Peeves Are Not Pets

If you’d rather listen to this post than read it, click the Play button on the track above to hear me complain aloud.

First of all: can we talk about the phrase “pet peeves”? Because my biggest pet peeve is having to call them that.

According to Merriam-Webster, the term “pet peeve” has been in use for about 110 years. “Peeve” is a back-formation of the word “peevish” dating to the early 20th century, while the word “pet,” in the sense of something cherished or beloved, began to be used ironically in the mid-1800s. The two words have been publicly in cahoots since 1916, when the Chicago Tribune began running a cartoon series called The Little Pet Peeve.

I can’t explain what it is about those two words together that makes me think of a chalkboard encountering fingernails. I simply can’t stand them. According to Wikipedia, alternative terms include “pet aversion” or “pet hate,” but as far as I’m concerned, neither of those is an improvement. Nevertheless, it’s these particular annoyances that I want to talk about today, so I’ll leave semantics behind and get right to it.

In no particular order…my top five:

Number 1: When someone tries to be nice by holding a door open for me, only the door opens inward, so in order to hold it they have to stand in the doorway, making it more difficult for me to go through the door than it would be if they'd simply stepped aside and allowed me to push it open myself. Having to squeeze through said door while trying to avoid touching the stranger who is chivalrously holding it open makes me want to scream. I was raised right, so I always thank them, but it takes effort.

Number 2: When someone is so consumed with the content on their phone while riding in an elevator that they wander off the elevator at a snail’s pace. Often I don’t see such a person when the doors first open, as they’ve usually been skulking in the corner of the elevator staring at said phone, so I immediately attempt to enter the elevator, only to have to back off when I find that person slowly stepping out, not looking up until they’re practically on top of me. I do understand the temptation to look at your phone while alone in an elevator—or, for that matter, while trying to avoid talking to people in a crowded elevator—but for the love of God, please pay attention when disembarking.

Number 3: Speaking of disembarking—and you might have to live in New York to fully appreciate this one—I can’t stand it when someone holds onto a subway car pole until the last possible moment, only letting go of it when their entire body is out the door and on the platform. People: the train has stopped. There is zero need to hold on once it’s no longer in motion. You are not going to lose your balance while you’re stepping onto the platform, and if you do, it will not be because of a lack of pole support. All you’re doing by clinging onto it is preventing the people behind you from exiting swiftly, because your arm remains in the way of their egress. This perhaps annoys me more than most because I’m so aware of how many people have touched those poles that, if I’m forced to use one while riding the train, I sanitize my hands the second I step onto the platform. Thus, witnessing the lingering caress of someone exiting in front of me makes me cringe as well as slowing me down.

Number 4: Did we not all learn how to properly wear a face mask during the COVID-19 pandemic? Were we not told ad nauseum that said mask must cover both the nose and mouth in order to be at all effective? If so, why do I still see someone at least once a week wearing a mask that either only covers their mouth or that seems to be holding their chin up, Jacob Marley-style? Seriously, what is the purpose of wearing a mask that way? If it’s only covering your mouth, you’re still breathing germs in and out through your nose. And if the mask is idling around your chin, is it there so you can pull it up at a moment’s notice, or have you been wearing it since the spring of 2020 and never bothered to take it off? As someone who still wears a mask on planes because it really does help me not get sick (witness the cold I caught on my recent trip to Paris, which I blame on the fact that for the first time in six years I forgot to wear a mask on my flight) this causes me no end of annoyance. Wear the damn thing correctly or don’t wear it at all. There really is no reason for the in-between.

Number 5: There are certain words. You know the ones. Well actually, yours are probably different from mine. For a lot of people, one of them is moist, but that one doesn’t bother me—it’s a very effective word to describe cake, for which there isn’t a good substitute. The words I find most peevishly revolting are pamper (which makes me think of diapers, not spa treatments), tender (which somehow sounds gross in the senses of both meat and loving care), panties (to which I object on feminist grounds: why use a diminutive for women’s underwear but not for men’s?), and—brace yourself—masturbate, which was probably intended to sound revolting, but in our sexually liberated era we really ought to come up with a pleasanter term. Fecund and fecundity also make the list, since they mean “fruitful” but sound like they should mean “rotting.” And for some reason, when I’m narrating an audiobook, I can’t stand having to say the word “hesitated”—and since a lot of characters in novels insist on hesitating, it’s hard to avoid. (In fact, I might have to write a separate post about all the words and phrases I dislike having to read aloud…)

So, my pets…what are your peeves? And can you come up with a better phrase so I never have to say “pet peeve” again?