Sometimes there are songs out there that if I hear on the radio, I instantly change the dial to something else. That song recently has been Justin Bieber's "What do you mean?" I'm just tired of the beat, tired of the lyrics, tired of his voice. To be fair, any song can get old if played too many times (my sister taught me the meaning of "overplayed" ), but most of the time I need to react to figure out, oh, nah, I don't really like this song. For "What do you mean?" I don't need any hesitation, decisionmaking, or time, I just hit the button, right away.
Coincidentally, "What do you mean" is also one of my pet peeves in language, where I cringe every time somebody asks me, followed closely by "hey buddy/ boss," and "I had a bunch of fries.......and shit." Buddy/ boss is just disrespectful, especially used by a stranger or an employee addressing me as a customer, I should be addressed as "sir," or "Mr.," or just get to know my name. "Boss" would actually be reasonable given that I am essentially the boss as the customer paying money for the services if not for the negative/ cheeky connotation that it carries, like if someone uses it they're defying "the man" or the established system. Maybe it's all in my head, but I just don't like to be addressed like that, it's rather "flip." "...and shit" is just a complete unnecessary bastardization of the English language" all in the name of saving a few syllables (maybe not even, you're just replacing "stuff" with "shit") or just plain laziness of not want to describe the other things in the list of things that one did.
"What do you mean" is probably a less obvious pet peeve, but to me if I've described something to the best of my ability or at least to the level I think is reasonable for someone else to understand, then that person should accept that explanation, or at least ask for a more specific term, or just say "I don't know" or "I don't understand what you mean by that," or "pleased define that specific word that you said that I don't really get." All acceptable responses, but "what do you mean" just throws the entire burden back on the speaker to have to completely change the phrasing or maybe even the entire fabric of the sentence that he/she just said to fit the listener's whim, while providing no hints or clues as to what particular part needs to be clarified. The person saying "what do you mean?" might think that the other party (the "what-do-you-mean"-ee was lazy/ unclear in what they're saying, but in fact it's the "what do you mean"-er that's being obtuse about what part they need clarified. If the orginiator of the statement had thought they needed to be more specific or phrase it in a different way, they would have done so unprompted, but they asked a legitimate question that now it's up to the listener to accept or raise objections, seek clarifications. (It's like a lawsuit and the statement is the complaint, and the respondee has to either answer or deny, or raise objections, they CAN'T just raise a motion to dismiss to make the complaint invalid. Actually this is exactly what happens in a lawsuit almost all the time, a complaint is almost always followed by a motion to dismiss, but anyway in real life it doesn't work that way!) I'm not totally innocent of my own pet peeve neither, and I've definitely said "what do you mean?" after a question once or twice, but I try to phrase the question/ statement my own way if I don't understand, like "Oh so do you mean so and so?" or "wait I don't get what you're saying, could you repeat that?" What do you mean just does not suffice, and I think there should be a revolution against such insufficient, inconsiderate, incredibly insolent responses.
Fantasize on,
Robert Yan
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