[Propwash]

My own list of annoyances is satisfyingly short:


Everything else is an irritation rather than an annoyance.

PW

There must be something you like in life, Prop.

Good point.

Haven't you got some more trees to chop down?

PW

[gadgetjunkie]

Facebook 'friends' that post some bollox along the lines of "I know that 97% of you won't broadcast this, but my friends will be the 3% that do".

Pedant's

[Waveflyer]

Long replies.

People who use the "fact" that language evolves as an excuse for their poor language skills or lack of education.

Ah - so it's really their poor language skills or lack of education that you object to?

or even 'to which you object' ?

However, I confess that I do get ever so slightly piqued by people, who say with apparent satisfaction or even pride, that they are 'no good at' things requiring some mental application (foreign languages, maths, science, whatever ..). Obviously, there are physical and maybe mental difficulties (eg myopia, dyslexia, ..) which may make or have made such shortcomings inevitable, as may have limited educational opportunities. However,I reckon these are likely to be rarer than the sort of difficulties (dyspraxia, atonality, myopia again) which cause inabilities in, say, doing needlepoint or painting in watercolours or playing the piccolo or sightreading music. In any case, I can see such inabilities as a reasonable matter of personal regret (as I do on all the last), and on occasion apology, not as something on which to appear to build an attitude of 'I cannot, and this shows that I am of a superior group which shows that we do not care that we cannot'; with further implication that '.. and so, others should adapt themselves to indulge my inabilities' (the 'shout louder at foreigners' syndrome).

Obviously, this does not matter in the context of wholly optional leisure pursuits, mental or physical, such as physical participation in sport (which I disliked as a child and still do; although I can admire the skills involved and the dedication needed to acquire and maintain them), and all sorts of puzzles (which I enjoyed, and still do).

Gross generalisation (something which normally annoys me in others): I have met this 'pride in inability', I reckon, more among Britons than in other nations; and, among Britons, more among the older English.

[kanga]

Long replies.

..

or even ...

.. and multiply nested quotes, as with AB of this parish ?

[Pete L]

Long replies.

or even ...

.. and multiply nested quotes, as with AB of this parish ?

Are you sure they annoy you?

[Waveflyer]

Italsoannoysmewhenseveralwordsareusedwhenonewoulddo.

[seanxair]

The weather

[PaulB]

Italsoannoysmewhenseveralwordsareusedwhenonewoulddo.

Verbose?

[Cowshed]

TV documentaries that seem to spend half the programme either telling you what they are going to tell/show you or what they have already told/shown you. I guess it means they don’t need so much content and can pad it out with this sort of waffle.

[Steve D]

People who write 'i' in lowercase.

People who don't bother with full stops or paragraph breaks.

Often the same people...

[Barcli]

The type of people who go Hunting
Evertything on RobP's list
There .... easy

[matthew_w100]

People who write 'i' in lowercase.

Case in point. That was language evolution in the fourteenth century. From 'ich' to 'ic' to 'i' to 'I'. I 'spect a bunch of grumpy old men complained about the way the yoof were doing things back then.

[seanxair]

The type of person who generalises about people

[PaulB]

The type of person who generalises about people

That applies to most people, doesn't it?

[ChrisRowland]

I think that people should try to write good, well punctuated, English because they are trying to get their point across to many other people and writing badly seems to show a lack of respect for their audience.

However a lot of groups are international and there are people for whom English is not their first language and I will bend over backwards to tolerate their posts and understand what they are trying to say.

Nit picking about grammar, punctuation or spelling seems to me to be very bad manners.

Chris