Minor things that bother you

[vdeane]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

People who leave shopping carts right in an open parking space rather than at least move it to an unobtrusive area where it isn't blocking a space or passage.

As long as I haven't personally witnessed the person leaving the cart there, I like to think he or she must have trouble walking.  That makes it irritate me less.  Probably not true most of the time, but it works for me.  Of course, I can't do that if I see a perfectly able-bodied but apparently lazy individual leave the cart the middle of the lot, but usually I just notice ones that were previously left there, so I can pretend.

Indeed.  The vast majority of the carts I see left out are by the handicapped parking spaces.  I'll often grab one if it's a small cart (the kind I use) and I haven't already grabbed one from the corral.

[Beltway]

People write "$43 million" to say "$43,000,000."  That can make sense for larger numbers, due to numerical illiteracy (innumeracy?), but that reads to me as "forty three dollars million."  I've written it in this format: "43 million dollars," but that looks wrong, too.

I do it all the time, such as referring to a $43 million highway project, if I want to round to 2 decimal places, or add the tenth if I want to round to 3 decimal places, such as $43.1 million.

If it was a contract award of $43,128,045.32, then I would write the full number, but for a project in planning or even under construction, I would usually round the number if I wanted to use it in a discussion.

[roadman]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

People who leave shopping carts right in an open parking space rather than at least move it to an unobtrusive area where it isn't blocking a space or passage.

As long as I haven't personally witnessed the person leaving the cart there, I like to think he or she must have trouble walking.  That makes it irritate me less.  Probably not true most of the time, but it works for me.  Of course, I can't do that if I see a perfectly able-bodied but apparently lazy individual leave the cart the middle of the lot, but usually I just notice ones that were previously left there, so I can pretend.

Indeed.  The vast majority of the carts I see left out are by the handicapped parking spaces.  I'll often grab one if it's a small cart (the kind I use) and I haven't already grabbed one from the corral.

Supermarkets that don't provide enough cart corrals, or in some cases any corrals at all, in the parking lot.  Having to cross three or four parking aisles to return the cart to a corral is one reason many people don't do it.

[GaryV]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

People who leave shopping carts right in an open parking space rather than at least move it to an unobtrusive area where it isn't blocking a space or passage.

As long as I haven't personally witnessed the person leaving the cart there, I like to think he or she must have trouble walking.  That makes it irritate me less.  Probably not true most of the time, but it works for me.  Of course, I can't do that if I see a perfectly able-bodied but apparently lazy individual leave the cart the middle of the lot, but usually I just notice ones that were previously left there, so I can pretend.

Indeed.  The vast majority of the carts I see left out are by the handicapped parking spaces.  I'll often grab one if it's a small cart (the kind I use) and I haven't already grabbed one from the corral.

Supermarkets that don't provide enough cart corrals, or in some cases any corrals at all, in the parking lot.  Having to cross three or four parking aisles to return the cart to a corral is one reason many people don't do it.

Of course, other people would complain that with more corrals, there are less parking spots and they have to walk farther to get to the door.

[1995hoo]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

....

What drives me crazy at the cart return corrals are the "kiddie carts" (what I sometimes call the "playpen carts")–the ones with the big plastic housing on the front that's intended to be sort of like the cab of a truck, complete with steering wheels, where kids can sit instead of being up at the back of the cart where their feet swing directly at their parents' crotch areas. Those carts don't fit in the corrals at all and they completely mess up the neat stacks of large and small carts (assuming, of course, people put those away correctly into neat stacks, which they usually do not despite the signs saying "Put Large Carts Here" and "Put Small Carts Here"). Often there is simply nowhere to put your regular cart unless you drag the stupid kiddie carts out of the way, but then there is no good place to put those.

[roadman]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

People who leave shopping carts right in an open parking space rather than at least move it to an unobtrusive area where it isn't blocking a space or passage.

