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General => The Common Room => The Lighter Side => Topic started by: Mart 'n' Al on Saturday 31 March 18 13:23 BST (UK)
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Whether it is down to my wisdom or my increasing grumpiness with age, there are certain things about life in 2018 that annoy me. I wonder what things annoyed our relatives 150 years ago, say in 1868.
These days I get annoyed by newspapers writing articles about Z list celebrities without saying who they are, as though everybody knows who they are. Another one is made up words like staycation instead of having a holiday at home, and of course the expression "Z list celebrities"... I also wonder which new technology from 150 years ago our ancestors said would never catch on. My Victorian ancestor who got fined 10 shillings for riding a bicycle on the pavement probably cursed the day the bicycle was ever invented. You can tell I've eaten all my Easter eggs, can't you?
What do you think annoyed our 19th century forebears? They couldn't take out their stress on flat pack furniture.
Martin
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The Victorians were big drinkers they had a lot to moan about but like the Romans appeased by "bread and circuses" the drink kept them occupied.
Blue
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I got irritated today at the "high volume of traffic" error message on FamilySearch, a message I have never seen before on that site. Our ancestors probably got annoyed by the delays in the delivery of the newspapers to local village shops or delivered.
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I got irritated today at the "high volume of traffic" error message on FamilySearch, a message I have never seen before on that site.
I was at a local FHC this morning and got that constantly around lunchtime just before they closed when I was trying to view a few last images. :-\ I've never seen it before either and you'd think a Saturday wouldn't be as busy as, at least in this country, not that many of the centres open Saturdays. It was frustrating as its the first time in 3 weeks I've been able to get there and only usually go on Saturdays.
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I frequently hear people of my age announce grandly "Oh, I NEVER use social media", which they seem to regard as something which increases their social standing in some way.
Around one hundred years ago, I suspect we would have similar individuals complaining loudly about the electric light bulb (What on earth is wrong with gas lighting?), the telephone (Why not send the boy with a note?) or the hand-held camera (There need to be laws against people wandering around with cameras taking photos indiscriminately).
With the invention of gas lighting, it would have been "Nothing wrong with candles"; when the boy with a note arrived the recipient would complain "When I was young, we could remember messages, we didn't have to have them written down!". And when the first Niepce made it known that he had created the first photographic image, surely there were people declaring it to be witchcraft.
And so on and so on back in time.....
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Dirty, noisy, smelly contraptions that would never replace the horse.
I think that the one constant complaint throughout the ages has to be the Government.
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My Dad and his brother asked the commissionaire at the local picture house when they would be getting the talkies. "Pah!" he replied, "Flash in the pan, that'll never catch on"...
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"Flash in the pan, that'll never catch on"...
We were told that about digital currency when it first came to be used in Ireland. A little shop in a country village, an old shopkeeper who announced "I'm not going to bother with that new money, I'm going to use the old money"
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The tiny print on newspapers must have annoyed everyone, especially with no artifical light.
I have a photograph of my grandfather taken c. 1940 reading newspaper in his doorway.
Electricity came in 1952 to his home.
Jfch
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"Flash in the pan, that'll never catch on"...
We were told that about digital currency when it first came to be used in Ireland. A little shop in a country village, an old shopkeeper who announced "I'm not going to bother with that new money, I'm going to use the old money"
I was living in Ipswich, Suffolk when we had decimalisation and there was an old butcher there who insisted on working in Old Money for some years afterwards. Lots of us, who had never shopped with him before, gave him our custom because it was rather nice to see someone trying to hold back the decimal tide single-handedly. He gave up eventually, when things got too difficult and the rest of the country had abandoned £ s d, and it was very sad to see the shop close for the last time. But I must admit I do love that British bloody-mindedness that he exhibited. ;D
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I get irritated by the usage of Roman numerals at the end of TV shows instead of just showing the year in the everyday numbers we use. 123.
Our ancestors probably got annoyed in at night with having to try and read the paper under a lantern.
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I remember my Grandma doing the laundry with a dolly tub and posher and an old fashioned mangle wringer. She couldn't be doing with the new fangled washing machines and they would never get the clothes properly clean.
Carol
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Spanish flu must have been quite annoying.
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I think I would be have annoyed if I'd got up early to get to the factory/dock gates in search of a day's work only to told there wasn't any. I could have stayed in bed.
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I remember being told the story of an ancient country relative whose landlord decided in the 1950s to replace his outside toilet with one inside the house. Part of the large landing was partitioned off, and a toilet and wash hand basin duly installed, much to the horror of my relative, who insisted that lavatories inside a house were disgusting. So he just ignored it and continued to use the 'bumbee' (Suffolk slang - outside toilet) at the bottom of the garden.
