should be "RBI" because "runs" is the pluralized noun, but the entire acronym is properly pluralized.[1]

References

^ "Chicago Manual of Style". Q&A. The University of Chicago. Retrieved July 17, 2011.

And Mr. Turner, maybe you could do some research on Joe Posnanski before you take issue with sports writers?

Ahh, so I was ignorantly correct in thinking RBI sounded singular even though I erroneously/blindly accepted the "runs batted in" premise. Just goes to show that the way things sound to the ear is generally the way to go; for me anyway. Take care. Vern

w. e. turner · 05-15-2012 17:06:11

Sorry, guys, I have been suffering from a intense bout of writer's block lately and have not been as diligent as I should have on keeping up with this thread.

Actually, I think both RBI and RBIs can be argued as correct but my personal preference is for RBI as the plural in the same way that the correct plural of "Court Martial" is "Courts Martial" rather than "Court Martials". The "Court" is pluralized and not the type of court it is (a "Martial" one). The "batted in" in the case of "RBI" is descriptive of the run or runs if more than one is scored and I feel the plural should be on the object (run) rather than the action (batted in).

And I really don't care if you can find arguments supporting RBIs rather than RBI. You can also find examples of other "acceptable" misuses of the language. But my personal preference is for RBI as both plural and singular. And I started this thread to list personal pet peeves. If you don't agree, that is your choice.

I also know of many sportswriters who are diligent on using correct language in their writing, just like I know of others who are lazy about it. And I believe using the acronym "RBI" as a singular entity rather than as the acronym it is is laziness.

John Hamler · 05-15-2012 23:10:49

Damn. Hobbs stole my thunder on the RBI thing. Nobody ever spells out the acronym at the sports bar. You just say something like: "You see Jeter had 2 Ribby's last night?" Or, for you Red Sox fans: "Yaz made two errors, but he drew a walk, drove in four runs on two base hits, and had an outfield assist against the Angels! That'll boost his OBS AND raise his slugging percentage!" And then you look at yourself and realize, oh Christ... I'm speaking "baseball"! Next thing you know, I'll be ordering hot dogs off the Chinese menu.

Last edited by John Hamler (05-15-2012 23:11:35)

#1 05-06-2012 09:17:56

Pet Peeves

#2 05-06-2012 10:20:01

Re: Pet Peeves

#3 05-06-2012 11:23:39

Re: Pet Peeves

#4 05-06-2012 14:14:46

Re: Pet Peeves

vern wrote:

#5 05-06-2012 16:15:54

Re: Pet Peeves

#6 05-06-2012 16:25:20

Re: Pet Peeves

w. e. turner wrote:

vern wrote:

#7 05-06-2012 16:40:12

Re: Pet Peeves

duchesnay wrote:

#8 05-06-2012 17:08:00

Re: Pet Peeves

#9 05-06-2012 18:23:06

Re: Pet Peeves

JElizabeth wrote:

#10 05-07-2012 10:09:57

Re: Pet Peeves

#11 05-07-2012 10:14:46

Re: Pet Peeves

#12 05-07-2012 10:36:03

Re: Pet Peeves

maxkeanu wrote:

#13 05-07-2012 12:33:59

Re: Pet Peeves

#14 05-07-2012 15:16:30

Re: Pet Peeves

t.m.hobbs wrote:

#15 05-15-2012 17:06:11

Re: Pet Peeves

#16 05-15-2012 23:10:49

Re: Pet Peeves

Board footer