As long as I haven't personally witnessed the person leaving the cart there, I like to think he or she must have trouble walking.  That makes it irritate me less.  Probably not true most of the time, but it works for me.  Of course, I can't do that if I see a perfectly able-bodied but apparently lazy individual leave the cart the middle of the lot, but usually I just notice ones that were previously left there, so I can pretend.

Indeed.  The vast majority of the carts I see left out are by the handicapped parking spaces.  I'll often grab one if it's a small cart (the kind I use) and I haven't already grabbed one from the corral.

Supermarkets that don't provide enough cart corrals, or in some cases any corrals at all, in the parking lot.  Having to cross three or four parking aisles to return the cart to a corral is one reason many people don't do it.

Of course, other people would complain that with more corrals, there are less parking spots and they have to walk farther to get to the door.

At the supermarket I shop at, the corrals are provided within the core area of the lot, where spaces are closest to the doors.  There are no corrals placed at the outer areas of the lot, where it's further to get to the doors anyway.

[kurumi]

NOAA: "winter storm coming to the Springfield area"
Me: "Good, I can use the snow day to catch up on some work"
it doesn't snow
Me the next morning: 

The fact that we've gone from weathermen to meteorologists...AND WITH THEIR DEGREES THEY ARE NO BETTER AT PREDICTING THE WEATHER

Some stats from 2014 (http://www.randalolson.com/2014/06/21/accuracy-of-three-major-weather-forecasting-services/):



That's pretty close for the two national services. Any percentage difference will result in the occasional high-visibility "miss". TV news tends to exaggerate the chance of rain (for similar reasons for highlighting local crime and other sensational stories: anything to keep you watching through the next commercial break). Don't get your news (or weather) from TV and you'll be in good shape.

[roadman]

Any percentage difference will result in the occasional high-visibility "miss". TV news tends to exaggerate the chance of rain (for similar reasons for highlighting local crime and other sensational stories: anything to keep you watching through the next commercial break). Don't get your news (or weather) from TV and you'll be in good shape.

Exactly.  I primarily rely on NOAA broadcasts for my weather.  I'm fortunate to be in an area where I can reliably receive NOAA broadcasts for four different regions, so I am able to get and interpret the overall weather picture pretty well.

[mgk920]

People write "$43 million" to say "$43,000,000."  That can make sense for larger numbers, due to numerical illiteracy (innumeracy?), but that reads to me as "forty three dollars million."  I've written it in this format: "43 million dollars," but that looks wrong, too.

I do it all the time, such as referring to a $43 million highway project, if I want to round to 2 decimal places, or add the tenth if I want to round to 3 decimal places, such as $43.1 million.

If it was a contract award of $43,128,045.32, then I would write the full number, but for a project in planning or even under construction, I would usually round the number if I wanted to use it in a discussion.

I try to limit such numbers to three significant figures in informal discussions, too.  Heck, I wish that retail fuel prices were required to be rounded to no more than three significant figures.

Mike

[DaBigE]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

....

What drives me crazy at the cart return corrals are the "kiddie carts" (what I sometimes call the "playpen carts")–the ones with the big plastic housing on the front that's intended to be sort of like the cab of a truck, complete with steering wheels, where kids can sit instead of being up at the back of the cart where their feet swing directly at their parents' crotch areas. Those carts don't fit in the corrals at all and they completely mess up the neat stacks of large and small carts (assuming, of course, people put those away correctly into neat stacks, which they usually do not despite the signs saying "Put Large Carts Here" and "Put Small Carts Here"). Often there is simply nowhere to put your regular cart unless you drag the stupid kiddie carts out of the way, but then there is no good place to put those.

God how I hated those carts when I used to work at a grocery store. Except for a few of us with longer arms, they always had to be hauled back to the store one at a time. A few of us could take them two at a time, but it wasn't fun. Thow in a little snow, and they are even more fun to deal with.

[mgk920]

Dollars million

People write "$43 million" to say "$43,000,000."  That can make sense for larger numbers, due to numerical illiteracy (innumeracy?), but that reads to me as "forty three dollars million."  I've written it in this format: "43 million dollars," but that looks wrong, too.

