Peeves of the Week

by Vince R. Ditrich

This week’s short list of thing I would eradicate if only I didn’t have even greater annoyances to deal with…

1/ I would love to have something done about the automated Directory Assistance voice that asks the trick question, “What WAS the name of the person you’re looking for?” First time I heard this I was totally flummoxed and went a-tangent, saying, “Huh? Is this a quiz? Are you going to ask me my quest and my favourite colour next? I have no idea what this person’s name WAS. I only know what it is NOW. I even have a good idea of the spelling of this person’s name NOW. And why, pray tell, would it be anyone’s business what his name USED TO BE? I pay the phone company massive amounts of money. They repay me and all the millions like me by laying-off employees, some of them our grammatically accurate friends & neighbours who used to do this very computer’s job… “ The computer was unresponsive to my comments.

2/ Can we put a stop to people who say ‘WE’ when they really mean ‘I’? At the department store just today the attendant suggested I spend extra money to buy a little pump nozzle for the skin moisturizer I was picking up for my wife. She said, “We really recommend it…” There she was, at 9 o’clock in the morning, made up thick enough to walk directly into a music video, telling me that ‘we’ (an elite group of persons unknown, but the implication is that they have some expertise regarding the pumping of emollients and salves) recommend this important contrivance for successful moisturizing. I had visions of this woman, and half a dozen others like her, sitting around a large conference table, having a serious back-and-forth over the issue. I looked at her blankly, pretending to be a Directory Assistance computer.

3/ I really feel the need to do something, quickly, about the scourge of Teen ‘Inconsonance’. This is a term I have coined to describe speech patterns of male teenagers. You’ll notice that, for some unknown reason, they speak using only vowel sounds. “Uhhhohhhhh” is “Hello” and this sullen grunt will rumble through your telephone receiver when calling many homes. I have a son who has just reached ‘pre-teen’ status. He is, much to my dismay, showing signs of early-Inconsonance, however at time of writing he is still understandable occasionally, even though every statement he makes is accompanied by a look of complete impatience with his way too uncool and apparently deaf Dad. I suppose I can only battle this situation directly through my own children, but by God I wish I could do something about Teen Inconsonants who work at the take out window…

I have never experienced Teen Inconsonance in another country, but I wonder if it exists? Are there resentful Afghani teens who gutturally moose-call in response to their Dad’s requests for assistance in the back yard to remove an unexploded bomb? Do Inuit kids who live north of 60 turn 13 and suddenly stop clicking? Or is this perplexing fad limited to us, here where the weather is great and the conditions ideal?

VRD