Of pet peeves and birthdays

I have a few pet peeves. You may not realise it, but I’m sure you do too. Dictionary.com defines pet peeve as “a particular and often continual annoyance; personal bugbear. E.g. This train service is one of my pet peeves“. In other words, something which causes you big time irritation every time it happens. For some people, it’s indiscriminate littering (is there such a thing as discriminate littering?), dirty public toilets and the like.

As far as I can remember, I have only two. First is people who change lanes/turn into junctions without using the turn signal and bad English usage. Let’s leave the turn signal bit. That’s easy to relate to. I’ll try and deliberate on the second one. Two days ago I updated my facebook status about how I detest the over used phrase of “that’s mean”. You understand that it is supposed to be “that means” isn’t it? Anyway, one of my friends from primary school commented on said status that I have been obsessed with proper English usage since primary school. Out of having nothing to say, I just replied that’s just how I am as if acknowledging the fact.

But truth be told, I did not know that I was anal about proper English usage in primary school. Sekolah rendah beb! Other guys and girls having a merry time playing marbles, galah panjang (or whatever games schoolkids played back in the 80s) and I was worrying about people’s English usage? That’s not cool man. It was as if I was this nerd who has nothing to do but check people’s quality (or rather non-quality) of English. To be honest I don’t remember doing that, at least not all the time. But they say you can never be a judge of yourself isn’t it? You can’t be aware of what you do all the time. Usually people will look at what you do. More often if the level of interest is high. Based on this principle my friend who commented on my facebook status must be right then. I’ll just put my hands up and accept it (not that people care if I don’t anyway).

Don’t get me wrong. I can totally understand if people get their English wrong, not wear their writing caps on a particular occasion or anything like that. In fact I greatly encourage people who make the effort to practice their English, written or spoken. That’s OK by me. It’s just that some blatantly disregard proper use. Come on, “that’s mean”, “it’s mean”? That’s just criminal man. And used with reckless abandon at that. Can’t you just spend 1 minute and look it up? I’m too much of a diplomat to tell it in their faces the moment I hear it but I’ll get super irritated and form an impression in my mind. That’s what a pet peeve is all about isn’t it?

I’m not going to get apologetic for feeling that way. I honestly believe there must be a sense of responsibility in communication and conveying a message. Some situations of faux pas can be forgiven, but not all the time.

OK, that’s all I have to say about that (for now). Last night, we had a do for Mak, who turns 65 tomorrow. We had this early do because the weekend would be too late and the birthday would’ve passed. So we had it slightly earlier. Everybody was around, the anaks and menantus and the grandchildren. I hope Mak had a blast. I know she did but being the slightly reserved person that she is, the joy is never apparent. As is always with these type of functions, there will be mingling and everybody is just generally being happy.

Looking deeper, there are different dynamics at work. Some will be telling stories and talking (most times me, haha), some will be listening (usually not me, haha again). I’ll keep it simple this time and post some photographs from last night.

Wouldn’t be complete without this, isn’t it?

Nureen Sabrina with her cousins

Farah Batrisyia showing her lack of front tooth with her cousin

Harith Haiqal not in the mood for festivities

Harith Haiqal and Pakcu. Harith still rather clueless about the whole birthday thing