Pet Peeve Time!

Now, I'm a fairly understanding sort. With regards to most view points and beliefs I try and be open to the possibility that they may have valid points (execpt the Nazis.  I really can't get behind that). However, with social media, the online catalogs I subscribe to, and the various and sundry blogs I peruse, I have compiled a rather long list of pet peeves throughout my internet travelings. They can pretty much be broken down into two basic categories: Grammar and Everything Else.

Grammar:

Grammar mistakes, apart from weird or convoluted sentence structure (not punctuation), drive me up the wall. Mostly, I'll stick to my top three, though. No sense using up all of my material now. In no particular order (except for the first one):

1) Using "should of" or "could of" instead of "should have" or "could have." Seriously, people, the way you talk really should not translate across directly.  What you are thinking of is "should've" and "could've." These are contractions, and should be written as thus if you really need to do so. Let's use them in a sentence, shall we?

"I should've gone to the market, then I could've purchased those motorcycle gloves I wanted."

Stop using "of" to completely butcher a contraction.

2) Periods go inside of quotation marks. Holy. God. People. This is very simple.  Even if you don't think the period should go inside quotation marks, do it anyway. Why? Because it's pretty goddamn easy. To illustrate, I will provide the same sentence the internet moron way, and the right way:

Wrong way: When starting any project of note, I always remember my Marcus Aurelius, "Nothing that is to be undertaken is to be undertaken without purpose".

Right way: When starting any project of note, I always remember my Marcus Aurelius, "Nothing that is to be undertaken is to be undertaken without purpose."

Now, I can see why people could possibly think this is the right way, because, as I said, I'm fairly open-minded.  People think that, because the full sentence is not a quotation (see below for next pet peeve), then the period should not be included in the quotation portion of the sentence.  This is wrong thinking.  Unfortunately compounded by games like Mass Effect, where I have often seen this crop up.

3) Using "quote" instead of "quotation." This isn't as big as the previous two, but irritating nonetheless. It really comes down to a very simple misunderstanding. "Quote" is a verb and "Quotation" is a noun. Therefore, when you are quoting someone you can say:

He told me, quote, "That's the wrong way to do that, shithead."

But, if you are referring to it as an object:

He gave me this great quotation. He said, "That's the wrong way to do that, shithead."

As you can see, it is a very simple matter to make sure this is correct.  Please do so.

Everything Else:

Seriously speaking, there are so many things in this category that I would be here for hours writing them all down.  So, in the interest of my sanity (although, that's been in question for ages), I will, as above, limit it to three of them.  Again, these are not necessarily the biggest, just the ones foremost on my mind at the moment.

1) Stop calling scantily clad women near motorcycles "motorcycle babes." Apart from the ridiculousness of such a thing in the first place, when I am searching for motorcycle pictures the last thing I want to see some half-naked chic (and yes, in this instance I use the word "chic" because I feel that if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, I will call it a duck) languidly lounging on top of one. Why? Because if I want to see pictures of women on motorcycles, it is far sexier to see a woman in full (and proper) motorcycle leathers (not fashion leathers). In addition, when I'm searching for pictures of motorcycles, I'm really looking for pictures of motorcycles (I hoard them. Especially if they are like these: Sweet... or Sweetness...).

2) For the love of all things holy, stop with the "you're a genius if..." math questions on Facebook. Really? I mean, really? Anyone who has half a brain in their head, and is capable of simple math, can figure almost every single one of them out. And don't add a time limit. That just makes me even more ornery (Standarized testing sucks!). In fact, stop with all of those idiotic questions, math based or not. Just because it made you feel good about yourself, doesn't mean that everyone on your friends list needs to know you're a step or two above a basic parochial education.

3) Please, I'm begging you, stop with the partisan hack-job posts. I'm all for raising debate in this country; it is something that is completely and utterly needed, but posting vindictive or inflammatory pictures and claiming that you have now won the argument just pisses me off. Also, don't attack me personally if I happen to disagree with you're most agregious of posts. That whole thing I said about raising the level of dialogue? I meant it. I'm willing to converse and argue with you. If I've added you to my friends list, it means that I respect you. Please show me the same courteousy and debate me civilly. I'm not attacking you by stating an opposing view point.

Well, there you have (some of) it. Catch you all later!