Your pet peeve, technical or otherwise.

[alanambrose]

Yeah, +100 for people who start sentences with 'So,'...

Connector sites that make you work really hard to figure out which pins / receptacle / tool etc are used with which plug.

Product sites that make you work really hard to figure out the differences between products with similar names. Bonus hatred if all the products start with the same three letters and have random numbers after them and the tech specs are on separate web pages. Yeah, I assume the marketing department knows what the difference is between the PRO100 and PRO200 and the SuperPRO300 - but I don't and I don't want spend 15 minutes figuring it out by comparing 50 product attributes knowing that a random 45 of them are the same.

Amazon links that take you to a different product than the one you ordered last time. FFS.

Dumb search algorithms that when you ask for Manufacturer's name + product name give you a load of irrelevant nonsense from other manufacturers. Oh and the copycats that use a different manufacturer's name meaning 'like the thing you were looking for but lower quality and we hope you don't notice'. e.g. on Amazon UK type 'PCL air fittings' in the search box.

Oh and air fittings - does the world really need 50 incompatible shapes?

The dumb-assed Euro-nonsense 'click to say you're happy we use cookies' every time I go to any web site - even one I've used 100 times before. Did you not sit down and think about the consequences of this law for just 10 seconds? Have you lawmakers never even used a web browser?

'Stateless' web search boxes that make you add the same 6 filter criteria in every time you do a search.

Sites that pop-up 'will you give us your feedback' when I'm on their web site for the first time and have been on it for less than 3 seconds.

I could keep going ... how long have you got?

Alan

[IDEngineer]

Did you not sit down and think about the consequences of this law for just 10 seconds?

This comment could be applied to the vast majority of legislation passed by any politicians anywhere.

When someone says something equivalent to "There ought to be a law..." the first thing I ask them is to describe how that law will be enforced. Usually there's a few seconds of confusion, followed by an "Oh... oops" expression on their face. Do you REALLY want to live with a sufficient enforcement mechanism to accomplish what you're asking for? Most people don't but they haven't thought it through - which is how a lot of laws like that get passed, I suspect!!!

Related case: We recently had another attempt to severely restrict on-water activities on lakes in our local county. This has come up each year lately. They tried to sneak it through this time to avoid the usual public outcry but word got out and the resulting furor caused the public hearings to be attended by sheriff's deputies. They already have strict limits which are enforced by the marine division of the sheriff's office, but the complaint is that the marine deputies don't have the resources to sufficiently patrol for it. I was invited to speak, and one of my comments was "If the marine deputies already cannot enforce the existing restrictions, why do you think further restrictions will work better?" That line got a dumbfounded look from the elected officials - and thunderous applause from the audience (which those same officials did NOT like, they immediately threatened to close the hearing if it happened again).

[Circlotron]

YouTube videos that ask you to “like and subscribe” at the *start* of the video, before you have actually seen anything and you don’t know what the content is.

[vk6zgo]

To save everyone else 3' 30" of their time, there is no flying birds or anything, just this:

The oozlum bird, also spelt ouzelum, is a legendary creature found in Australian and British folk tales and legends. Some versions have it that, when startled, the bird will take off and fly around in ever-decreasing circles until it manages to fly up itself, disappearing completely, which adds to its rarity. Other sources state that the bird flies backwards so that it can admire its own beautiful tail feathers, or because while it does not know where it is going, it likes to know where it has been. The Oxford English Dictionary describes it as "[a] mythical bird displaying ridiculous behaviour" and speculates that the word could have been suggested by the word ouzel, meaning a blackbird. The earliest citation recorded by the dictionary dates from 1858.

That's it.

Oh, and "This video is targeted to blind users." But we aren't such and the entire text is there up front for copy'n'pasting.

TV shows where the action is described by an annoying voice, supposedly for blind people.
There doesn't seem to be a way of turning it off.

Off topic for a moment:

Q:-"Why do Morris dancers wear bells?"

A:- "So they can piss off blind people,too!"