This makes me think of the Beverly Hillbillies, who were paid in a new kind of dollar.  They knew of silver dollars and paper dollars, but had never heard of million dollars.  To me, an elegant solution is to modify the symbol, writing "[million dollar symbol]43."  Put a small letter M somewhere around the $, and make another one for billions, and for trillions for when we talk about government debt.  I doubt if that would be a popular solution, since no one else seems to mind reading about dollars million.

A less elegant solution would be "43 $million," which would read "forty three million dollars" to me.  But that would confuse people more than either the current way or writing out the full number.

For that, I just use the 'SI' prefix abbreviation letter 'M' for 'mega', ie '$43M' (note, a lower case 'm' is for 'milli', 1E-3 or 0.001 - one one thousandth).  The real fun here is that the prefix for billion (1E9) is 'giga', shortened to 'G' - I find the lingering use of the word 'grand' to mean $1000 to be annoying, especially when those who still use that term often use 'G' as an abbreviation for it.

Mike

[MNHighwayMan]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

As someone who worked the thankless job of bringing in carts in high school, thank you.

[mgk920]

NOAA: "winter storm coming to the Springfield area"
Me: "Good, I can use the snow day to catch up on some work"
it doesn't snow
Me the next morning: 

Popular press weather guys and gals who over-sensationalize totally normal weather, especially WRT temperatures, to the point where everyone is scared into their little heated or refrigerated cubby holes, nothing is open and nobody is outside.  When they glommed into the 'wind chill factor' (nothing more than a dressing guide chart for cold weather camping that was developed by the USA's military during WWII, located in the back pages of my Boy Scout Field Book) back in the 1980s to do that they turned a lot of people into total weather wimps.  Just bundle up some more and/or take other needed normal precautions and you'll be able to enjoy your days just fine.



Mike

[1995hoo]

NOAA: "winter storm coming to the Springfield area"
Me: "Good, I can use the snow day to catch up on some work"
it doesn't snow
Me the next morning: 

Popular press weather guys and gals who over-sensationalize totally normal weather, especially WRT temperatures, to the point where everyone is scared into their little heated or refrigerated cubby holes, nothing is open and nobody is outside.  When they glommed into the 'wind chill factor' (nothing more than a dressing guide chart for cold weather camping that was developed by the USA's military during WWII, located in the back pages of my Boy Scout Field Book) back in the 1980s to do that they turned a lot of people into total weather wimps.  Just bundle up some more and/or take other needed normal precautions and you'll be able to enjoy your days just fine.



Mike

I feel like it's usually the female weathermen who exaggerate the cold, such as saying 50°F is "chilly" (it's not, unless perhaps it's late spring or summer) or 32°F is "bitterly cold" (it's not, especially in February). If you think 50° is "chilly," you should be living in the part of Florida located south of Interstate 4, or perhaps in San Diego or Hawaii.

[jakeroot]

There's many people out there that'll throw chairs at the 17 year old who didn't put enough meat in their taco at Taco Bell, yet will tell everyone that their favorite, college educated meteorologist, tries hard to put together a good forecast that was woefully incorrect.  And then bitch that the school district shouldn't have closed schools because it didn't snow, even though their favorite meteorologist said it would.  Misguided blame is preventing weather forecasts from improving.

You're not really comparing taco-construction to weather prediction...right?

I get your point: give shit to the minimum wage guy, maximum excuse for the college-graduate. But you cannot build weather. It is an educated guess. The Taco Bell meat-man has everything to produce a product; meteorologists do not.

[vdeane]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

....

