start a victory garden and ration your IRRATIONALLY ANGRY feelings, part 3

I have been told that Japanese has a concept called 'pillow words', which are not meant to convey information, but exist only to fill out an utterance with some extra sound. In English these might correspond to such non-words as 'um' or 'uh', but also to the sorts of pointless preambles we attach to sentences, such as 'so'.

― a little too mature to be cute (Aimless), Tuesday, June 7, 2016 10:54 PM (18 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

ええええ!

あの。。。

come to mind

I understand the function the function of "so" and other introductory words. I think they're used more often than they're needed, and that as placeholder syllables go, I'd rather hear "Well, ___" or even "umm."

Interviewer: What was the Sanders campaign's response?
Reporter: So, they were not pleased etc etc blah blah...
Interviewer: What's next for Sanders after tonight?
Reporter: So, he'll spend tomorrow in Vermont blerf blah...
Interviewer: Does Hilary Clinton have campaign events scheduled tomorrow?
Reporter: So, it turns out she will be in blah blah blah

It's become unconscious, ubiquitous and fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I HATE IT SO MUCH.

LocalGarda and nickn, I think 'so' has come to be used very differently here in N America than back home in the UK. Maybe it happened just recently (is that right do you reckon, WilliamC?) Like an attempt to elevate everything that comes after it to a a level of insight it can't deliver on. La Lechera to thread.

over my last 48 hours on ilx i have been clicking the older threads i post on (not searching for old ones; i'm not a maniac) and ctrl+f my name and i found that i complained about two subjects twice on this and i have experienced no personal growth since the start of this thread

my neighborhood has two festivals a year. one really really sucks and one is ok. but i think it's really rude for people to come and park on my street for them especially when they invent their own parking spots like by fire hydrants. take one bus.

― computer champion (harbl), Saturday, September 19, 2015 7:59 PM

this is coming up again--the bad one is this weekend. last time the friday before i had a little bit of a meltdown thinking of all the out of neighborhood parkers coming to be jerks. i think i might have cried. but a lot was going on.

I don't know when "So, ______" became an acceptable opening syllable in response to a question, but that's when life on earth should have been exterminated.

― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Tuesday, June 7, 2016 5:13 PM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

applause

When I use "So" it's as an attention-getter, as noted earlier, and when I'm responding to a statement and am asking if I understand correctly - "So the white form is filed before the red form?" I try not to stick it in anywhere else.

As an opening "ahem" in a declarative statement, it's totally different and totally cool. My specific beef is with it as the first syllable in response to a question — ljubljana, I agree that it's generally come on within the last couple of years, but now it seems to be the most common thing. I don't know for sure but it seems to come out of people who are relatively young, so this is probably just grumpy old me yelling at the kids to get off my lawn. Fuck it — those goddamn kids need to get off my lawn.

Seamus Heaney's 'Beowulf' opens with 'So'.

So. The Spear-Danes in days gone by
and the kings who ruled them had courage and greatness.
We have heard of those princes’ heroic campaigns.

;_;

http://assets.rollingstone.com/assets/images/album_review/a5e4af3628f6c6c4ff640abe255f856d26e114b8.JPG

i love cheever. the yates story that prompted me to buy the book was called "no pain whatsoever" - a welsh writer called thomas morris recommended it in a newsletter he does.

i really really liked the amy hempel collection i mentioned upthread, reasons to live. it's v much in this vein also, though it has the brevity/edge of carver.

i came to it via her paris review interview, which i loved: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/227/the-art-of-fiction-no-176-amy-hempel🔗

I have been told that Japanese has a concept called 'pillow words', which are not meant to convey information, but exist only to fill out an utterance with some extra sound. In English these might correspond to such non-words as 'um' or 'uh', but also to the sorts of pointless preambles we attach to sentences, such as 'so'.

Posted in error, not in irrational anger. Sorry.

