Last Updated February 4, 2011

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1. Hardee's is certainly not the first nor the only offender, but they have the most recently advertised product that caught my eye, the French Dip Thickburger.  According to the signage, it is "always served with Au Jus" for dipping.  
Wrong: "served with Au Jus" (this translates "served with With Juice")
Right: "served au jus" (translates "served with juice")
Even better: "served with juice" 

2. People who stop their cars in a parking lot waiting for somebody to back out so they can have the vacated parking space ... when the driver of the parked vehicle has just arrived back at her car with two dozen bags of groceries and four kids. This seems to me to be particularly lamebrained when the person is trying to get 20 feet closer to a 200,000 sq. ft. Walmart SuperCenter. 

3. Our disappearing alphabet.
*Leaving the "gh" out of light, right, and night. We have Miller Lite, DietRite, Nick at Nite ...but nobody speaks of the Frazier-Ali Fite.
*Leaving the "y" and "o" out of your in the Netspeak Creole "ur kewl". I always read it as Ur, as in Ur of the Chaldees. And what purpose does "kewl" serve? It takes the same number of character strokes, although I suppose it would be pronounced differently (as in Kew, England). 

4. Verbing nouns. I know it's been done for ages. I know it's resulted in words that are considered perfectly good usage. But did the verbers have to take gateway? impact? "First they came for the verbs, and I said nothing because verbing weirds language. Then they arrival for the nouns, and I speech nothing because I no verbs." (Peter Ellis)

5. Call Waiting. "'Scuse me, I've got another call."  Hey, I was here first. It's like ... breaking in line. 

6. People who don't understand how 3-way and 4-way stop signs work. Whoever stops first has the right-of-way. But take your right-of-way cautiously, because people don't understand how 3-way and 4-way stop signs work. It seems to be a frighteningly common misconception that when a car pulls out into the intersection from Street A, the two or three cars behind him get to follow him out, regardless of when they stopped relative to the cars waiting to enter from Street B and Street C. 

7. Baked versions of things that are supposed to be fried, like potato and tortilla chips. Grease is what makes the salt stick. If somebody gives you a bag of baked snacks as a gift, heat up some oil and give ‘em a quick dip. They’ll perk right up.

8. Weird variants of standard food products:
Ro*Tel “Bold Italian” - If we wanted it to taste like pizza, we’d be on the Italian aisle. 
Maple flavor sausage - Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean … what were you thinking? Aunt Jemima doesn’t make sausage flavored syrup.

9. Whining. As Alex Harvey wrote and Chris LeDoux sang:

10. Calling America a "Cowboy Nation". Not even close. Well, certainly a lot closer than Belgium, but if America really were a Cowboy Nation, Saddam Hussein woulda been strung up at high noon on the streets of Baghdad. Maybe someday the posse will find Osama bin Laden. When that day comes, I hope we don't take any longer than Judge Roy Bean woulda taken to dispense justice. 

11. The statement "All opinions are equally valid!" (they aren't) which usually goes hand in hand with "and I have a right to my opinion!" (which was never the issue).

12. The statement "You're comparing apples and oranges." I might very well be doing that, apples and oranges are both fruit. I can also compare apples and bagels (both food items). If you mean "The two things you're comparing are so unrelated that any conclusions drawn from a comparison are suspect" then say that. 

13. Web pages featuring lime green print on a yellow background, or pink print on a pastel blue background, or any other combination that will have the reader's eyes aching and watering within minutes. If it can be read at all. 

14. Pop-up ads are bad. Animated pop-up ads are worse. Animated pop-up ads that scroll and dart around the screen as they attempt to evade your cursor so you can't close them are satanic. 

15. Really Stupid Spam. I know spam is like death and taxes, but the really stupid ones get under my skin. I recently received this diploma scam from Leta Hilton, addressed to "Humphreys" (my comments in italics):
"hi, finally got the masters tell mom and dad! i know they will be proud of me now!" 
(Congratulations! I presume the Masters isn't in English.)  
"sis you got to try this program ... I doubted it at first too, but gave it a shot ... 2 weeks later got the masters!" 
(Yeah, I can easily believe it was a two-week program. By the way, I'm an only child. And for what it's worth, my name isn't Humphreys. And furthermore, I already have a Masters Degree.) 
"they are still offering the B A B S_C M A M_S C M B_A P_H D"  
(Cool. I’ve long dreamed of getting my B A  B S_C M A M_S C M B_A P_H D in Chemical Engineering.) 

