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Yet it amazes me, if I'm in town bogged down with shopping bags and meet someone we know, when they smile and nod at my husband and say "Ah... is she spending all your money again?"To which I reply "No, actually. I'm spending all MY money!"
It immediately brought to mind a common qestion I heard when my daughters were small. Whenever I was out with them sans my wife, whenever I encountered an adult female, I invariably heard statements similar to "So, you're babysitting today." To which I responded, "No, I'm their father - I'm parenting."
My daughters are 27 and 25 now. However, I have a 9 year old son. Although I don't hear it quite as often as I did with my daughters, whenever he and I are out together, it's not uncommon for adult females to say "So, you're babysitting today." To which I respond "No I'm his father."
"Do you eat chicken?" or "Do you eat fish?"
Also being a vegetarian, this question just makes me shriek (with laughter or frustration I'm not entirely sure). There was a Dilbert cartoon several years ago that I clipped and carry in my wallet because it's just so apropos. In the clip, there's this vegetarian dinosaur talking to Dilbert. Here's a transcription:
Dilbert: Would you like some chicken, Bob?
Bob the Dinosaur: I told you, I'm a vegetarian. I eat vegetables.
Dilbert: How about some fish? Do you eat fish?
Bob the Dinosaur: Fish are not vegetables.
Dilbert:How about clams? Do you eat clams?
Bob the Dinosaur: No, but you're starting to look good.
cEM
While he's always been okay with my outspokenness (BigMouth is generally a MILD form of my middle name), many of his friends in this area (they spend the first 20 years of life scratching to get out of here so they can make a living so they can spend the last 20 years of life scratching to get back so they can die here) are not, and it's a frequent occurrence that one of them will say supposedly sotto voce, "you really ought to do something about her attitudes".... He usually just ignores it, as do I, because we both know full well I'm not going to change and I don't give a rat's ass what they think - what they think is THEIR problem not mine and not his. What I would LIKE to say doesn't bear repeating in polite company....
BTW, encyclo, I took my husband's last name simply because it didn't make any difference what I call myself or others call me - I am who I am, myself and no one else, and that's not going to change. Interesting about Québec though....
:-)
And on the subject of names, it REALLY, REALLY narks me when I give my first name as "Debbie" (which it is) and people automatically assume it's short for "Deborah" (which it isn't - it's not short for anything)
people automatically assume it's short for "Deborah" (which it isn't - it's not short for anything)
Someting similar to that is when people automatically assume that when I introduce myself as "Matthew," it's okay to shorten it to "Matt." I don't take offense at that, but if I wanted to go by Matt, that's how I'd introduce myself! ;)
My poor grandmother's name was Fanny, not short for anything and no other name -- she hated it.
Stop saying my name wrong! If I had a dollar for everytime I've flipped out on a telemarketer (yes, flipped out)...
and people automatically assume
Is there another way to do it?
(One of my pet peeves is excessive redundancies!) :)
I imagine it's a pain, but when you have a name that originally WAS short for something (the nickname in its original typically doesn't acutally MEAN anything)and the vast majority of people still use the original form. . .
maybe your beef should be with your PARENTS?
If, on the other hand, you are thinking of situatuions where you introduce yourself by own name (full name or form of a nickname) and people, without ever asking what you like to be called, start calling you by some other longer or shorter form of the name. . . well, then you have a fair complaint.
That's funny.
I also have an uncommon but very simple last name. I have seen countless misspellings, which is weird because really, how many ways are there to spell "Ring"?
But once I went to pick up film that had been developed and my name was spelled "Ling". The clerk thought it was a mispronounced Asian name. I guess that makes sense...
Is there another way to do it?
Certainly. Haven't you ever jumped to a conclusion when you know you don't have all the facts? If that's not an assumption I don't know what is, but it's not automatic! ;) May I assume your "excessive redundancies" line was meant as irony, since any redundancy is excessive anyhow? ;)
I have seen countless misspellings, which is weird because really, how many ways are there to spell "Ring"?
You'd be surprised. I've spent a lot of time in mail-list management. You wouldn't believe how many ways there are to spell even the simplest or commonest of names. I take a lot of phone calls from customers, and I often ask people to spell their names even if it seems obvious. Better they think I'm dumb, than to risk offending them by misspelling their names.
And just to give my post some on-topic content, another thing that I find funny is people assuming that, just because our family happens to work from home, we can take time off anytime to do anything with no notice whatsoever. As if the fact that there's no boss to fire us for not showing up means that we have nothing to do or that somehow everything will still get done if we're not here to do it . . . when in actuality it just means we don't get paid for that time! (Kind of similar to how kids thought I could play video games all day long while I was growing up because I was homeschooled - trust me, homeschooling means a lot of learning going on and it doesn't come from video games!)
Odd thing was his mother maiden name was Bull. Some wag pointed out that he'd have been known as Bull-ring with a double barreled name. Some thing that didnt occur to me previously.
OMG. That phrase IRKS me to NO end. Someone I know used to say it all the time and every single time they said it I wanted to slap them upside the head - repeatedly.
A few more for me...
"Oh, you're from Joy-see? What Exit?"
A. It's Jer-zee. JERZEE DANG IT.
B: Haha. That is soooooooo funny (wipe sarcasm as it drips).
Upon seeing my tattoo...
"Is that real?"
No. I wake up every morning and apply a fake tattoo.