An impromptu Traveller parkup that is troubling the neighborhood. Actually probably deeply rational.
Vehicles are frequently driving at speed down what should be a primarily pedestrian path. People in the park are being bothered, even more so if they try to access the local woods the normal way since the place that vans and caravans are parked is right across the path in.
Toys and balls have been stolen from local gardens. The community garden that is next to where the park up is has had some features vandalised.
&there is refuse and human excrement being just dumped in random places. Plus there are rubbish fires at night set up to allow copper to be burnt out of various objects for resale so the air stinks.
Apparently it's a bunch of families 'summering' i.e. Off for a seasonal peregrination &fuck the settled locals.

When fb friends invite you to "like" their page for their band or product or whatever.

i have a bunch of friends who somehow all ended up having their souls harvested by working for the same social media marketing company in dublin - i suppose it's a fairly sophisticated operation, though i think the company strategy is to just hire fairly popular people who dj or do other artistic type careers as a kind of street team. i dunno if this means they're good at what they do but i genuinely can't tell any longer when these people are expressing an opinion because they've been paid to do so - i tend to lean towards assuming everything they say is bullshit.

oops i forgot to strikethrough "having their souls harvested by"

so, "so" as the first syllable...

i think i do this a lot. in my mind, it's a way of clearing space and preparing listener(s) for the explanation i'm about to deliver. for this reason, it's always followed by a little pause.

same for me.

I use "fucken'..." in the same vein

in my mind, it's a way of clearing space and preparing listener(s) for the explanation i'm about to deliver.

I think it's the hand-holding that I object to. I'm fully engaged with what's being said, and don't want or need the space cleared or the listener prepared.

PS, thread is for irrationally angry. I'm pointing my finger at myself if at anybody.

tbf i kinda get the sense of the way you said it annoyed you, like shoe-horned in to signify thought rather than as a sort of exhaled word.

i've heard so used like that and people complain about it for over 10 years

i know this because i used to say it a lot (>10yrs ago) and heard people complain and thought their explanation was rational, so i stopped doing it

i still do it subconsciously sometimes, which kind of annoys me, but it is what it is

i try to use it at the beginning only to mean "thus"

lately i get ia at people who like to talk in meetings. the more you're shutting up, the sooner we're not here.

AMEN.

pretty sure it's been talked about before but i can't stand it when a waiter asks "have you been here before?" at a restaurant and explains why this place is so unique and special

best answer - "yes, but I'm giving you another chance"

Ha.

I get IA when every singer in every song ever tries to rhyme 'rain' or 'insane' or 'David Blaine' with 'again' except that they pronounce it 'uh-gin' so I GUESS MAYBE YOU SHOULD TRY TO CONSTRUCT YOUR HALF-ASSED RHYME AGAIN, HUH?

best answer - "yes, but I'm giving you another chance"

THANK YOU. So using this.

pretty sure it's been talked about before but i can't stand it when a waiter asks "have you been here before?" at a restaurant and explains why this place is so unique and special

Haha - I always instinctively say "yes" to shut them up and then get the fear that I'm missing out on some vital knowledge that will ruin my dinner. They often give you the spiel anyway: "Ah, so you'll already know that all our dishes are fried in organic badger cum."

about half the time it means some freakishly annoying quirk.

"yes, but I'm giving you another chance"

"I'm so VERY sorry to hear that. Can you tell me what it was that went wrong for you the last time?"

"uh"

"Servers ask too many stupid questions"

lately i get ia at people who like to talk in meetings. the more you're shutting up, the sooner we're not here.

I rarely pray but when I do it's a silent prayer that there are not 'any questions...?'

"Can you tell me what it was that went wrong for you the last time?"

"The after-dinner mint made me explode."

Interviewer: What was the Sanders campaign's response?
Reporter: So, they were not pleased etc etc blah blah...
Interviewer: What's next for Sanders after tonight?
Reporter: So, he'll spend tomorrow in Vermont blerf blah...
Interviewer: Does Hilary Clinton have campaign events scheduled tomorrow?
Reporter: So, it turns out she will be in blah blah blah

It's become unconscious, ubiquitous and fuck you fuck you FUCK YOU FUCK YOU FUCK YOU I HATE IT SO MUCH.

― pleas to Nietzsche (WilliamC), Tuesday, June 7, 2016 6:11 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Seems like even the Daily Show correspondents use this in their reports... and it comes across just as annoying.

