Friday, January 22, 2010

Enough! Go Away!

It’s Friday afternoon, time to roll out a few pet peeves to brighten your weekend:

• People saying, “Have a good one!” This saying seemed to come out of nowhere when I was living in Colorado about a decade and half ago. I hated it then, and I hate it now. It’s so lazy and imprecise. If you’re going to wish others well, act like you care. Wish them a good day, a pleasant afternoon, a fun evening, a relaxing weekend, or whatever is appropriate. When you tell me to have a good one, I’m not convinced you know what time of day it is, and if I’ve been telling you anything about my plans, I don’t think you’ve been listening.

• Drivers not using their blinkers. It’s lazy, inconsiderate, and dangerous. Just use ‘em.

• The fact that you always hear annoying Dire Straits songs on the radio, like the unbearable “Money for Nothing” (hated it then, hate it now—from the stereotyping of the blue-collar narrator to Sting’s guest appearance) and “The Walk of Life,” but never the ones you want to hear, like “Sultans of Swing,” “Skateaway,” or “Romeo & Juliet.”

• The rampant use of the term “perfect storm.” Sebastian Junger wrote a fantastic book with that title about the deaths at sea of six commercial fisherman, and now any time multiple circumstances come together, it’s “a perfect storm.” If you even semi-regularly read newspapers and general interest magazines, or listen to public radio, you will find this phrase popping up all over the place. It’s become a common cliché in a very short time.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

1) Maybe it's just an extra generous phrase, allowing the recipient to apply the goodness where-ever they sense the most need?

2)Drivers not using their blinkers has always topped my pet peeve list- particularly in my frequent roles as cylist or pedestrian.

3) They've never played good Dire Straits songs. MTV got them all famous with the stupid "Money for Nothing" video (cloying and annoying, but not un-savvy, that Sting refrain). According to the programming powers that be, I don't think the Dire Straits existed prior to MFN.

4) Guilty.

chubx said...

1. George Carlin had a joke about that. Something to the effect of I've already got a good one. Now I'm looking for a bigger one.
2. Amen
3. Agreed, but Sultans gets way too much play whenever I'm subjected to classic rock radio.
4. Let's try to introduce imperfect storm to the vernacular.

Corvus said...

I like it (e.g. my life is an imperfect storm or the Vikings were an imperfect storm today).

chubx said...

That's from Mao's little red book, right?