For me, it may be that the toilet paper roll needs to have the open end away from the wall. I don’t want to reach under the roll to take a piece! That’s ludicrous!
That or my recent addiction to correcting people when they use “less” when they should use “fewer”
Discord is not a good replacement for support forums. Discord isn’t searchable by search engines.
Historically, if I had an issue with a product and I googled “[product] [issue]” I’d be met with a support forum post, with someone describing the same issue. I could read the thread to find how they resolved it. I don’t actually have to interact with the post at all, and I don’t need to ask the same question again. For most (decent) forums I don’t even need to make an account just to read the post.
Discord throws that all out the window. Now I’m met with a “JoiN OUr dIScoRd SerVEr to GEt suPPorT” page. Nothing is searchable via a search engine. And Discord’s server searchability (even in the app) has always been, at best, absolute dogshit. You already need to know exactly which text thread things were posted in, (because you can’t search the entire server at once), and you need to know exactly what was said, (because there’s no fuzzed search terms).
So 99% of the time, you just end up asking the same question that has already been asked a hundred times in the past, and now you need to wait for someone to respond. It also puts a lot more strain on the support staff, because they’re answering the same question a hundred times instead of just the once in a forum.
And don’t come at me with the “but Discord recently added a support forum feature where people can start threads and save the conversation for later” bullshit. That’s a band-aid, at best. It still isn’t searchable via search engines, so it means the above issues with Discord’s search function still apply, and the forum function is essentially useless as support forums.
Lastly, why the fuck should I be forced to join another server just to get support? What if I don’t have a discord account? What if I live in a region that Discord doesn’t support? What if I just plain don’t want to clog up my server sidebar with dozens of servers that I have only visited once? What if I just really hate the fact that your server has been configured to push notifications for every single message by default? What if I just fucking want to google my issue, and get an answer without any further effort?
And that’s assuming they even have a support staff. Most of the time I see this bullshit, it’s small dev teams maintaining niche software with less than the bare minimum of documentation.
The only problem I have with your stance is that it’s not petty, pointless nor pedantic. It’s a plague on the world of software. Discord is terrible for the use-case it’s intended for (group chats), why the fuck are people using it for their community forums???
OP asked for petty/pointless/pedantic hills. Did you miss that?
I’d argue that this is petty, because you’re still technically able to get support for your issue in the end. It just takes a lot more effort in everyone involved; More effort on your end to actually get support, and more effort on support staff because they have already answered your question a hundred times further up the thread.
No. Using discord is unacceptable. It’s not pettiness.
If it were supposed to be pronounced “jif” it would have been spelled that way, I don’t give two fucks what Stephen Wilhite said about it either.
Agreed. I think since the “G” stands for “graphics” it should be pronounced like the G in graphics.
But why? We don’t pronounce any other acronyms like that, so why treat GIF different? The U in SCUBA isn’t pronounced like it is in Underwater. The first A in CAPTCHA isn’t pronounced the same as in Automated and the CH isn’t split up to be pronounced like Computer and Human. The second A in NASA isn’t pronounced like in Administration and the I in PIN doesn’t get pronounced like Identification.
We read acronyms as their own words, not as a collection of the first sounds of each constituent word.
Tbf, you’re pointing out the vowels which make the sounds needed to pronounce the acronym as a word. But I get it, either way, we’re pronouncing the word as a standalone word.
Right in the same neighborhood… Jpeg (photographic)
Time to pronounce it jfeg lol
🤷 just cause?
Also, “gift”
Have any examples where the first letter of the acronym isn’t pronounced the same? (I’m sure there are some)
AWOL, OSHA, AIDS, ICE
UFO, not that that’s a super relevant question if we’re already admitting that our opinions are “just cause.” I think at that point the better question is “if just cause, why is there such a split in opinions?”
I think the reason GIF is so contentious is that if we can there’s a tendency to make acronyms sound like words if possible. FUBAR and SCUBA are pronounced the way they are because we’re trained from words like tuba to see the UBA and use a long U. Something like “oofo” (or “uh-fo” as you would likely argue) for UFO sounds like half a word, hence pronouncing the letters individually. The thing about GIF is that both pronunciations sound like a word, and so both feel valid enough that there can be a split in opinions. Any arguments one way or the other is just trying to justify a gut feeling about which way is “proper.”
