Do you argue about everything? Are you always contrary?

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Breakfast does not precisely equal morning time.

After 11 AM its lunchtime.Folks get hungry for lunch type food. Lunchtime overlaps with morning.

But any clock time prior to 12 noon is "AM", which means it is "at morning", which means its morning.

As I have already stated in this thread I am a pedant and it ties in nicely with the title of the thread , so it's only fair I argue with you , "AM" does not mean "at morning" , it stands for "ante meridiem" which translates as before noon.

i think i shall make it my goal this weekend to agree with everyone no matter how idiotic what they say is...

This actually gave me a chuckle. I'm gonna try that one day, too!

I am too passive. I often just listen to people talk about something stupid and don't say a word to contradict them. Or I just give one of the standard responses. I guess I just don't want to waste my energy by arguing.

How is it respectful to a person to pretend to ignore their ignorance? If someone is kind enough to correct me I'll happily return the favor.

Interesting. Some grown up told me that AM meant "at morning" when I was a grade school kid, and I never thought about it again until just now.

Kinda like that teacher I had (I believe it was 8th grade) who correctly explained to us that "B.C." meant "before Christ" then told us that "A.D." means "after death" (the death of Christ). At that moment that "fact" struck me as too whacked to be true because it would mean that there were 33 years of history (when Christ was alive) which were neither B.C., nor A.D., and that would screw up the history books royally. And I learned later that I was right to wonder that because "AD" actually stands for "anno Domeni" (sp?) which means "the year of our Lord" in Latin, and not the vernacular English phrase "after death" (and that Christ first b-day would be the Year One AD- except that the early Church got his birth year wrong, but thats another story).

Thats shocking and this is not a slight at you , the fact that a teacher have given you incorrect information is terrible. It's bad enough when an adult does it , but a teacher! I wonder if there is any one else who was told something as a kid and they still hold that belief today because there hasn't been a reason to question that you were misinformed. Then again B.C. and A.D. are based on what some believe is a fictional character so if you don't believe in the bible historical facts are dated with fictional dates .

In all fairness that teacher didnt actually state it like a typical fact. She explained "B.C." to us all in the typical authoritative teacher voice, but then she fumbled around, and thought aloud in front of the class when she realized that she didnt know what "AD" stood for. Lol!, and then she said "'AD' must mean...'after death'....yes that must be it". But even that is pretty bad for a teacher.

And just hours ago when I went to Wiki (to make sure I got Anno Domeni right for that post) I learned that that "after death" nonsense is actually a common misconception.

But yeah I actually caught teachers in mistakes often back in junior high. One teacher thought that the Mississippi starts in Montana (its source is actually in Minnesota,but the source of its biggest tributary, the Missouri, IS in Montana). I think that she was also the same teacher who thought that our Civil War preceded the career of Florence Nightingale in the Crimean War (the Crimean War was in the 1850's, the Civil War was in the 1860's).

But those teacher fumbles were all decades ago.

One person on WP (an intelligent articulate sounding younger person) really got me worried about a decline in our education system during the years since I left school when he posted at length about how "the two world wars were not called that at the times they were fought but were given that title later by historians". About as ass backward and idiotic a statement as you can make. The term "world war" was coined in 1914 by Europeans as their continent slide into a general war. And then when another continent wide war broke out in September of 1939, Europeans immediately labeled it "world war two". And when I was a child in 1960's America all of the adults of my parents generation had lived through the second world war, and all of the folks of my grandparents generation had lived through both world wars, and all of my elders talked about folks at the time referring to both world wars as "world wars".

SOME one fed that WP poster some really wrong information. It may not have been an actual teacher. But that WP poster obviously didnt get the basic education in school to be able judge the information as being wrong. So the school system was still somehow negligent!

First of all, it depends on the consequences of being wrong. If the person's mistake could lead to them getting fired or losing face in a big way, then by all means, correcting them is respectful. How you do that correcting could be disrespectful if you come across as condescending and judgmental.

Being something of a perfectionist myself and having a strong desire to inform people, but also being sensitive to the emotional well-being of people around me, I think I have some insight that may help....if I'm being obvious to anyone here, feel free to disregard me!

