superpeeve Oh my Gawd! - Totally unOfficial Pet Peeve Thread.

[Silent Mistwalker]

34 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   Today's pet peeve .. Recipes that call for half a cup of diced onion. What the Hell kind of measurement for a solid ingredient is that?!

   In the ancient past when I was studying to become a baker, one of the first things we were taught was that proper recipes always denote measurements by weight, regardless of what the ingredient is; that way, it's always consistent (and then we were promptly taught that flour to liquid ratios aren't consistent because flour as a product is inconsistent depending on a variety of factors ranging from when it was sown to what the weather was like to where it was grown and what the soil composition was like to when it was harvested and how it was milled and how it has been stored - which is why you don't dunk all the flour in at once, but hold some back and then see how the dough mixes, and if you've put all of it in and the dough is too wet, add a little bit more).

   An onion isn't a consistent unit of measurement, there are onions that are ~100 grams and there are onions that are ~450 grams (and that's just the averages, the world record for an onion is 8,500 grams - not that you're likely to run into that in the average grocery store, but that's equal to 85 average small onions!).

   A cup, whilst consistent, is a measure of volume, and when you dice onion the amount of onion you fit in that space is a matter of how finely you chop it and whether you compress it - or how much of that volume is just air. Which means that, in practice, it's an inconsistent measurement. 

   Okay, so, what does it matter, 50 grams of onion too much or too little? Not a whole Hell of a lot, usually, but it is considered as one of the fundamental doctrines of modern cookery that in order to ensure the quality of your food, you must control the consistency of what you are making. 

   Then there's of course the whole thing with onions being about as consistent in their flavour as flour is in its ability to bind water, which is why we taste things as we cook, and why we want to look and feel the produce when buying it to make sure that it's up to snuff.

   Still, a cup of onion makes about as much sense as three billionths of a light-second of nutmeg. 

   .. .. Which would be roughly a decimetre of nutmeg, and does that make any damned sense, huh?! A decimetre of whole nuts or a metre of single file nutmeg grinds - and if so, how finely did you grind it?

 

Use a 1 cup liquid measuring cup, fill it to half cup with COLD water, then add diced onion until it displaces the water to read one cup. 

You won't learn things like that from a school or bakery. You learn them at home from mom.

[Orwar]

3 minutes ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You won't learn things like that from a school or bakery.

   .. Here they do teach us how displacement works in school, actually. 

[Silent Mistwalker]

35 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   .. Here they do teach us how displacement works in school, actually. 

Use it or lose it? 🤭

[Orwar]

1 minute ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

Use it or lose it? 🤭

   No, that's not the point. The point is, there's a perfectly reasonable way to write a recipe, and there's an awful way to write a recipe - and of course people perpetuate the common use of the awful method on account of being people!

[Silent Mistwalker]

40 minutes ago, Orwar said:

   No, that's not the point. The point is, there's a perfectly reasonable way to write a recipe, and there's an awful way to write a recipe - and of course people perpetuate the common use of the awful method on account of being people!

So why haven't you?

 

I mean, you are a bookbinder so why not?

Edited October 19, 2021 by Silent Mistwalker

[Jordyn McGregor]

When I get a picture all lined up and ready to shoot...but hit Derender Blacklist instead of Texture Refresh.  Ugh @ relogging and having to do it all over again!

[Orwar]

11 hours ago, Jordan Whitt said:

When I get a picture all lined up and ready to shoot...but hit Derender Blacklist instead of Texture Refresh.  Ugh @ relogging and having to do it all over again!

   Save camera position is a really nifty feature .. I also know of someone who has a handy HUD to allow you to save/load multiple positions ..

[SarahKB7 Koskinen]

Pet peeves eh? Okay, here's one.

People (specifically Americans) who think "plaid" means a checkered pattern.

This pattern, correctly called tartan is found on traditional Scottish and English garments such as kilts, skirts, scarves, shirts, blouses, dresses and plaids.

