I know what you mean. I've got a workmate who always adds an 's' to names of people without an 's', i.e. Charlie Adams, John Simms. God, that grinds my gears.....

I know what you mean. I've got a workmate who always adds an 's' to names of people without an 's', i.e. Charlie Adams, John Simms. God, that grinds my gears.....

"Please also see Mary Hopkin. She must despair"

Also when people add a 'the' to band names. Like The Doves or The Editors.

The audience clapping, as opposed to laughing, when some wag says something amusing - what is that all about???

John McEnroe. Great tennis player - no doubt.

These exhibition matches. I saw one on TV a year or two back. The crowd were only there to hear him say "you cannot be serious!"

After a mildly debatable decision he came out with the phrase (and proved he was a very bad actor) "You cannot be serious! The ball was on the line!"

You could tell he was embarrassed about having to say it, but it was the cue for a round of applause from the crowd.

I also hate people who use autocorrect on their phones but don't QR what it sends out so you get gibberish that you then have to either decipher or query back.

Kev - if you want me to send you a new* phone I'm more than happy to send you on of my old ones.


* I s ,it'll be about 10 years old but still far more modern than that shoebox with numbers painted on the front.

Bus drivers who do that thing where they've pulled away from the stop by a miniscule distance and then got stuck in traffic, but they can't possibly open the doors to let anyone else on as it's against H&S, even though they're still basically at the bus stop...

Teenagers who have an aversion to fresh air and so close all the windows on the top deck - loudly.....

In my day we'd open all the windows on the top deck! That was where you had a "sly one" one the way home!

Having clicked what 'a sly one' refers to (phew), that's probably why the windows are now shut. Hmm....

The aronym PMSL.

a) It's not an acronym. An acronym is a set of initials which spell another word. PMSL isn't a word. LOL could probably count as one.

b) PMSL stands for Pissing Myself Laughing. Unless I'm completely stupid the initials of Pissing Myself Laughing are PML - not PMSL.

PMSL would be Pissing Myself Self Laughing. And that makes no sense.

Whether or not PMSL is an acronym is a question of semantics (some dictionary definitions would allow it, others wouldn't) but it's certainly an established example of initialisation - unless you're claiming that all initialisation should form a word, in which case you must be driven mad by (eg) "BBC", "LSD", "CNN", "RSVP" etc etc.

Or are you annoyed by people who say PMSL is an acronym when they should say it's an example of initialisation? If so, erm, get a life.

And, no, the extension of PMSL is not "pissing myself self laughing" but "pissing my self laughing" - the term uncouples the portmanteau-word "myself" to make its reference slightly more obvious. Again, such liberties in the interest of convenience are fairly common, though they usually involve missing out initial letters used in the extended term - we say "laser", for example, not "labseor" ("Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation").

Basically, such things are purely a matter of convention and caprice. There is no single correct procedure for contracting a phrase into an abbreviated set of letters.