The other day my mother told me she’d misplaced something. “I’m sorry,” I said, to which she replied, “Well it’s not your fault.”
This response to “I’m sorry” used to leave me flummoxed. It stems, of course, from the fact that the phrase can mean two different things: an apology or an expression of sympathy. Sometimes the meaning is clear from the context. If you were to say “I’m so sorry!” to someone upon learning that their spouse had recently died, it’s unlikely their response would be “Well, it not your fault.” But in other circumstances there’s room for confusion. . . .
Category: Pet Peeves
A Pet Peeve Redressed
Son of a gun! I sat down to write about a pet peeve of mine: Typing the name of a book and its author into the search field on Amazon.com and getting a list of results in which the book I’m looking for is not at the top. What I’ve often gotten instead are a…
Why Are Spoofed Spam Calls Still a Thing?
In the last twenty minutes I’ve gotten two calls that the caller ID identified as being from some random city in the United States and which turned out to be recorded messages unknown provenance making a dishonest pitch.
- “This is an important message about your student loans . . .” — clearly not a well-targeted scam given that I’m five years into retirement.
- “This is Visa and MasterCard calling . . .” — as if those two competitors would flaunt antitrust regulations by openly collaborating on a joint promotional campaign . . .
“Please Stay on the Line to Take a Brief Survey”
I guess one of the benefits of having a blog is that it gives you a place to vent your pet peeves. Here’s one of mine.
Almost every company these days that has a customer service line uses a voice-mail system that, in theory, routes you to the right person (or robot) to address your particular issue, but more often than not first takes you on an automated tour of hell . . .