To be fair, UFO is an initialism, not an acronym. But at the same time, if it was, I think it’d still be an example, because we’d likely pronounce the U like “oo” (as in “boo”), lol
Nearly all acronyms are technically initialisms
Nah, there’s plenty of both, even mixed in very similar subject matter. Example:
An ATM (initialism) takes a card then asks you for its PIN (acronym).
I always respond that in that case, “jpeg” should be pronounced “jfeg”.
Same with Gnome wanting to be pronounced “Gah-nome”, or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced, or accept that people pronounce it another way
or Latex “Latech”. Just spell stuff the way you want it to be pronounced
But they did! You’re the one who fucked it up by using an “x” (Latin letter x) instead of a “χ” (Greek letter chi).
(Also, you didn’t capitalize or format it correctly. It’s supposed to be rendered as “LAΤΕΧ”, and yes, those last three letters are
Τ Ε ΧGreek capital tau, epsilon, chi.)🤓
New hill: All brand names must be composed entirely of pronounceable characters from languages in actual use today
from languages in actual use today
Nuh uh
Gnome is spelt the way they want it to be said. Are you suggesting that gnome should be pronounced ‘nome’ like the garden ornament with a silent g.
Is it not?
we all know it’s actually pronounced “yiff”
uwu
If it were meant to be pronounced ‘giff’ as in ‘goober’, it would have been spelled that way. You decide to turn an initialism into an acronym, you get what you get.
It always WAS an acronym. That’s the entire point of the argument. "G"raphics "I"nterchange "F"ormat.
Nobody turned it into an acryonym, it just IS an acronym. That’s not an opinion, it’s a fact. The reason it’s pronounced with a hard G is because Graphics is a hard G.
The thing is, that argument doesn’t really hold up, because g in English has two major pronunciations.
English being a bad language doesn’t excuse incorrect pronunciations. And if your argument was to hold any water, it’d be pronounced jraphics.
but g followed by i or e very regularly makes a soft g in English (and always makes a soft g in Italian, which is irrelevant I guess but I speak both). you may as well purposely mispronounce giraffe, gelatin, germ, Giorgio, giant, gentle, etc while you’re at it since it they don’t start with a j.
by english rules it very often is a soft g, but could be hard as well, but the creator has clarified multiple times it is meant to be soft, so why are people fighting it?
gift
pan / pang
hat / hate
clam / claim
one letter can and often does completely change pronunciation. i’d give you a good ol’ fashion makin fun of, but i actually think you could’ve gotten there if you would’ve thought about for a few more seconds. you seem pretty smart. shame you clicked reply too soon.
You’re on the wrong side of history, get over it.
in terms of how people refer to it these days, you may be correct that slightly more are using the hard g. what drives me nuts about the argument though is that the ‘hard g’ crowd does not have a good argument for it. the “g stands for graphics so it should be a hard g” crowd are immediately proven wrong that that’s not how any acronyms work. the “gift” crowd are immediately proven wrong as i just did above.
just be honest with yourselves. the only argument you have is “we just like it better”. if you were honest then i wouldn’t be able to argue against it.
Gift is by far the most commonly used word that is comparable, and it is a very close comparison, it makes sense people would base it off that. I’m a soft g person myself, but the one letter change doesn’t hold up very well here. All your examples have an additional letter specifically to change how another letter is pronounced using well established rules. That is not the case here at all.
Pan/pang- the g has a well established rule to change the pronunciation of the a? No it doesn’t lol. Words are not comparable like that in english, this is another terrible argument.
Examples: lead and lead, read and read, tear and tear, bass and bass, wind and wind. Spelled the exact same way and different pronunciations. Trying to prove how gif is pronounced based on the word gift just proves you haven’t thought about this for more than 10 seconds.
There is no grammatical argument for hard g. There is also no grammatical argument for soft g. Once again, g followed by i or e can be either in English. The only thing that should sway this is what the creator intended and straight up told everybody many times.
A simple one I think, I refuse to call twitter by other names.
I do love, however calling it Xitter where X is pronounced “sh”
Like Xi Jinping. (Shi )
Wonder if Xi scrolls through Xitter on the xitter.
