As I usually do, I was watching CBS Sunday Morning recently. Dr. Jon Lapook pointed out some of his pet peeves. His “mostly have to do with the use of language. Something cannot be ‘very unique.’ It cannot be ‘very one of a kind.’ It is either unique or not unique.” Truth!
He posits that perhaps pet peeves are actually a good thing. “I blew off some steam about something that means absolutely nothing in the scheme of things. And I do think I’m feeling a little better.
“Pet peeves are just important enough to irritate us, but not important enough to make a difference in our lives.” Yeah, I’ll buy that. I was watching the Spectrum News and they were featuring Small Business Saturday. For the clip, they filmed a little bit of footage from a well-known small business, one I’ve supported for decades. On the screen for less than two seconds was a sign that read LADIE’S TOPS. I glommed onto this right away.
If it had read LADIES TOPS, I wouldn’t have noticed. The use of the apostrophe seems to be the largest problem in spelling, from its/it’s to breaking into a word ending in S – the JONE’S GARAGE, e.g. When I’ve noted a while back that I had essentially surrendered my Grammar Nazi cred by giving up correcting it’s/its, I was chastised.
Buttoned lip?
But the doc says: “In this age of social media, should you keep your pet peeves to yourself?” Oops, too late. “Should you silently seethe, or try to inform? My vote, as we hope to enter an era of increased civility: keep them to yourself. There are enough people weighing in on other people’s faults.”
I suppose it depends. Who am I correcting? I have blogger buddies and we point out each other’s typos all the time. But its understood, I mean it’s understood that we have no editors and that we do it to fix the finished project, not as a gotcha.
Another one of my pet peeves my buddy Chuck wrote about recently. It’s that Coincidence does not equal Fact.
Dr. LaPook thinks “Our pet peeves actually serve a purpose. While they’re irritating, they let us quietly vent about something that truly does not matter … without ruining somebody else’s day.
“So, embrace your pet peeves, but don’t let them bite anyone else. Like all pets, they can be very therapeutic.”
^Isn’t “coincidence” an ALTERNATIVE Fact??^