Is anyone else as irritated by this as I am?
If there is one thing in the world that's guaranteed to make me lose my temper (and there are in fact far too many...), it's being blown off in this kind of way. Similar in tone, and equally irritating, is "mm'kay?" It's arrogant, it's patronising, it's rude and it's not something I would ever do.
In fairness, I have mostly encountered these unpleasantnesses in posts where people are addressing complaints to people who won't be reading them anyway, and it's probably supposed to be funny. And a lot of the people addressed deserve far worse than to be blown off in a rude and patronising manner. I don't dispute that.
But the verbal zing detracts from the communication. If you say something to someone in a rude way they will focus on the rudeness and not on the substance of the communication, and the stupider they are the more true this is. This is the meaning behind the old chestnut "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all." Truly, if you can't say what needs to be said in a nice way you might as well not say anything at all, because the person addressed has just forgotten every word in his or her fury at being insulted.
Communication is hard enough without putting deliberate obstacles in the way.
If there is one thing in the world that's guaranteed to make me lose my temper (and there are in fact far too many...), it's being blown off in this kind of way. Similar in tone, and equally irritating, is "mm'kay?" It's arrogant, it's patronising, it's rude and it's not something I would ever do.
In fairness, I have mostly encountered these unpleasantnesses in posts where people are addressing complaints to people who won't be reading them anyway, and it's probably supposed to be funny. And a lot of the people addressed deserve far worse than to be blown off in a rude and patronising manner. I don't dispute that.
But the verbal zing detracts from the communication. If you say something to someone in a rude way they will focus on the rudeness and not on the substance of the communication, and the stupider they are the more true this is. This is the meaning behind the old chestnut "if you can't say something nice don't say anything at all." Truly, if you can't say what needs to be said in a nice way you might as well not say anything at all, because the person addressed has just forgotten every word in his or her fury at being insulted.
Communication is hard enough without putting deliberate obstacles in the way.