[vk6zgo]

"Historical aviation" videos, where they fill half of it with shots of totally different types of plane.
The videos would (obviously) be less half the length if they cut all that crap, & the intervening connecting bits  out.

[Ed.Kloonk]

"Historical aviation" videos, where they fill half of it with shots of totally different types of plane.
The videos would (obviously) be less half the length if they cut all that crap, & the intervening connecting bits  out.

You're gonna love this 'ad' for a private jet. 

[Nominal Animal]

Yeah, +100 for people who start sentences with 'So,'...

Guilty In my defence, me fail English, as I do not talk English socially.

Any suggestions on how to express "If I understood you correctly" or "Assuming the aforementioned holds" or "Therefore" in the beginning of a sentence better?  (Because that's what I use "So," for at the start of a sentence.)
I'm asking, because even though I am annoying and verbose, I'd rather spend a little more effort to be less so.

[RJSV]

How about:
     "With that in mind, I wonder...will price go up ?"

   That maybe subtlely  leaves room for the preceding speaker to interject, without burdening the subject directly if you understood. Leaves the assumption that you have heard correctly what was said.

[IDEngineer]

https://www.npr.org/2015/09/03/432732859/so-whats-the-big-deal-with-starting-a-sentence-with-so

...but personally I think it's lazy, like saying "umm" and "ahh" to buy time while speaking.

[Nominal Animal]

When speaking (to a person, group, or even a crowd), you can always use the short intervals/pauses (of a breath or so) to gauge the interest, observe the nonverbal cues, and adjust.  It is a relatively easy to learn skill, and one doesn't need to use fillers (except to indicate giving thought to a matter or similar).  When writing, it's impossible: there is nothing similar.  One has to predict/guesstimate reactions, and try to keep avenues open, if the intent is to have an information-rich exchange.  That leads to verbosity, and as we know, verbosity is Evil on the intertubes.

I can assure you, at least in writing, it is not laziness.  Dammit, human languages are hard.

[Circlotron]

When writing, it's impossible: there is nothing similar.

Maybe an ellipsis...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellipsis

[Nominal Animal]

... at the start of a paragraph?

[TimFox]

In the original Old English, the epic poem Beowulf starts with an untranslatable word "Hwæt". 
A recent translation into Modern English by Maria Headley rendered that as "Bro!".  The word apparently exists just to fill space leading into the real plot.
The eminent scholar Seamus Heaney published his translation in 2000 as a bilingual (Old on left side, Modern on right side) edition, and translated the first word as "So".

[alanambrose]

OK 'virtual assistants' that don't understand anything (I'm looking at you Fedex) and are just a way for the organisation to stop you from contacting people who know stuff.

Devices that want to update themselves every day worldwide because there's some tiny bug that has been 'fixed' that doesn't affect you anyway.

Payment processors who decide you need to go through extended security verification for $2 purchases.

Alan

[alanambrose]

>>> The eminent scholar Seamus Heaney published his translation in 2000 as a bilingual (Old on left side, Modern on right side) edition, and translated the first word as "So".

Yeah, to my mind, 'so' if fine if it's used like this:

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And also instead of because ('so the chicken could get to the other side of the road') and even at the start of a sentence as an explanatory answer to a question - Q 'Why did you cut the tomatoes that way?', A 'So I could fit more on the plate.'

Q 'What time did you get up this morning?' A 'So, I was drunk last night and stayed out late.' ... is just bollox. It's just a tip-off that you've got no intention in being straight in answering the question.

Alan

[PlainName]

I've used it three times this evening

I seem to use it as a continuation. Where I've been going on about something and digressed a bit, 'so' is saying 'but back to where we were'. And a lot shorter.

I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.

[Bassman59]

I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.

I suppose this falls into the category of hearing a phrase without ever seeing it written, but seeing someone write, "I don't see a problem, per say" is grating!

I am not at all annoyed by people who use words correctly when spoken but they mispronounce them. That indicates being well read. I was a senior in high school when my English teacher corrected my pronunciation of "epitome." This is one result of how English absorbs words from other languages.

