DOEP (Daily Open-Ended Puzzle) (intermittent): Most annoying nitpicks
Posted on March 9th, 2008
To be a Most Annoying Nitpick, a comment has to be obvious, predictable, and unimportant.
For example:
“You know, in space an explosion wouldn’t make any noise.”
Runners up include:
“Jeesh. Dinosaurs were dead for hundreds of millions of years before humans came along.”
“Computer viruses are operating-system specific, so one of ours couldn’t infect an alien computer.”
“In the original comic book, he couldn’t fly, just jump.”
In fact, I’d be willing to consider any nitpick that begins with the phrase “In the original comic book” as a candidate for the Most Annoying.
[Tags: doep puzzle cliches nitpicks ]
Tagged with: puzzles
I saw the movie Atonement last night, and couldn’t help but wonder how in 1930 umpteen members of a household, especially youngsters, had managed to get hold of compact flashlights – with particularly bright beams – with which to explore the grounds at night.
If you were a 13 year old scrawny girl in 1930, I’d be surprised if you could hold a battery powered torch in two outstretched arms, let alone one, and for its beam to extend beyond 10 feet.
Now you’re probably annoyed that I have taken the opportunity to nitpick instead of to comment upon your post.
Does this therefore make my nitpick doubly annoying, and thus the winner of your DOEP?
Or did my second comment validate the first and thus greatly reduce its annoyance?
Then again, perhaps I’m picking too many nits here, and am becoming a tad annoying…
In my original comment I did indicate that my nitpicking might cause annoyance, so it’s a little late to complain.
Oh, Crosbie, what well of despair have I dropped you into? I am so sorry!
:)
Just trying to be a little original and hopefully a little comic. :)
And at the same time make you worry that I may be doing the groundwork necessary to start a nitpick with the bonus phrase. ;-)
Which reminds me of this
http://www.snopes.com/photos/s.....losion.asp
(I run the Israeli equivalent of snopes.com . I make a (modest google ads) living out of nitpicking.)
I find it particularly irritating when what one thought was a pretty incisive nitpick turns out to be rather prejudiced, and prey to the more informed and consequently far more annoying nitpicks of others.
If you’ll permit me to nitpick my own poor attempt at an original, comic, bookish nitpick, according to http://www.flashlightmuseum.co.....m , standard 2 cell flashlights such as a child may easily wield, have been around since the turn of the 19th century. No doubt this would be an indispensible and readily available item in such a wealthy household as depicted in Atonement.
Annoying nitpick – (trying to rescue the thread from Crosbie Fitch) – for me is, “from where did the alien race learn English?”
Just once, I’d like to see an alien race approach Earth humans speaking Chinese (aside from Firefly), or French, or Swedish, or Togo, or some otherwise obscure African dialect.
I like it when people spot a plaque with Braille in a public place and get all discomfited because they can’t understand how the blind would use it, and they have to discuss this on the Web.
“Why do they have Braille on….?” “How is the person supposed to find it?” “If they know where to find it from past experience, they must already know what it says.” “And the drive-up ATMs, what’s up wid dat?”
My god, we should have a law forbidding the indiscriminate use of Braille, or at least a written sign explaining how it’s used for those who absolutely need to know.
“In the original comic book, he couldn’t fly, just jump” is trivia, not a nitpick.
“In the original comic book, the web-shooters are devices, not organic” is something someone might say, as a matter of character purity.
“If he really had organic web-shooters, they wouldn’t be in his wrists” is perhaps more in the spirit.
Seth, when someone observes the difference between the comic and the movie, it is trivia. When s/he intends to criticize the movie, on the assumed grounds that it is supposed to be faithful, I believe it qualifies as a nitpick, albeit with a side salad of trivia.
Bill K, there are of course exceptions to your critique of nitpickers, aren’t there? Please?
Right – I meant people for whom “couldn’t fly, just jump” qualifies as faithful would be at least very senior citizens, and extremely curmudgeonly ones at that, so it’s not something likely to be said in reality as a criticism, as opposed to a did-you-know fun fact. Compare that to an actual fan petition against organic web-shooters.