I feel like that's been an NPR tic for a long time, esp on the non-news shows like This American Life, Radiolab etc.

Dutch influence?

100 FE college kids all on a trip somewhere taking up the entire footpath and not moving over

I brushed one particularly stubborn not-moving-over-er with my arm and she whined all the way down the path about "she hit me! that bitch hit me!"

further down the line a not-even-looking-er was a big dude using a skateboard as a shield so I just had to stand still and glare at that point

FE students or new students in general and tourist groups tend to be totally clueless about other people needing to use the pavement.
& it's the time of year where the tourist trade is at about its height.

Can't work out why the main square in the centre of town still has all its grassy areas fenced off, would have thought they'd make sure they were moved by now. Possibly used the Bank Holiday at the beginning of this week as a milestone. Would think they'd want that open for tourist season.
& don't think having 4 foot, if that, security barriers without a horizontal cover realy served the purpose they were intended for, keeping birds off the reseeded lawns which had been wrecked by the Xmas market.

one thing that mildly irks me is people who police the use of mailing lists or slack channels or whatever.

like everywhere i've ever worked there's someone who okay, says "hey what a nice day!" on a channel that reaches about 600 people or whatever, but equally there are these hordes of enforcers beating those people down with "this is a public list!"

i swear the latter group are like dreaming of a fascist society.

in the case of mailing lists, the irony of the fact that their replies also reach hundreds of people never seems to strike them.

i mean i know this kind of has to be done, but it definitely feels like people enjoy it sometimes, or if not enjoy, then feel a sense of orderly righteousness by telling someone they disturbed a few people for 5 seconds.

right now someone in my office change the description of a slack channel to say, among other passive aggressions - "this list is for building-is-on-fire type announcements" and it's like, really? we should only use this slack channel to discuss something as serious as the flames rising through our workspace threatening to melt our bodies? even as a joke or figure of speech that seems slightly insane. don't ever make an announcement here unless it's as serious as the threat of imminent death.

Yeah come across a lot of that including lists where the person supposedly keeping other people in check is the least in control of their own behaviour. But thinks if they set up somebody else to blame their own creepiness is bypassed.

we had some renovations at our office and a woman from the state agency that leases buildings for offices came to inspect it and she had all these criticisms like "you should never tape anything to the walls" and "you can't have two microwaves in here" (not a fire code issue) and "no plants" just completely arbitrary and i was wondering like are these real rules? but no she's just a crazy person who has control of a small domain. just like a listserv moderator.

one thing that mildly irks me is people who police the use of mailing lists or slack channels or whatever.

like everywhere i've ever worked there's someone who okay, says "hey what a nice day!" on a channel that reaches about 600 people or whatever, but equally there are these hordes of enforcers beating those people down with "this is a public list!"

i swear the latter group are like dreaming of a fascist society.

in the case of mailing lists, the irony of the fact that their replies also reach hundreds of people never seems to strike them.

i mean i know this kind of has to be done, but it definitely feels like people enjoy it sometimes, or if not enjoy, then feel a sense of orderly righteousness by telling someone they disturbed a few people for 5 seconds.

― Bein' Sean Bean (LocalGarda), Thursday, June 9, 2016 5:37 AM (2 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

one thing that mildly irks me "is when" people complain about the thing that they are doing in making the complaint

In line at Starbucks this morning. Guy ahead of me is ordering:

"I'd like three, uh, lattes."
"OK. What sizes?"
"Uh . . . the tall."
"Three tall lattes. Would you like anything else?"
"OK, and one of them should be non-fat. The other two just, like, regular."
"OK, two tall lattes, one tall non-fat latte."
(Guy's wife wanders over.) "Just the latte, right?"
"Yes, vanilla. And non-fat."
"OK, so one tall non-fat latte, one tall vanilla non-fat latte, and one tall latte?"

ad infinitum

I would expand that to 'anyone who enters an otherwise fast-moving queue without being prepared for what's at the end of the line'.

You mean I have to PAY for this bus journey I've been queuing for 15 minutes for? With the small change that's in a special zipped section of my wallet which is in a special pocket of my bag which is inside another bag under a coat and all my shopping?

xxpost Phil, did you start wailing loudly y/n