Here's a puzzler: how to pronounce "quixotic." Hopefully everyone knows that it is derived from the name of the Most Excellent Man of La Mancha Don Quixote, and it is defined as "a task akin to tilting at windmills." The name is pronounced "kee-oh-tee" so my guess is the word is pronounced "kee-oh-tick" but I've heard it pronounced "kwix-ah-tick" so I honestly don't know. I'm sure the attempt to learn how it is pronounced is quixotic!

[IDEngineer]

I seem to use it as a continuation. Where I've been going on about something and digressed a bit, 'so' is saying 'but back to where we were'. And a lot shorter.

I think of "so" as a synonym for words like "hence" or "thus" when the first word in a sentence. In that manner it is indeed a sort of "continuation", as you said.

"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. So I have smaller denominations now."

vs:

"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. Thus I have smaller denominations now."

vs:

"I paid with a $100 bill at the store. Hence I have smaller denominations now."

The grating usage is when people use "so" when it's not necessary - when the sentence would have exactly the same meaning without it. I hear this all the time during Q&A's between media talking heads and whomever they're interviewing. The interviewee's answer very often starts out with "So, ..." and sometimes even a delay after that word, which is completely unnecessary. It's bad enough that I ALSO heard a discussion of this behavior in another interview, wherein the language expert flatly stated that the use of a leading "so" is a subconcious signal that the speaker believes their audience to be beneath them; to that respondent a leading, unnecessary "so" indicates they are dumbing down their answer based on their opinion of the listener(s). I don't know if there's any validity to that opinion, but I already didn't like it and you can bet I've tried hard to avoid it all the more ever since!

[TimFox]

Quixotic:
In modern Spanish, the name is usually spelled “Quijote”, matching the Spanish pronunciation, although the original title page (in Spanish) used “Quixote”.
The adjective in English is usually pronounced like “quicks”.  The Spanish adjective is “quijotesco”.

[mc172]

I think my latest pet peeve is the fact that when I posted in this thread a long time ago, I failed to realise that as a result it would endlessly crop up in my new replies list.

[IDEngineer]

There is a fix: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/your-pet-peeve-technical-or-otherwise/1450/?action=notify;sa=off

[RJSV]

   I have had a 'reverse peeve' for some time.
That is when things get sooo bad, ridiculous, that a person takes their own 'sponsability, for what is rational, and starts breaking established Grammer rules, in deliberate frustration.
   This, enter: 'Deborah', a word variation (I invented), for lots of crap strewn around, on the ground. Borrowed from 'debris', for the mangle.

   Heck, just a reflection of 'real' language mis-applied, in today's culture.

[Cubdriver]

I don't see a problem with it per se, but like anything else it jars if used too often.

I suppose this falls into the category of hearing a phrase without ever seeing it written, but seeing someone write, "I don't see a problem, per say" is grating!

To shay!     (Things like that drive me nuts, too.)

I am not at all annoyed by people who use words correctly when spoken but they mispronounce them. That indicates being well read. I was a senior in high school when my English teacher corrected my pronunciation of "epitome." This is one result of how English absorbs words from other languages.

I got that one wrong when I was younger, too - thought it was epi-tome, like a really epic book.   

Here's a puzzler: how to pronounce "quixotic." Hopefully everyone knows that it is derived from the name of the Most Excellent Man of La Mancha Don Quixote, and it is defined as "a task akin to tilting at windmills." The name is pronounced "kee-oh-tee" so my guess is the word is pronounced "kee-oh-tick" but I've heard it pronounced "kwix-ah-tick" so I honestly don't know. I'm sure the attempt to learn how it is pronounced is quixotic!

I’ve no idea if it’s correct, but I’ve always pronounced it as key-AHH-tic.

-Pat

[CatalinaWOW]

There are large numbers of words in English that are found in print and relatively rarely in speech.  And since I seldom consult a dictionary when encountering a new word if the meaning is clear from context there are quite a few I have mispronounced.  One of the ones that surprised me the most was banal.

[Circlotron]

there are quite a few I have mispronounced.

Quite a few? That sound like hyper bowl to me.