Is it? The voice in my head pronounced zshi when I read it.
Wikipedia says. ʒI: where “ʒ” is the S in pleasure or the g in beige
Which is to say (smoking my pipe like oxford don) I was making a scatological joke.
Shitter
That’s fine, it’s just hard to know without hearing native speakers’ pronunciations and you’ve only read it. Thanks for the reply!
I’ve never actually heard anyone call it X before, unless they were making a joke about the whole thing. Everybody I know still calls it Twitter. Calling it X is just embarrassing.
“white chocolate” doesn’t exist. It’s just sugar and a little bit of cocoa butter. It’s edible wax. It’s not chocolate and it doesn’t belong in any assortment of sweets, ever. Cocoa butter is skin moisturizer and that’s it.
It provably does exist. And it’s delicious. I could go to the supermarket and buy some right now. Except I’m fat and trying to lose weight.
The most delicious edible wax I’ve ever had.
It does exist in the way that chocolate ‘solids’ exist as an element of chocolate. A typical chocolate bar consists of both chocolate solids and cocoa butter. It’s still an element of what you’re eating,
So just cuz you eat ‘chocolate’ because you think you only favor the solids, you’re still eating the butter too in what makes chocolate. It’s like drinking milk products and then getting pedantic over people who use butter as a food even though milk contains some the same elements.
But again this is about stupid hills to die on. And you picked an intolerant and ignorant stance so I guess you technically win in this particular topic.
No need for personal attack, this is all in good fun.
its “I could not care less” and not “I could care less”. This one drives me nuts
I adore David Mitchell and his rants. I really liked the one about how “rape” should not become socially acceptable and silly when followed by “pillage” just because the Vikings are depicted as having worn silly hats.
Ever since I saw that video 14 years ago, I always pause for a moment to make sure I actually say it properly
Thank you for fighting the good fight.
I agree with this statement, but I never notice its wrong until someone points it out. Then my inner grammar teacher has an aneurysm and I go off on a tangent.
It’s so close to being right that you don’t think about it, until you do. Then OCD sets in.
The medical symbol of the staff with the snake is only supposed to have 1 (one) snake on it. A staff with 1 snake is the Rod of Asclepius (the son of Apollo and Greek demigod of medicine), a staff with 2 snakes is a Caduceus which is carried by Hermes as a messenger or herald.
Physicians get 1 snake. Couriers and heralds get 2 snakes. Any medical professional or organization that uses 2 snakes is wrong and needs to go study the humanities and classics for a bit.
Would two snakes on an ambulance be acceptable? They’re kind of like couriers of the sick and injured.
That’s the only time I think it’s acceptable. Ambulances are kind of a venn diagram of healthcare and couriers, so the 2 snakes on the star of life makes sense.
To streamers, YouTubers, etc. Your Patreon supporters are called Patrons. Not fucking “Patreons.”
Since I only ever had heard this english word in the specific context of YouTube, I’m not even sure what is difference in prononciation btw the two.
Patreon is a brand name that allows monetization for artist etc.
Patron means supporter.
Yeah but my issue is with how to pronounce it.
Patreon = pay-tree-on
Patron = pay-trun
If something’s rate of hype is too fast for my internal meter, I will become immediately skeptical of the trend/show/etc. and not care about it, solely because everyone is caring about it too much and too fast.
I call it the “trying too hard” put-off. The harder you try to sell me on something, the more I’m sure I don’t want or need it.
The reverse toilet paper thing is useful when you have pet that’s like to mess with it.
But either way is ok for me, I guess.
I mean, I couldn’t care fewer about it.
Weather it’s one way or the other, my cat will still pull all the sheets out.
YYYY/MM/DD
For me it’s YYYY-MM-DD https://www.iso.org/iso-8601-date-and-time-format.html
Also, there is a special place for those people who keep making up new timestamps
Don’t even get me started on this one…
Trucks should be used for working and not hauling groceries. Get a fucking car or a van. Roads are safer with more crash compatibe vehicles that also weigh less. Large trucks should need a special licence to drive/own Driving should also be taught in school
Large american pickup trucks shouldnt even need to exist. You could get almost the same bed space with a kei truck (which granted is not easy to import or get but still)
There are certain large vehicles that are still needed but the F150 (and similar) shouldn’t be in every fucking driveway Trucks are purpose built vehicles.
