annoying habits (v2)

it's time to find fault with me again:

Miss Chang, the 'grammar nazi'

I don't proclaim to be some grammar genius, because I'm most definitely not. That said, if I do come across sentences where subjects and verbs don't agree somehow (e.g. singular noun with plural verb, use of wrong tenses, etc), I start correcting them mentally. Sometimes, I blurt them out the more glaring mistakes before I can help it.
And that's where people usually start getting annoyed.

"Who gives a shit about grammar?"
"So what if it's wrong since it's understood?"
They say.

  I'm an English teacher to-be, and I give a shit about it.
Maybe I can pretend not to, but it just gets on my nerves sometimes when people say they speak/write English and yet they can't even get the most basic rules right
(I love Singlish and that is not bad English by the way, not by my biased definition anyhow).

Some think that I correct people because I love ridiculing them, but I like to think that they are simply not aware of (or have forgotten) what the correct language forms are and I'm merely pointing out the conventional forms so as to increase their awareness, so they can start using what's right again.

Correcting pronunciations

This is similar to correcting bad grammar (above), and again, I don't claim to know the pronunciation of every single word found in the English dictionary (Chinese one too). Am thankful though that I've been equipped with the basic IPA knowledge to find out pronunciations of words in dictionaries when need be... and am even more thankful for sites like Dictionary.com because I can hear unfamiliar words actually being pronounced. How great is that!

I get my pronunciation corrected a fair bit by my friends too, but that's fine by me, because at least I know what's correct and what's not after these corrections.

For example, I never knew "sachet" was pronounced "sa-shay" until Jenny pointed it out to me not too long ago. I'd always thought it was "sair-chard" (2nd syllable like orchard's).


One of my favourites (after correction by Jenny again) has got to be the word "liaise".
Maybe it'll come as a surprise that it's pronounced "lee-yays" (or maybe not, since this verb comes from the noun "liaison") and not "lai-years" like what the entire world's (yes SG's my oyster) been pronouncing the whole time.

And another all-time favourite, Wednesday.
The "d" in Wednesday is always silent; doesn't matter if it's British or American English
(checked both dictionaries). So it's "wenz-day", not "wed-nes-day".

Some that are not too obvious because of differences in pronunciation across languages would be: jalapeno, mojito, and fajita - the "j" is sounded like a "h".
I have to admit that I find it quite funny to hear "mo-jee-to" and "fa-jee-ta" in bars and restaurants though. But of course, that's just me. I'm quite the ass, if you haven't already realized by now.

The Impatient Dining Companion

We were on our way to Loysel's for lunch one afternoon when Bun and Jenny brought this up, it's something relevant to the title so here goes...

Friends get the impression that I'm impatient when I'm ordering my food.

I make an 'announcement' of my choices once I've decided on what I'm having;
and it'll usually go like that: "Okay, I know what I want to eat already!"
Even though I've never actually asked my friends to hurry up and make a decision
(I don't understand how some people can take forever to decide, but okay, that's another issue altogether and there's no need for me to make an issue out of it so I'll wait quietly for everyone to be done deciding), my 'announcements' always seem to have a hurrying effect on my dining companions. 
That's not really my intention to begin with, and what I really intend to do each time I say "I've decided!" is to let friends know they can call the server/waiter over if everyone is ready to have their orders taken. It doesn't help that I'm usually the first, if not second to decide on what I'm having for my meal (guess I'm quite the expert menu 'skimmer'), because I'll usually end up making the 'announcement' before anyone else can.

It's probably a good idea for me to start looking at the menu only after everyone has decided on their meals.

Sitting on the fence

doing this way too often.

Decide on a stand, woman!

How hard can it be to take sides?