Unfayre

There are two things I dislike about summer fairs. First of all, they are often spelled “fayre,” which is supposed to convey a sense of old-fashioned, innocent, good-old-days fun. Second, you are then expected to have fun there, and it ends up feeling forced and stressful. Unfayre and not fun!

--Curly

You Haven’t Come a Long Way, Baby

This may turn into an annual rant, but I am getting really tired of the baby stuff. I work in academia, and you’d think that the relatively career-focused and relatively liberal people there would be a bit more thoughtful. Instead, they continue to talk up the joys of parenthood and they encourage me to try it out, too. And in the meantime, they give childless me plenty of work they don’t want to do or can’t do due to their childcare commitments.

Enough with the baby nonsense already! Don’t punish me for not having kids and don’t assume I ought to or want to have them myself.

--Curly

Ranting about Students: Part 4

Something odd happened one week in one of my classes. None of the male students turned up (see my earlier post about them having better things to do than attend class!), and the students who were there suddenly spoke much more and seemed significantly more confident. The discussion was livelier than usual and the students appeared to be having a lot of fun.

This is to say that on a day when there were only women in the room, the class was better. At the end of the seminar, I mentioned the fact that the ladies had been more talkative when no guys were around. The women looked guiltily at each other and finally one said that they didn’t talk as much when the entire group was there because they didn’t want the men to think they were “feminists.” The others concurred and said that if they monopolized the discussion, or even just contributed to it more, the male students would think bad things about them. In other words, women attending a selective university are still afraid to speak up, lest men find them less attractive for doing so.

There’s something wrong with this, isn’t there? How can we change it?

--Curly

Ranting about Students: Part 3

I’ve complained about texting-style language before, but it also is relevant to my spate of student-related peeves. Students should not be sending me emails in text format, such as “Can u rmnd me of hmwrk? Thanx!” I also find it a bit strange when they sign their emails with kisses. Informality is fine, but only up to a point.

--Curly

Big Women with Little Voices

What’s with grown-up women who purposefully speak with high-pitched voices? Do they think it makes them sound sweeter, cuter, more vulnerable, more innocent, more girlish, whatever? And, if so, why’s that appealing?

I’ve heard quite a few women who seem to choose to talk in girlish tones, particularly when men are around, that are clearly not their natural voices. And I just don’t get it. It seems to be an attempt to attract men, by making the women seem reedy and needy.

--Curly

Texting, Texting, 1, 2, 3

Ah, text speak! That's the short abbreviations and sloppy mannerisms people employ when their word count is strictly limited (unlike on a blog, natch). That’s fine when you’re texting, I suppose, even though I still prefer a slightly more formal style, but it is definitely not fine in: emails, letters, essays, articles, and other more serious venues. I really dislike getting messages from students or friends in “text type,” because it suggests carelessness. And I know I’m not the only one who would judge potential partners on their language skills, which means I tend to run from people who message or email me with a sentence like, “U r cute. How r u? I’m tired. LOL!”

No, I’m not laughing out loud at your text speak; instead I’m wishing you could take the time to write a proper sentence. Call me curmudgeonly, but there it is.

--Curly

The Look of Love: Commercial Crassness and Stereotypes

An obvious peeve is the commercial crassness of Valentine’s Day. We’re expected to buy cards, flowers, candy, and other gifts (generally decorated with hearts) for our loved ones once a year, but what I don’t get is why we don’t show people our love all the time and not just on a holiday that clearly is meant to offer a significant profit to certain industries. But it isn’t just the commerciality that bothers me; it’s also the stereotyping.

The other day, I was in a card shop, making a study of the cards available. First of all, nearly all the cards were designed for heterosexual couples. This was obvious because of the pictures of male and female people (or, once in awhile, animals, such as cats or bears, dressed in stereotypically male and female ways, with one cat in a skirt and the other wearing a tie) on the cards. So Valentine’s Day is a holiday for straight people.

Secondly, it was interesting to see how the cards used language. Cards addressed “to my husband” or “to my boyfriend” used terms such as “strong man,” “good father,” “faithful husband,” and “loving boyfriend.” Cards addressed “to my wife” or “to my girlfriend” were more likely to use words like “beautiful” and “sexy.” That is to say that women express their love for the men in their lives by praising what they do and how they do it, whereas men refer to their wives’ and girlfriends’ looks.

Is this what love is about?

--Curly

Yeah, Yeah, Yeah -- "Jingle Bell's" to You Too

This will be my last post of the year, I promise. I have many rants about the holiday season but two that I must get off my chest are:

--The endless Christmas music. Yes, I'm a grinch, but I hate it. I wish I could go into a store and not hear this stupid music. I have actually left stores because the music is so annoying and makes me feel anxious and stressed.

--Bad punctuation. All right, this always bothers me, but especially now when I have to see "Happy holiday's" and "Christmas special's". It makes me want to rip signs, cards, and menus up!

I think I need to start hibernating during the holiday season.

--Curly

Untitled

I am constantly annoyed by people assuming that since I am a woman, I must be either a Miss or a Mrs. I find this assumption upsetting for many reasons.

Miss to me refers to a little girl, not to a grown woman, and Mrs. is only for a woman who is married and has taken her husband's name. So as an unmarried, grown woman, neither of those names is appropriate. Instead, I would prefer Ms., which is often not recognized as a possibility.

