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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   3028 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for September 25, 2026

Be advised: this thread is not for serious in-depth discussion of weighty topics (we have a link for that), this thread is not for anything Culture War related. This thread is for Fun. You got jokes? Share 'em. You got silly questions? Ask 'em.

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Field notes from the usage wars:

Wife and I recently got new phones. She had a cracked screen and mine was so ancient it couldn't run tiktok without crashing so it was time. We gathered up the kids, promised ice cream afterwards, and headed to the phone store. I hate the phone store. It's completely soulless and full of mind-and-social-fabric-destroying devices. I would rather be at the bead store than the phone store (IYKYK).

I was helped by a nice younger dude with a man bun. As he was tapping away at his iPad he tells me I might be eligible for an upgrade. "Great!" I say. He keeps tapping away as I watch my kids run around the store touching things they shouldn't be touching while my wife tries to wrangle them. This trip better not take more than an hour. Man bun tells me his wife is an elementary school teacher, neat. More time passes. I'm getting irritated. I ask, "So... uh, can I get an upgrade?"

Man bun: "May I."

Me: "Come again?"

Man bun: "It's 'May I get an upgrade?'"

I think it's a universal human experience to feel a twinge of irritation when you are corrected, but man o' man it's doubly worse when you're right and they're wrong. I normally would have dropped it but since I was in the phone store, and I was primed for some confrontation.

"No. I'm not asking you for permission to get an upgrade, I'm asking if it's possible. Therefore, 'can' is the correct word."

Man bun thinks for a second, then says, "Yeah I guess you're right." I'm glad he cares about the state of the English language but damn guy at least be right about it. I imagine his wife regales him about owning 8-year-olds asking to go to the bathroom and he got the wrong idea. "I dunno, CAN you???"

This is an example of HYPERCORRECTION. I'm certainly guilty of this; it's probably my worst tendency with language. People usually overcorrect because of something they learned in primary school, like ending a sentence in a preposition (totally fine btw). Take this example:

The IRS is after my wife and I.

Sounds correct, right? I kinda vaguely remember thinking that "I" was a more posh way to refer to yourself than "me". But all you have to do is remove the other person to realize you're wrong:

The IRS is after I.

Clearly deranged. "I" is a subject pronoun, "me" is an object pronoun. If you're the one doing the verbing, it's "I"; if you're the one getting verbed it's "me". Thus:

The IRS is after my wife and me.

Or the slightly better (imo):

The IRS is after me and my wife

I can't even imagine some wagie playing the pedant without them immediately getting punched in the face. Which is perhaps why I would do such a shop online, but really why do you even need to go to a phone shop? Is this some American thing where all the good deals are gated behind in person interactions for no reason?

Phones are like groceries or clothes, it’s the kind of physical object you really want to look at in person and hold before buying.

I agreed with you, but then I realised I bought the phone I'm using to write this comment online.

At the supermarket, fruits, vegetables, and sometimes even packaged goods frequently have undergone enough rough handling that you'll want to skip one item in favor of another that nominally is the same. At the department store, vague labeling standards frequently mean that one clothing brand's sizing or fit does not match another's.

But none of that applies to phones. It is highly unlikely that they will be damaged in shipping. And the statistics sites give objective measurements in inches or centimeters, not just vague "small, medium, or large" labels.

If I have one complaint about my new Samsung A17 5G, it is that its vibration is noticeably weaker/quieter than that of my old Samsung A32 5G, forcing me to switch my text-message notifications from vibration to noise so that I don't miss them. But I never would have noticed that difference even if I had checked out the A17 5G in the store.

Yes but also how are you going to evaluate the weight of the phone, how it fits in your pocket, the brightness of the screen, how well the camera works, etc etc?

Literally all of that information is on the statistics websites, which let you compare prospective new phones to your current phone. See the link in my previous comment.

Yes but that’s the way I prefer to do it, and myself and the body politic will not be talked out of our right to shop in store.

Where is this country of yore where people strut around socking shop employees in the face for mouthing off to them?

America, 1955...

In Japan nearly everyone goes to a phone shop. I recently went to a phone shop. What's odd about going to a phone shop? Also I'd like to pour one out for in-person interactions, which may be well on the way out, but which I far prefer to QR codes, touch screens, and robot maître d's.

Also what's a "wagie"? A person who works minimum wage I assume. Or retail. Are we pouring our extra wine over the balcony on these people's heads now? I worked for wages in many jobs for years and years. Granted the twat in this story was infuriating, but I wouldn't consider him a lesser being simply because of his employment.

ToaKraka beat me to it on both points. Phone stores don't seem to serve much purpose unless it's for maintenance or something complicated like that. Every single phone essentially looks and behaves the same in your hand, so the only difference is specs which is much easier to research online.

As for "wagies" it's not that I hold any negative feelings towards customer service people generally, but more this specific fellow deserves the derogatory term. It's like I wouldn't go around calling every policeman a pig, but there are definitely specific police who I would call pigs.

Got it, thanks for the clarification. I still carry the banner for face-to-face interactions but I'm perhaps in a country where that is more a pleasurable experience than many others.

What's odd about going to a phone shop?

If you need a new phone, there is no need to visit a physical store (and, I assume, let the employee walk you through the activation process). Rather, you just order a new phone online, and follow the activation instructions by yourself. (I've gotten all my phones directly from my carrier, but I hear it's also possible to order an "unlocked" phone from a third party and add the carrier's SIM card to it.)

Also, what's a "wagie"? A person who works minimum wage I assume. Or retail.

