Y'know what really grinds my gears?

[Link Prime]

Did the forum ever have a 'Room 101' style thread?

Anyway, y'know what really grinds my gears?

F-ckin movie adverts that name the release date numerically.

Example; "The Raid 2. In cinemas April 10".
When's April 10? Anytime near April 10th?

Sorry. No coffee yet.

[Daveycandlish]

It gets on my tits too. I'm glad I'm not the only one!

Why not even "the 10th of April". After all, I'm not American.

[judda fett]

People talking on the quiet carriage of the train, either on their phone or to each other. You've got the whole train to talk shite that I do not want to listen to and still feel obliged to do it on the one carriage of the train reserved for people who'd like to travel in peace. Arseholes.

[TordelBack]

When's April 10? Anytime near April 10th?

We were recently issued guidelines from a government department requiring planning reports to only use the form '10 April' which I find even more annoying. 

[Trout]

Date formats like that exist in newspapers. The idea is to save the extra characters and, believe it or not, it can make a difference for fitting text into a space.

[Banners]

As a graphic designer, dates simply look better that way sometimes.

[TordelBack]

Date formats like that exist in newspapers. The idea is to save the extra characters and, believe it or not, it can make a difference for fitting text into a space.

As a graphic designer, dates simply look better that way sometimes.

Spare us your pragmatic realism, aesthetic judgement and relevant experience: this is about poorly lubricated variable torque transmission.

A quick count on the report I'm currently writing reveals it to be 89,721 characters long so far.  Three incidents of dates appear (the timespan of the field project, the completion date of the report).  The saving of 6 characters seems... petty?

[Trout]

Dates occur in newspapers a lot.

If you want to save space in your report, remove the word "that". Then take out two of every three adjectives.

Secrets of newspaper production. 

[TordelBack]

Dates occur in newspapers a lot.

Indeed, but I'm not writing for a newspaper, and still government has seen fit to issue a fatwa against thorn. 

Interestingly a search reveals 80 instances of 'that' - so 320 characters.  Getting on for 0.3% of the total.  No major savings to be made there.  OTOH, the whole bloody thing is adjectives...  There's only so many times you can write 'muck' or 'hole' without adding qualifiers. 

[Steve Green]

Rolling news channels wanting to turn any news item into a fictional work.

Sets, theme music, sound effects, graphics, all that crap. Just report the fucking news.

Most recent example being Sky's coverage of the missing Malaysian flight, where they've got some bullshit illuminated desk with radar in the background - just so their experts can push models around like they're re-enacting the Battle of Britain.

[Link Prime]

Most recent example being Sky's coverage of the missing Malaysian flight, where they've got some bullshit illuminated desk with radar in the background - just so their experts can push models around like they're re-enacting the Battle of Britain.

That's a good one Steve.
Nothing worse than some insincere simp pushing little models around like he's Bill Adama with miniature Cylon Base Stars.

[The Enigmatic Dr X]

Word autocorrect changing th to ^th

Grrr.

[Trout]

Just autocorrect.

Yes, I know I can switch it off but it's useful for work and just ducking ducking ducking annoying for texts and emails.

Duck it.

[Fungus]

When's April 10? Anytime near April 10th?

A similar one. Furniture stores omitting the £.
"Available now at only 999!"
999 what? Buttons? Shrunken heads? Galactic groats?

[Colin YNWA]

Rolling news channels wanting to turn any news item into a fictional work.

Sets, theme music, sound effects, graphics, all that crap. Just report the fucking news.

Most recent example being Sky's coverage of the missing Malaysian flight, where they've got some bullshit illuminated desk with radar in the background - just so their experts can push models around like they're re-enacting the Battle of Britain.

Yeah remember when we used to laugh at the glorious excess of the graphics on 'The Day Today' - truly TV news has well exceeded that now... and they mean it!