What drives me crazy at the cart return corrals are the "kiddie carts" (what I sometimes call the "playpen carts")–the ones with the big plastic housing on the front that's intended to be sort of like the cab of a truck, complete with steering wheels, where kids can sit instead of being up at the back of the cart where their feet swing directly at their parents' crotch areas. Those carts don't fit in the corrals at all and they completely mess up the neat stacks of large and small carts (assuming, of course, people put those away correctly into neat stacks, which they usually do not despite the signs saying "Put Large Carts Here" and "Put Small Carts Here"). Often there is simply nowhere to put your regular cart unless you drag the stupid kiddie carts out of the way, but then there is no good place to put those.

The ones Hannaford uses have room for about 3.5 rows of carts, so with one row for small carts and one row of big carts, that leaves enough room (usually in the middle) to shove a kiddie cart on the occasion one is there (assuming there aren't an unusually large number of big carts forcing me to create a second row).

[GaryV]

'wind chill factor'

It's "real feel" temperature now.

[DaBigE]

People who don't put carts into the corral neatly.  It's amazing how many times I'll put a cart away in one that's "full" but which magically gains room for double the amount of carts when I fix it (yeah, it bothers me so much that I actually take the time to organize them into a row of small carts and a row of big carts).

As someone who worked the thankless job of bringing in carts in high school, thank you.

It may be thankless, but I found it as a nice way to be able to stay away from the bitchy customers (and get a little workout, courtesy of the large heavy metal carts our grocery store had). I'm likely in the minority, but I looked forward to pushing carts (except for the rainy days). There were some nice days where I tried to spend my whole shift out there...until they implemented a 30-minute rotation for all the utility clerks/baggers .

[J N Winkler]

People write "$43 million" to say "$43,000,000."  That can make sense for larger numbers, due to numerical illiteracy (innumeracy?), but that reads to me as "forty three dollars million."  I've written it in this format: "43 million dollars," but that looks wrong, too.

I do it all the time, such as referring to a $43 million highway project, if I want to round to 2 decimal places, or add the tenth if I want to round to 3 decimal places, such as $43.1 million.

If it was a contract award of $43,128,045.32, then I would write the full number, but for a project in planning or even under construction, I would usually round the number if I wanted to use it in a discussion.

I do the same.  In regard to Wxfree's point, I consider the dollar sign to apply to the totality of the numerical amount (43 million) rather than the one given just in digits (43).  Expressions of the form "$43 million dollars" are internally redundant (and in fact I pointed them out as a personal annoyance many pages ago in this thread).  Say "$43 million," or "43 million dollars" if you absolutely must, but not both "$" and "dollars" in relation to the same number.

As for further abbreviations of million, billion, etc., I consider them inelegant, though I recognize they have become increasingly prevalent in journalistic usage, first in the UK ("$43m," "$43bn," "$43trn") and latterly in the US ("$43M," "$43B").

People who leave shopping carts right in an open parking space rather than at least move it to an unobtrusive area where it isn't blocking a space or passage.

As long as I haven't personally witnessed the person leaving the cart there, I like to think he or she must have trouble walking.  That makes it irritate me less.  Probably not true most of the time, but it works for me.  Of course, I can't do that if I see a perfectly able-bodied but apparently lazy individual leave the cart the middle of the lot, but usually I just notice ones that were previously left there, so I can pretend.

I became acculturated to the 1980's norm of there being no cart corrals in the parking lot, period, so that you were expected to walk the cart all the way back to the front of the store as a matter of courtesy to other shoppers.  From this standpoint, cart not returned to the corral, or not shoved neatly into the corral, are merely different degrees of wrong.

What I do try to do--since this area is very windy--is to scavenge loose carts left in circulating aisles so they don't get blown into nearby cars.  Carts otherwise matter little to me, since my chief preoccupation at big-box stores is frictionless if not necessarily quick exit--I don't want to have to back out of a parking space or traverse a pedestrian crossing zone.

[1995hoo]

The two screenshots below are from another forum to which I belong. They fit the spirit of this thread perfectly. I responded to ARKHOO by suggesting wahoowad film the discussion and upload it to YouTube.

[CtrlAltDel]

Expressions of the form "$43 million dollars" are internally redundant (and in fact I pointed them out as a personal annoyance many pages ago in this thread).

