04 January 2006

Pet peeves!

We all have them, we all hate people who provoke them, but why?

For those not familiar with the term, pet peeves are things that annoy you. For example, I hate people referring to the letter Z as a "zee". Hate it. It's a "ZED", dammit! Do you hear me?

Perhaps it's the fact that I attended university in England, perhaps it's simple elitism. Perhaps it's just the fact that I'm mentally unstable, but who knows? All I know is, certain things that people do drive me insane. I look at my parents for obvious answers, and yes, as I expected, I find that they do a lot of things to annoy. But strangely, they don't do anything I might consider a pet peeve. How odd! it's more general irritation I have with them. Oh well, the search continues for the source of these pet peeves. Myself? No...I don't do anything I consider a pet peeve myself. I do things I find morally reprehensible, stupid, cruel, nasty, selfish, and just generally unacceptable, but I don't call zed's zees.

So where do these pet peeves come from? And why do most people have them? And Why?

Another example that came up recently was someone referring to "rolling a dice". Now, many may not know this, but "dice" is plural. The singular is a die. I'm thankfully anal enough to notice that, but unfortunately, not shy about correcting people about it, which makes me annoying to say the least.

Ok...time for some serious self-reflection: Pet peeves, to me at least, stem from my annoyance at something I believe very strongly to be wrong. And it really gets to me when someone does something that I feel goes against nature (such as calling a die dice, That's wrong on a spiritual level!) Basically, it seems to come from a stupid need to be right all the time, even though, in the case of the die, anyway, I AM! So, put it down to pure arrogance and elitism, then.

Which, as luck would have it, are too of my pet peeves... that's a kicker, isn't it?

So why do I do it? (No, it's not all about me, but self-criticism, I feel, is best reserved for oneself)

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