But in fact I happen to be Dr. Now, ordinarily, I wouldn't go around bragging about this, but when people ask me if I am Miss or Mrs., I immediately reply, "Actually, I'm Dr."

Why do people believe that Miss and Mrs. are the only two possible options for women? Why don't they consider that women may have advanced degrees? And what about women who married but haven't changed their last names? Or women who are unmarried and are adults?

How hard is to think of women as something other than girls or wives?

--Dr. Curly

Speak Differently For Me

I don’t understand this habit of adding the phrase “for me” to requests or questions. The dentist has said to me, “Open your mouth wide for me.” The doctor has said, “Take off your shirt for me.” A waiter has said, “Please move that plate for me.” When returning a car to the car-rental place, the receptionist asked me, “Did you fill up the tank for me?” And so on. I may be facilitating something for the person, but I don’t feel like I am really doing it “for” them. It just seems like more false politeness. Stop using this phrase. Please? For me?

--Curly

Speaking in Tongues

I have nothing against people slipping foreign words into their writing or conversation, just as I know Prunella doesn’t. In fact, we are known to do it ourselves once in awhile. What I do find annoying – and admittedly this is snobbish of me – is when they mispronounce and/or misuse the word. I think if you aren’t sure how a word should be pronounced or employed, you probably should avoid it and go with a word you are more familiar with. N’est-ce pas?

--Curly

Double Standards

I was staying over at some friends’ house recently and one of my friends loaned me a book to read before bed. She knows me well and chose wisely: the book was He’s a Stud, She’s a Slut: And 49 Other Double Standards Every Woman Should Know, by Jessica Valenti.

This lightly humorous book offers 50 common double standards, explains them, and gives suggestions for what you can do about them. The double standards include: “he can be a beast, she must be a beauty,” “he’s a Romeo, she’s a stalker,” he’s gonna be a success, she’s gonna be a stay-at-home mom,” “he’s hot and heady, she’s brainy or boobilicious,” “he walks freely, she gets harassed,” “he’s neat, she’s neurotic,” “he’s stoic, she’s frigid,” “he’s himself, she’s Mrs. himself,” “he’s the boss, she’s a bitch,” “he’s childless, she’s selfish,” and many more.

Excellent reading for the peeved among us!

--Curly

Memories

Do we all idealize our childhood or early adulthood? Why do so many people think that things were better "back then" or say things such as "those were the days"?

Personally, I am not sure what good it does to think back to better times. And I get a bit tired of people saying how awful life is nowadays. If it's so awful, why don't we do something about it? All times and places have their problems; it isn't helpful to think that the grass was greener, to use a tired cliché, in a previous era.

--Curly

The Royal We

I don't like false politeness and I notice that people seem to think that the royal we is polite. "How are we today?" a waiter might ask. "I hope we have had a nice vacation," the doctor might remark. "What have we been up to?" a colleague might wonder.

Am I alone in disliking the royal we? What do we think about it?

--Curly

"Thanks" for Reading

We already link to the "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks, but I just had an urge to point it out. On a trip last month, I walked down a street where nearly every store and restaurant had unnecessary quotation marks.

"Thanks" for shopping here.

Come "back" soon.

"Enjoy" our gym.

Coffee and "tea" available.

Why oh why do people add these unnecessary quote marks?

--Curly

Feeling Lucky

I certainly don't suffer from triskaidekaphobia, but many people seem to. I can't understand why so many buildings don't have 13th floors or hotels have room numbers such as 113, 213, 313, and so forth. They might call a floor the 14th, but that doesn't change that it actually is the 13th. And room 414 is most likely the 13th in a row, not the 14th. Why are people so superstitious? And why can't they realize that changing the name of something doesn't change what it really is?

--Curly

Best Before

How much attention should we pay to expiration dates? Are they overly conservative? I have been told that we needn't follow them exactly, but have we been trained by the grocery industry to follow them too strictly, thus leading us to waste lots of food and spending excess money buying new products? I have my suspicions.

--Curly

Just Not That Into It

I admit that not long ago I saw the silly romantic comedy “He’s Just Not Into You.” That film could get me ranting for ages. First of all, the women are always referred to as girls. Second of all, they are portrayed as desperate; they are not happy unless they are in a relationship. They also act like they have to “trap” a man and convince him to be with them. They don’t “get” men and need to have men explained to them, while men apparently understand women just fine. Finally, marriage is considered the ultimate goal for all male-female relationships. One couple in the movie live together quite happily and they seem to recognize that a wedding is not necessary; but, no, it turns out the woman actually wants marriage. In the end, she gets her wedding.

What is wrong with living together? What is wrong with some people being single? Why are women seen as confused, needy girls who must have men in order to be fulfilled?

--Curly

The Chicken Trend

It must be a new trend to consider chicken vegetarian food. A recipe I saw recently was labeled “vegetarian” and yet one of the ingredients was chicken stock. Hmm.

--Curly

Here Come the Idiots

At my local library, there is a special shelf with a label “Here Come the Girls!” The books on that shelf are primarily by Virginia Woolf, Iris Murdoch, Isabel Allende, and a couple of “chick-lit” writers. This is offensive on a number of levels. First of all, these are women, NOT girls. Also, are these really the main, or the best, examples of female authors? Are there no other authors who can represent womankind? And why is that needed, anyway? There is no equivalent shelf called “Here Come the Boys!” What is the library thinking?

--Curly