I own a brewery and the number of people that drive 30-40 min in a truck to pick up a 50L keg is insane. I have a Veloster and can put 5 full kegs in it…
As someone who lives in Texas and watches the biggest trucks be driven by the worst drivers on the road, I agree with the extra license bit. I also believe they should only be allowed to park in specifically designated spots, considering how often they don’t fit in a parking spot and block parts of parking lots.
Horizontal video > vertical video.
Explain why we hold our phones vertically then
Because it’s more convenient for reading. But not for pictures or video
And more convenient for holding
using “he/she” to refer to an ambiguous party. just use they for fucks sake
Are you familiar with the comedian James Acaster? He has a relevant bit: https://youtu.be/Zt5qJC1xQ8A
i wasn’t, thanks for introducing them
agreed for humans, but I do like calling cars/boats/bikes/machines “she”. makes me feel like a pirate :)
oh im not talking about that.
i’m talking about quasi-legalese phrases like “he/she may […]” “if he/she agrees”, you know. the places where “they” would be both more grammatical and easier to understandI have been learning Spanish with Babbel and the
El/Ella Compra
Will never not sound wrong to me. El & Ella are two people, they Compran something they don’t Compra it.
But They as a singular in English absolutely just rolls off my tongue, makes absolute sense, it is what I use.
he/she refers to a single individual, they can refer to multiple
They can also refer to an individual though.
yeah, but its an ambiguity that can be picked at in legal settings. He/she makes it very clear that only singular person is being referred to
I guess I found my hill:
If you are worried about your sentence leaving ambiguity for your pronouns, then write a better sentence.
Alright, that’s fair, they did specifically say legalese.
The word “literally” has been forever ruined by people who use it to mean “figuratively.” Worse, there is now literally no way to actually convey the original meaning of the word “literally” in a concise, clear way.
You have to say something like, “A is literally 10 times bigger than B…and I mean that ACTUALLY literally.” And then people will STILL assume that you’re speaking figuratively.
Right with ya. I literally refuse to use the word when I mean figuratively.
Try using “precisely” or “roughly” where applicable. It lets people know you’re talking about firm realities and aren’t using hyperbole.
It’s a stupid, imperfect workaround and I hate that it’s necessary, but it’s the best we have for a decade or three until people stop bastardizing “literally”.
The same can be said about “ignorant”. Calling a person ignorant because they say something that peeves you, doesn’t make them ignorant. It makes them infuriating. Idk how often people use the word ignorant in this way, but my mother does and doesn’t get it when I call her ignorant about ignorant.
That’s how language works.
Many words shifted meaning over time, some gained connotation, some lost it, some turned to something completely different.
Just look at the word “gay”, it shifted from “happy” to “haha homosexuals are outwardly happy, so we call them gay semi-ironically” to “homosexual”. The homophobic connotation was added, then the original meaning got lost.
You can complain, sure, but just read an old text from the 17th century and try to find a sentence that means exactly the same today as it did back then.
I’m fine with language evolving; my issue is that there used to be a word that succinctly conveyed a particular idea, and now there is no way to concisely convey that idea in English.
“Gay” changing its meaning isn’t the same thing, because there are still plenty of ways of saying “happy” in English.
There literally-literally is.
And to over-egg that particular
puddingpoint, word doubling might be a common thing in “simpler” languages and, ahem, pooh-poohed in “complex” ones, but that second “literally” restores the original meaning.For now.
Until some bright spark starts using “literally literally” to mean “figuratively” anyway.
I hate hate hate when people try to discredit a theory because “it’s a theory not a fact” as if the label of “fact” exists on some kind of science ladder for an idea. “Facts” is a colloquial word like any other, it’s not some special category above theories.
Moreover, the most tried and tested theories are facts. Science rarely just disproves an established theory outright. Einstein’s General Relatively equations reduces into Newton’s Laws of Motion in most situations. Newton’s Laws of Motion weren’t “wrong”, it’s just General Relatively is more specific and accurate.
The Scientific Method usually just builds on what already exists without claiming we were all unfactual for working with what we had.
