I’m Weary of This: Seven Things that Just Bug Me

Randy Cassingham of This Is True has been driving a weekly Twitter event he calls Pet Peeve Wednesday, with the hashtag #PPW*. Some items I’ve posted about things that Just Bug Me(tm). I guess I shouldn’t be too surprised that they fall into two categories, tech and language.

Tech Annoyances

• Mobile websites that change the URL so you can’t reshare the page on Twitter without sending desktop users to the mobile site. Or worse: the ones that redirect you from a full article to the front of their mobile site, so you have to hunt around for the article that someone was trying to share with you.
• New password forms should always spell out the password policy before the user tries to pick something it doesn’t like.
• If you have to cite a bogus law to claim that your email is not spam (or worse, that recipients can’t callit spam), it’s spam.

Language Annoyances

• “Weary” means you’re tired of something, not concerned about it. You’re thinking of “wary” or maybe “leery.”
• If you’re going to reference “Wherefore art thou Romeo?”, remember: she’s asking why, not where. (Think of it this way: The answer to “wherefore?” is “therefore,” and you know what “therefore” means.) It’s a lead-in to the “What’s in a name?” speech.
• What do people think an “intensive purpose” is, anyway? The real phrase, “for all intents and purposes,” at least makes sense.
• The word is “foolproof,” as in even a fool can’t mess it up, not “full proof.” (As opposed to what, half-proof?)

*There’s a hashtag collision with both “Pet Peeve Wednesday” and “Prove People Wrong” using the same tag.

#grammar #language #mobile #ppw #quotes #shakespeare #usability

Mark Hughes (@markhughesF1):

RT @SimonCarGuy: Oof😍

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