h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

From which we can safely conclude that what really bugs people in the workplace is their co-workers.

'People who leave doors open, when the door has a sign on it saying "Please keep this door closed"'

Yeah, why don't they put a wall there?

There's this really great series of websites called "Customers Suck", "Bosses Suck", "Co-workers Suck", "Idiots Suck" and "Patients Suck" with lots of gripes and jokes and incredible stories of how infuriating people can be. Unfortunately I cannot include the link, but if you use Google and search words based on the above names you oughta find it real quick.

Hi,
I did not understand the title of this conversation until I read through the backlog. Spares are like car-parts to me and the way you are using it is very funny to me. Would that be a good idea for a new conversation: Things that easily amuse me. The word 'suck' really bothers me, especially when they say it over and over.
GW

On the doors thing - what the sign really means is that you should close the door after going through it.

Although if they really want that to happen, they should put an automatic-closing system on it. Also, it's really bizarre because the doors I'm thinking of in particular open out onto the two quadrangles in my Hall of Residence. Each quad has two doors into it, one of which is automatic and the other of which isn't. Why not have them both the same???? It's really, really weird.

OK, so a few people have listed a number of things. Maybe they would like to tell us what action they've taken to reduce future irritation. Or could it be that all they can do is bore the backsides off others by moaning?

I think the simplest thing to do would be to live somewhere there are no other people, but then with nothing to moan about wouldn't life be incredibly dull?

The word 'paradigm'.

In spite of the fact that I have come accross this word practicly every time I open a book/newspaper/magazine these days (the last academic book I read made a point of using it at least once every chapter), I have not figured out what it means yet. Every time I think I've got it down, I see it used a different way. Which says to me that this is either an intolerable piece of fasionable jargon that nobody actually knows how to use, or that after years of practice I have finally stopped being able to guess meanings of words from context.

I wonder if the moderators would consider putting it on their search and distroy programme. I find it offensive.

And no, please don't tell me what it actually means. I am locked into a battle of wills with the nasty little morpheme here.

I'm as much in the dark about its meaning as you, Solnushka. All I know is, it tends to "shift" at regular intervals.

Did someone mention the word moderators?

I know what a paradigm is, but since you don't want to know... and anyway, if you really wanted to know what it means you could look it up in a dictionary.

Looking the word up in a dictionary would be admitting defeat. And in anycase looking things up in a dictionary is generally unnecessary (for meaning. Iadmit my spelling needs work).

From a bit of judicoius reasoning I have decided that a 'paradigm' is something like a defining example, or possibly an example which defines or possibly fills the space up to the perameters of whatever subject we are describing or possibly outline the perameters. Or something like that. But, as Joanna says, the meaning does seem to shift.

Go on then. Was I close?

Close with respect to one meaning, but like many words it has more than one.

Almost... that's not the way I generally use it though.

Well, I still say if I can't come closer than 'close' and can't get a feel at all for the others at all after seeing the word in context as often as I have then the word itself is not worth knowing.

It certainly hasn't put me off the meaning of whatever the author was trying to say (take that disbelieving smirk off your face at once) and is therfore a puff word put there to impress rather than inform.

I shall now go off and use it in as many different conversations as I can and see how long it is before someone notices I don't know what it means.

People who put stickers on their cars saying 'baby on board'. Apart from the fact that it usually looks as though it's the baby driving, what are you supposed to do about it? And 'Caution, show dogs in transit'! That's even worse. I once saw 'show cats in transit'. That's even worse, too! What do these people want from me? I don't care who or what they've got in their car, just so long as they drive it safely.

Another thing that drives me spare is when I read three-quarters of a conversation, get inspired and post a reply, and then I realise that there's another page of posts between the one that I assumed was the latest and the one that actually is.

I must learn to pay attention.

Oh yes, that happens to me as well. Hate that.

-People who push in front in queues

-People who wear hats in cinemas!

-People who talk when someone else is talking

-People who bend the covers of softback books back

-People who write in books (unless it's a school text book and they've written the answers in *angelically innocent smile*)

-People who drop litter

-Pop-up banners

-The font "Comic Sans MS"!

-People who drive past in flash cars playing dance music at 120 decibels

-Those adverts in New Look that show girls wearing T-shirts saying "rebel". Three girls. Same T-shirt.

Censorship....... especially when it is called "moderation"......