16. Clueless Reviews of Recipes. I love to cook, and often browse on-line recipe collections. Many of the best sites feature reviews from those who have tried the recipes, and a chance for the reviewers to give the dish a rating of 0-5 stars. Sometimes these reviews are helpful. But I see an awful lot of this sort of thing: "2 stars. This was bland. No taste at all." Hmm. The ingredients were potatoes, milk, cheese, salt, and pepper. The reviewer didn't foresee that this wasn't going to produce a five-alarm fire in the tummy? It certainly had taste -- potato and dairy. Precisely what I expected from the ingredients. I also see too much of this: "1 star. I didn't have any sirloin, so I substituted ground turkey, and I don't drink wine so I substituted vegetable broth, and I left out the butter because it's too much fat. Even my kids wouldn't eat it." I can certainly understand that. I wonder what they'd have thought of the actual recipe.

17. Internet List Peeves:
* people who rite like this no caps no punctuation but they sometimes throw in a period not necessarily. where it belongs
* People whose sig is longer than most of their posts
* The 20 people who bitch about one off-topic post by someone else, complaining that off-topic posts "clutter the list"
* Those who think "flaming" means "disagreeing with"
* List administrators who, perhaps being able to exercise power for the first time in their lives, run a list like Stalin would have run a list if he'd had one
* Lists with ListMoms and ListSibs. I join a list to discuss a subject I'm interested in, not to acquire a second family.
* The following abbreviations: dh, dd, ds, mil, fil, bil ... figure it out yet? It took me a couple of weeks. Dear husband, dear daughter, dear son, mother-in-law, father-in-law, brother-in-law ... Where did this crap come from? 
* The notion that POSTING IN ALL CAPS IS SHOUTING AT PEOPLE. Bah. The best reason not to post in all caps is that it's harder to read. 

18. "Parenting". We had a perfectly good way of saying it before "parenting" came along -- raising children. If there's parenting, there should also be uncling, sistering, etc. 

19. People who think "literally" means the opposite of what it really means, as in "I literally laughed my ass off." Now that would be a sight to see. 

20. Prescription medicines hawked on TV which promise to alleviate allergies or toenail fungus but which also might cause kidney failure, blindness, impotence, cardiac arrest, internal bleeding, or lymphoma. And what are we to do if we experience any of these horrible side-effects? See our doctor immediately. But isn't that what we did to start with, back when we just had the toenail fungus? 

21. The Wussification of America. Many (if not most) school districts have a policy of suspending or otherwise punishing both parties caught in a fight on school grounds. If a bully swings a punch at Johnny, and Johnny defends himself, Johnny gets suspended for three days. Because, according to school logic, he should have either let the bully beat him up, or run away. This is the message we want to send school kids? If they don't get the message at school, they'll certainly get it from the media. Watch the news, read the papers. Nearly every day, it seems, a prominent figure (usually a politician) is being called on the carpet for misspeaking. Recall this one? A week after the 9/11 attack, President Bush made this statement at the Pentagon: "I want justice. And there's an old poster out West that I recall that said, 'Wanted, Dead or Alive.'" This (logical and justified) response didn't set well with some folks. In an interview with Barbara Walters, the President backpedaled, saying he hadn't used "the most diplomatic of language." He said, "I do have to be cautious about conveying thoughts in a way, maybe, that doesn't send wrong impressions about our country." The significant part of that is I do have to be cautious. "Be Cautious" is the new political motto. Watch what you say. If possible, say nothing at all. If you absolutely must make a statement, couch it in terms that will allow you to take the opposite view next year without looking like you're contradicting yourself. Ask Trent Lott, who made some complimentary remarks about Sen. Strom Thurmond at a birthday celebration for the 100-year-old Senator. Lott issued at least two written apologies and was still met with calls for his resignation (from Jesse Jackson) and a threat of Senatorial censure (from Al Gore). Lott found himself apologizing to anyone who was offended by his statement. In other words, he wussed out. There is no "right not to be offended". 

22. The Cult of Apology (a symptom of wussification). You don't necessarily have to do (or say) something in order to feel compelled to issue an apology. You can always apologize for something your ancestors did, even if it happened some 800 years ago. In the late 90s, the Pope apologized for the Crusades. We're still waiting for a Muslim country to apologize for the invasion of Europe. 

23. People who think the common shorthand "Xmas" is "taking Christ out of Christmas", along with their cousins, people who think A.D. stands for "After Death". 

