Things that annoy me

Certain things irritate me. Some things really get on my nerves, while others only generate a kind of passing uncomfortable feeling. As my lazy attempt to change the world for the better, this is my official list of irksome things.

• Emphasis on appearance over function. Though this is especially epidemic in computer software (both in traditional applications and on the Web), it occasionally pops up in other areas as well, such as textbooks. A prime example of a major computer application suffering from this problem is Microsoft Visio 2003. It inexplicably ignores your standard Windows colors and presents itself as a collection of blue gradients. But it still sucks from a functional standpoint. It does a poor job of arranging arrows and text in a readable manner, and makes the general process of creating a diagram overly frustrating. Some software is even worse, though; while managing to look pretty, the user interface conceals hundreds of bugs. I have generally found that the quality of computer software is inversely proportional to how pretty it looks. Perhaps this is because programmers that write good software concentrate their resources on solid code rather than cute rounded corners and color gradients.
• Broken links. Usually these are the result of URIs that have changed. Short-lived URIs are a stupid phenomenon that has been exacerbated by all of the currently most popular HTTP server software packages, which encourage no distinction between URI-space and file-system-space. Cool URIs don't change.
• Catchy names for historical calamities. The top example is "9/11", pronounced "nine-eleven", referring, of course, to the terrorist attacks of 11 September, 2001. The first time I heard this phrase I was shocked at how disrespectful it seemed to label the death of three thousand people with a buzzword. Another example is the name "World War II" (and the retronym "World War I"), which sounds like a cheesy movie title. No other wars follow this pattern. Compare the names of the Samnite Wars, the Punic Wars, the Macedonian Wars, the Crusades, the Anglo-Dutch Wars, the Silesian Wars, the Seminole Wars, and so on. The names "First World War" and "Second World War" are much more appropriate.
• Pretentious mispronunciations. I spend most of my time in school, so my examples here are from academia, but I'm sure examples exist elsewhere (for instance, the business world is almost certainly full of them). The two mispronunciations that immediately spring to mind are processes pronounced with a long E at the end, so that the last syllable sounds like ease, and query pronounced so that it rhymes with cherry. Both of these are incorrect, and yet I hear them both on a regular basis. Presumably, people lengthen the E in processes by analogy with some other plurals like analyses and hypotheses. Those words are pronounced that way because they're from Greek, and the singular forms end in -is (analysis, hypothesis). The singular form of processes isn't processis, though, so the plural should be pronounced the same way that accesses, princesses, recesses, and successes are. I have no idea why people mispronounce query. It seems that people hear these mistakes from someone "higher up", and adopt the pronunciation in order to sound more cultured.
• Receipts. Almost all store receipts are really bad. You'd think that someone would come up with a receipt-printing system that would make attractive, meaningful receipts. Instead I get slips of paper which show that I've bought an "8'BANANA TAP" (an extension cord), or, worse, a "BW LS PLYNSC" (a shirt). Why is it that descriptions of items are still limited to 12 capital letters?

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