The problem is that the symbol, for some reason, is placed before the number while the unit itself goes after, like it does in all other number-unit combinations. And so, I've decided to just put the dollar sign at the end and ignore anyone who complains. I write "43 $" or "43 million $," and so on.

[Beltway]

I do it all the time, such as referring to a $43 million highway project, if I want to round to 2 decimal places, or add the tenth if I want to round to 3 decimal places, such as $43.1 million.
If it was a contract award of $43,128,045.32, then I would write the full number, but for a project in planning or even under construction, I would usually round the number if I wanted to use it in a discussion.

I try to limit such numbers to three significant figures in informal discussions, too.  Heck, I wish that retail fuel prices were required to be rounded to no more than three significant figures.

I have long disliked the marketing gimmick of the fuel price per gallon having 0.9 cents tacked onto the end.

It made sense, the practice of having tenths of a cent pricing back when gasoline cost 25 to 30 cents per gallon.  One penny is 4% of 25 cents.

Beyond $1.00 per gallon (decades ago now) it really made no sense.  There would be at least some cost savings by not having pumps programmed that way.

I do the same.  In regard to Wxfree's point, I consider the dollar sign to apply to the totality of the numerical amount (43 million) rather than the one given just in digits (43).  Expressions of the form "$43 million dollars" are internally redundant (and in fact I pointed them out as a personal annoyance many pages ago in this thread).  Say "$43 million," or "43 million dollars" if you absolutely must, but not both "$" and "dollars" in relation to the same number.
As for further abbreviations of million, billion, etc., I consider them inelegant, though I recognize they have become increasingly prevalent in journalistic usage, first in the UK ("$43m," "$43bn," "$43trn") and latterly in the US ("$43M," "$43B").

I do the same, spell it out --

$43.1 million
$2.42 billion

etc.

I too don't like abbreviating to "M" or "B."

[sparker]

^^^^^^^^^^^
It's highly likely that the extension abbreviations such as $40.5M for $40,500,000.  were appropriated from the technical/electronics sector, where such abbreviations are commonplace and even expected in technical writeups and schematics.  Resistors, for instance, are marked, for example, at 47.5K for 47,500 ohms of resistance (the Euro model would state this as "47K5").  Same thing goes for higher resistances; 2,200,000 ohms would be 2.2M or 2M2 in Europe (some Japanese companies follow that idiom as well).  Smaller values either have the Greek 'omega" after the number, or simply append an R, obviously for "resistance", to the value (i.e., 332R for 332 ohms; this has generally become the U.S. default standard).   With the vast spread of technology, it's not surprising that those idioms have spread into fiscal reportage -- with the purveyors of such seeking as much brevity as possible.   

[Beltway]

It's highly likely that the extension abbreviations such as $40.5M for $40,500,000.  were appropriated from the technical/electronics sector, where such abbreviations are commonplace and even expected in technical writeups and schematics. 

Having worked with financial data on information systems, I would have a difficult time knowing exactly all the reasons.

Another 'shorthand' is to leave the last 3 digits off and have a header such as "Values in Thousands of Dollars"
http://syip.virginiadot.org/Pages/allProjects.aspx

[sparker]

It's highly likely that the extension abbreviations such as $40.5M for $40,500,000.  were appropriated from the technical/electronics sector, where such abbreviations are commonplace and even expected in technical writeups and schematics. 

Having worked with financial data on information systems, I would have a difficult time knowing exactly all the reasons.

Another 'shorthand' is to leave the last 3 digits off and have a header such as "Values in Thousands of Dollars"
http://syip.virginiadot.org/Pages/allProjects.aspx

Caltrans' STIP utilizes the last abbreviation method and has since the STIP concept and format was introduced in 1976.  And this was extended to those local roads eligible for state funding since those were included & itemized in the STIP about 20 years ago.  For funding purposes, it seems as good an idiom as any!