"Wagie" is a derogatory term that, as I have seen it used on 4chan, generally applies to all people who work for a living (as opposed to NEETs/retirees). I guess it's theoretically possible to use it specifically against hourly-wage workers, differentiating them from salary workers, but that isn't how I have seen it used.

In Japan online activation is of course possible, but at least for me dealing with a person is considerably less arduous as little, if anything, (at least the last time I checked) is in English, and for me asking questions and maneuvering bureaucy is almost always easier done face-to-face. My wife also finagled two discounts via her charm, unused on me for many years.

I find myself a little happy anytime an illogical languagism becomes so widely used that the grammar Nazis have to accept it.

My favorite response to grammar nazis is to ask them why they have the same opinions on language as a dirty frenchman. There's no committee in London that gets to dictate what our language is. English is a decentralized, constantly evolving mongrel tongue, and if you truly loved her, you wouldn't be trying to shackle her to some outdated Victorian grammar obsessed with aping Latin.

It's not about enforcing a preconceived framework from the top down. It's about ensuring internal consistency, so that people can understand each other easily.

The ideal grammar Nazi hates "illogical languagisms" without regard to whether they are old or newfangled.

True, I guess the real grammar nazi retort would just be to yeschad me. It's about dogmatically following the rules, not a romantic love of your ancestral tongue.

I know exactly what you mean. Irregardless, some sorts of bad languagisms still grate on my nerves when I read them in the wild, but usually I start using them ironically, and then at some point I realize I'm just using them.

Irregardless

Nice example!

I like messing around with words more in person around my young kids. Along with dad jokes. It's interesting which words they notice as fake and which ones they believe are real.

Heh, glad you were picking up what I was putting down! That one's still ironic usage for me, but others, like conversate, have been instant classics that I've gleefully adopted.

I have seen cromulent used many times on this very forum without comment.

Not all of the modern embiggenings of the lexicon are bad.

I won't say no to the accusation that I only spend time with oldies, at least as far as English speakers, but I find many terms often used online are almost never spoken (except by people who are, perhaps, very often online). Overton Window, Dunbar number, etc. In particular in these virtual pages I regularly encounter terms that seem shibolleth-like. Every culture (even an online culture) develops its own sociolect, I suppose.

I assume it's inevitable. In case you're interested, "embiggen" and "cromulent" are both fake words invented by The Simpsons. But the terms you're flagging are existing terms from the sorts of papers that fed into the intellectual groundwater of upstream communities in the 2000s-2010s IMHO, rather than "extremely online" or "rationalist(-adjacent/-descendant)" or "online right" shibboleths/inventions.

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I would do almost anything to not have to go to a phone store again and I am having a bad fucking day if I'm there and this guy would so get me to flip out on him if he said that.

Good on you for not losing your cool while your family is there.

Why would you or OP ever go to the phone store? Just buy the thing online.

Interesting, this and other comments suggest that this is the norm. In Japan, phones stores and sitting there working out your plan with the Softbank or Docomo girl or guy is the norm. I recently had to get a new phone and was sitting there two hours, to which my wife's reaction was an encouraging, "Not so long."

Jesus Christ... For me it usually takes about 5 minutes online and has for the past decade or so.

yes that is what I have done for about ten years now

my elderly parents on the other hand ..

At the moment he corrected me I would have gone full Karen and asked to see his manager, then corrected him in front of his manager, then explained why I would never be returning to his store (presumptuous assholery by staff). Then left. Fuck that asshole. Maybe I've been in Japan too long where the service is almost always exemplary. What an insufferable twat.

Maybe I've been in Japan too long where the service is almost always exemplary.

I would have to rack my memory to recall any exemplary service I've gotten. Generally the best one can hope for is pleasant and competent enough. Often it's insufferable or incompetent.

I think Japan has actually really good service for normal people stuff. Like restaurants and hotels. What countries are better?

I was referring to service I've received in the US and agreeing that he had perhaps been in Japan too long and forgotten what US service was like.

Oh I see. Definitely US service levels are bottom tier in general.

The exact same thing happened to me once at a car rental place, upgrade and all. Or maybe that was Bryan Garner; I can't remember.

Or the slightly better (imo):

The IRS is after me and my wife

You are only a babby grammar Nazi if you think that "me and my wife" is acceptable.

The IRS is after I.

Clearly deranged.

That's right, it should be "The IRS is after I and I".

Explain my babby status because I want to be a good grammar nazi :3

The "rule" is that the first person pronoun always comes last. Of course, nobody follows this and it doesn't matter, and apparently now even self described pedants aren't aware of it.

I think the real question is - why are you shopping for phones irl?

The "rule" is that the first person pronoun always comes last. Of course, nobody follows this...

I follow it religiously. Not my fault so many people suck at their native language.

This "rule" has nothing to do with grammar. The OED has numerous examples of the first person pronoun being first going back hundreds of years. The rule was never about grammar, but always about politeness. From the 1868 Practical Grammar of the English Language:

Courtesy requires the first place to be given to the second person, and last place to the first.

Certain individuals who never saw a rule they didn't like noticed the convention but not the reason and assumed it had a grammatical basis. It didn't.

In any case, I hope that thou always useth "ye" for the plural subject and "thou" for the singular subject, and "you" for the plural object and "thee" for the singular object. After all, those are actual grammar rules of thy native language, right?

Quod licet Jovem non licet bovem? (This is a joke about verb objects.)

Having knowledge of another language that has a somewhat different structure can help one to understand one's own language. See also sentence diagramming.

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