24. The (Non) Education System. Why can't Johnny read? For that matter, why doesn't Johnny know much about history, science, and math? What's wrong with our school systems? Hundreds of answers and concomitant solutions have been posited over the last 30 years or so. I'm not certain where the answers lie myself, but I can safely say it's not a matter of money. Based on my experience as a student, a teacher, and a parent of students, I would make the following observations:
* Too many teachers are less than fully qualified in the subjects they teach. Some classes are taught by teachers who minored in the subject because they needed an easy minor.
* Behavior problems and administrative trivia take up far too much class time.
* Less factual knowledge is being imparted; of the factual knowledge that is being taught, most has been through the filters of relevance and political correctness.
* Critical thinking isn't taught at all.

25. Political correctness. I was pleased to see that the vast majority of deaf people hate the term "hearing impaired". I long for a resolution to the waiter-waitress-waitron-server silliness. I hear "server" is now the preferred term. I didn't see anything wrong with "waiter" myself. But I speak as one who thought "chairman" sufficed for both sexes. I'll call blacks "African-Americans" when they call whites "European-Americans". I'll use "Native American" only if it includes me, because that's what native means -- belonging to a particular place by birth.  See how far it can go.

26. Portmanteau Proliferation, much of it from the Net (netiquette, emoticons, blog). I suppose "Brangelina" and "Bennifer" had a certain charm that I find lacking in "celebutante", "netizen", "sporgery" and "podcasting". It's ironic that nobody seems to use "slithy" and "mimsy".

27. People who use the term "Nazi" to describe someone other than a Nazi (a member of the National Socialist German Workers Party). 

28. More destruction of the English language, courtesy of the Department of Defense: Heard on a recent C-SPAN broadcast of committee hearings, a spokesman expressing concern about National Guardsmen being used at the Mexican border, because "they might interface with people with guns." (Which of course might turn violent, like the famous Interface at the OK Corral). Meanwhile, morale is high among the Border Patrol, because of .... "resourcing of personnel and infrastructure." 

29. The verbing goes on (see #3 above) ... a journalist reports attempts to get a statement from a White House spokesman. She was unsuccessful, even though she had ... (here it comes) ... "been efforting all day to reach him." Hmm. Maybe he was efforting to evasion her. 
I'll just make this a permanent category. From C-SPAN, more hearings on the border issue: How do we get the Mexican government to play its part in maintaining border security? We do it by .... "incentivizing Mexico." 

30. I have before me the Owner's Manual for a recent purchase. It begins with a big-letter warning not to expose it to the rain. There follows a list of 18 SAFETY INSTRUCTIONS. #1 on the list is "Read instructions -- all the safety and operating instructions should be read before the appliance is operated." #2 is "Retain instructions ... for future reference." #3 is "Head [sic] Warnings -- All warnings and cautions on the appliance and in the operating instructions should be adhered to." #4 is "Follow instructions -- all operating and use instructions should be followed." Okay, I'm duly warned and instructed. At #5, we finally get to an actual warning -- don't get it wet. And #6 -- don't mount it to a wall or ceiling. I probably should mention at this point that the appliance is a small electric alarm clock. Personally, I think that anyone who mounts their alarm clock to the ceiling deserves whatever safety hazards may result.  
30a. The Presto Professional Electric Knife Sharpener informs me -- "Do not run fingers along edge of knife to check sharpness." Alright, how do I tell if it's sharp? Consulting the Q&A section of the manual, I learn, "Use it to slice food." I'm beginning to worry that there really are people who need to be told not to use a hair dryer in the shower. 

31. The lost art of proofreading. A few example from a pool of thousands --
- A few years ago I subscribed to a magazine that, month after month, carried a label exhorting postal carriers 'DO NOT BLEND.'
- In a corn chowder recipe included in a packet of fresh sage I recently purchased (distributed by Infinite Herbs) the last ingredient is "1 lb. corn, frozed, or kernels from 3 ears of flat parsley, finely chopped". 
- The advance copy of the box art for the 2nd season of The Big Valley DVD set has a rather obvious problem. See for yourself.

32. The Miss Universe Pageant. It's fixed. Miss Universe? The pageant has been going on for more than 50 years, and there has never been a contestant from another solar system, much less another galaxy. I'll consider it a universal contest when they invite Miss Gliese 581 C. 

33. Walmart advertising weirdness.

34. Warning weirdness.

35. Faux pockets.  "Faux" is a fancy French way of saying "fake".  I've learned to check shirts and jackets, to make sure the important part of the pocket is included with the flap -- and I consider the part that holds something to be the important part.  

More to come, as more things piss me off, puzzle me, make me go 'hmmm' ...