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I remember when we went decimal with our money. This prompted a family discussion on everything eventually going metric.
Well mum declared indignantly I will never go into a shop and order a litre of curtains ;D ;D
We could not stop laughing.
Probably my grandparents were most irritated by an increase in the cost of a loaf of bread or a pint of beer. Grandad always got his priorities right :-X :-X
Dorrie
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Probably my grandparents were most irritated by an increase in the cost of a loaf of bread
This reminded me of an incident with my Mum. We got home from work/school one day to find her quite upset because 'they said on the radio that bread is going up'. She was horrified because the price had gone up a couple of days ago and now it was going up again. After a lot of questioning we established that she had been listening to the pop charts and the group, Bread, was going up in the charts. We never let her forget that one.
Rishile
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I get annoyed by the trek to the bank, my Victorian ancestors had one within reasonable walking distance.
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I get annoyed with my autocorrect on my Kindle. It constantly substitutes some of the words I write for other ones. This is not just changing spelling but changing words completely. Often when I put posts on here some words are changed immediately when I click on post. This often means that I have to try to spot the errors and modify trying to put the right word on. Sometimes, I don't notice all the gaffs straightaway.
I once posted a death notice recording that there would be 'internet' at the cemetery mentioned; I also once thanked someone on here for their 'love-making'! :o :-[ Thankfully, I spotted that one and was able to recorrect quite quickly - hopefully, before the intended recipient (or others, come to think of it) of that post noticed and thought I had gone completely mad.
Also, the other day a post I wrote recorded that my Grt x 3 Grandmother had been a 'basket of cotton' instead of a 'hawker of cotton' as I had originally wrote! ::)
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Ancestry playing up is irritating but it has lasted days now. Being told to create accounts when I have one, and being told to sign in all the time. An irritation now regarding me wanting to find out about the then, my ancestors. I am not alone though as others have experienced Ancestry playing up.
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The tiny print on newspapers must have annoyed everyone, especially with no artifical light.
I have a photograph of my grandfather taken c. 1940 reading newspaper in his doorway.
Electricity came in 1952 to his home.
Jfch
I don't know about other countries, but here in NZ, for some years, our free regional telephone books have become almost impossible to read. They now measure just 19x25 cm, are 5 mm thin, and include White Pages, Yellow Pages, Emergency Information, Government and Council, Medical and Hospitals Info. You can imagine how hard they are to see, and certainly no good for oldies or people with poor eyesight, even with a magnifying glass.
Nowadays, but very rarely, if I do need to look up a phone number I don't have on my mobile, I just go online and check out the relevant White or Yellow pages Directory for the number I need! I think whoever publishes it it just wasting the taxpayer's money!
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I also once thanked someone on here for their 'love-making'! :o :-[ Thankfully, I spotted that one and was able to recorrect quite quickly - hopefully, before the intended recipient (or others, come to think of it) of that post noticed and thought I had gone completely mad.
The mind boggles. What did you mean to type?
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I meant to write 'peace making'. It's a long story and a bit embarrassing now but I had gone on a little bit of a rant when I had gone out of my way travelling to do a look up for someone and they did not say thank you. I am a bit of a stickler for manners. This was an accidental oversight it turned out and I did get a very nice well written and very diplomatic apology so all was forgiven. Another person put a post trying to make the peace in the situation however it was all over and done with by then. I was a bit embarrassed afterwards as I felt I had probably come across a bit petulant.
When I noticed the kindle had changed 'peace making ' to 'love making' I had to make quite a mad dash to correct things. I could just imagine the recipient on this public post thinking "Whoa steady on there!!"
I think this Kindle has a devilish streak ..It took 3 attempts last week to change my words about 3 x Get Grandmother not being a basket of cotton to a basket of cotton.
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Just tried out my iPad for peacemaking - I got peacemaking,! ;D ;D ;D
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Well, that just goes to show my Kindle is possessed. ;)
I see above it has struck yet again and my Grt x 3 Grandmother has been changed to a 'basket of cotton'. (Reply 22) Aaagh! I give up. ::)
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It is part and parcel of genealogy and I should be used to it by now but it is irritating (or disappointing) when you think you have found an ancestor, only to find a very inconvenient burial as a child, baby or young man/woman, or marriage to another spouse, or different family listed in a will.
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I once read an article in an old bound copy of The Gentleman's Magazine" which bemoaned the advent of photography and cameras. Apparently cameras were responsible for the decline in the ability to paint watercolours of landscapes.
Jan