Being right is not always everyone else's top priority--especially if it's about something that's of little significance to them. Likewise, not every mistake is as big as every other mistake, and other people may rank those inaccuracies differently than you. If the person you're correcting has bigger/more problems in life, they may be grateful that you helped them, but you might actually be adding to their woes unnecessarily.

When you correct someone else, you might be imposing your priorities on them. You're suggesting that they're dumber than you--and even if that's true, they probably won't appreciate having that pointed out...especially in front of others. If they believe very strongly that they're actually correct, you're setting up a potential conflict that they may prefer to avoid...or that you would be wise to avoid. If you are actually wrong, then there's another possible conflict--does that other person actually want to risk hurting your feelings or being the inconsiderate one? If not, you've led them into an uncomfortable situation.

Other people might also become nervous around you, feeling that you're watching them, ready to pounce. I worked with a very intelligent but also narcissistic, controlling woman for two years and hated almost every single minute of it. Because she outranked me and was not open to feedback that she would disagree with, there was little room for anyone to point out her mistakes, even when it was important to do so. My other coworkers were miserable because of her, too. Our work as an unhappy team suffered greatly because of her. She disregarded the fact that our experience, education, and training also contributed something of value. We had to spend more energy--both mentally and emotionally--pleasing her than actually doing our jobs well! It was obvious that she cared way more about being right--or thinking she was right--than pretty much anything else, and I'm only a little bit embarrassed to say that I sometimes take pleasure or find relief as I continue to discover that she was actually wrong about x, y, AND z. I'm not a very resentful person, but I will always see her as a total b!tch who hurt people a lot and did far more harm than good. In her drive to be right all the time, she missed the bigger picture--and the chance to actually do right by all the people she was supposed to be helping. That's not respectful at all.

The fact is that no one knows everything, and presenting yourself (either deliberately or accidentally) as someone who does is obnoxious, rude, and annoying to most people--especially if you're blunt or persistent about it. You could very well be discounting all the things that others DO know. Besides that, most of life's details are not as black-and-white as they may seem. You could be right in one way, but wrong in another, and most people don't want to spend their time with other people in a nit-pick fest, nor do they want to be invited or sucked into one.

Last edited by KimD on 11 Mar 2017, 10:11 am, edited 1 time in total.

I used to do the same when I was much younger until I realised, constant confrontation and arguments are very draining on your mental health. These days I'm very passive, usually agree to things either way even if I actually don't agree with it just to please others. I tend to keep my opinions to myself unless I'm in an environment where someone else holds the same/similar opinions. I don't see the point in arguing with someone if they hold a different opinion, it's just a waste of time when I could be talking about positive things or doing cool s**t with them instead.

I agree with most of that (including the non-quoted parts). I don't correct every little error I see, even though it causes me pain. I do prefer when both parties are comfortable enough to correct each other though. Otherwise it just perpetuates ignorance. A substantial portion of the people at work will say "report back to Bob and myself" instead of "report back to Bob and me", including people who are supposed to be smarter and better-educated than I am. I want to correct them every time, but have to hold it back like a sneeze.

I know I make lots of errors, but I want to be informed so I can fix them. I don't understand why anyone would rather continue uncorrected, but I guess some people do.

Oooo--those two mistakes are among my pet peeves! Luckily my husband and I are kindred spirits, so we can commiserate. What really irritates me almost beyond relief is when people who are getting paid to write and edit get those things wrong. I suspect that the large volume of written word cranked out every second of every day in the modern era gets in the way.

I have some coworkers who make grammatical errors like that, too, and though some don't have as much education as I and others have more, I still wish that they'd all pay more attention to things like that. I'd like to learn to correct my mistakes too, but unsolicited advice/criticism can hurt, and I know from experience that trying to get everything right, trying to remember every little detail, and worrying that I won't is draining and really counter-productive. I've worked for a long time on accepting my imperfections and not ruminating over my errors (and perceived errors)...but I still haven't mastered it! That in and of itself can be hard work, too.

Maybe they are just as*holes?

The actual answer is probably logistics but as*hole works just as well

Basic etiquette and understanding of context.

"Good morning" is a greeting, not a factual statement. The proper reply is also a greeting. "Good morning" or "Hello" or another greeting of that sort.

The gift of the gift is the thought and effort, not the object itself. A "thankyou" is appropriate because the person went out of their way in thought of you.