Plaids?  Yes,  a plaid is actually the name of a traditional Scottish tartan shawl worn loosely around the shoulders. Somehow the garment name of plaid has become the name of the tartan pattern in North America. Which it isn't.

Please stop calling the tartan pattern "plaid".  A plaid is a garment, not a pattern name.

 

Edited October 20, 2021 by SarahKB7 Koskinen

[Orwar]

2 minutes ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

Please stop calling the tartan pattern "plaid".  A plaid is a garment, not a pattern

   Isn't it also the technique wherein you fold cloth in a zigzag pattern to allow expansion and compression - like how the backside of kilts are folded?

   At least that's what I envision when someone says 'plaid skirt'. 

[Rowan Amore]

1 minute ago, Orwar said:

   Isn't it also the technique wherein you fold cloth in a zigzag pattern to allow expansion and compression - like how the backside of kilts are folded?

   At least that's what I envision when someone says 'plaid skirt'. 

Those are pleats.

[Orwar]

3 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

Those are pleats.

   Ah, right. 

[Rolig Loon]

1 minute ago, Orwar said:

 Isn't it also the technique wherein you fold cloth in a zigzag pattern to allow expansion and compression - like how the backside of kilts are folded?

   At least that's what I envision when someone says 'plaid skirt'.

You're thinking of "pleated."

The word "plaid" has two meanings, according to Merriam Webster.  The primary (oldest) meaning is as Sarah describes it: a Scottish shawl worn around the shoulders, bearing a tartan pattern. The second meaning is the tartan pattern itself.  My multivolume 1890 Century Dictionary records that use as "In general, any fabric having a pattern consisting of colored bars or stripes crossing each other in imitation of the Scottish tartan."  So, that second meaning has been with us for at least 120 years.  The Century does include a third meaning, "checkered", which it marks as a "misuse (US)", in partial agreement with Sarah's peeve.

[Coffee Pancake]

It's not scheduled maintenance when the schedule is being amended on a daily basis.

That's regular maintenance.

[Madelaine McMasters]

Is anyone bothered by pleated plaid where the pattern isn't parallel to the pleats?

Me neither.

[Rolig Loon]

11 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Is anyone bothered by pleated plaid where the pattern isn't parallel to the pleats?

Me neither.

Peripatetic people putting poorly placed plaid pleats?  Please!  Perhaps posey patterns?  

[Madelaine McMasters]

2 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Peripatetic people putting poorly placed plaid pleats?  Please!  Perhaps posey patterns?  

Perfect.

[Coffee Pancake]

28 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Is anyone bothered by pleated plaid where the pattern isn't parallel to the pleats?

Me neither.

Me : No .. but I do draw the line at Americans claiming to be Scottish because some long lost distant relative thrice removed was friends with a guy who knew someone who's 2nd wife was previously wed to a Scott.

Scottish Tourist Board : Screw that! Everyone gets a clan! Come buy authentic tat! Stay in overpriced hotels, bring ya friends! (because there's sweet FA going on here otherwise, just rain, rocks, wet rocks, shiny wet rocks, lichen.. ).

[Rowan Amore]

48 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

Is anyone bothered by pleated plaid where the pattern isn't parallel to the pleats?

Me neither.

I worked in a dry cleaners when I got out of high school.  There was one women who actually was quite particular about her pleats.  Luckily, she only had one knee-length plaid pleated skirt.  Hand pressing said item took roughly an hour and a half.  Could explain my hatred of pleated plaid?

[Madelaine McMasters]

7 minutes ago, Rowan Amore said:

I worked in a dry cleaners when I got out of high school.  There was one women who actually was quite particular about her pleats.  Luckily, she only had one knee-length plaid pleated skirt.  Hand pressing said item took roughly an hour and a half.  Could explain my hatred of pleated plaid?

Aligning plaid to pleats on skirts is hard, as the pleats are trapezoidal and the plaid is rectangular. But, don't get me started on patterns and...

...pockets, or...

...puckered pillows.

Edited October 20, 2021 by Madelaine McMasters

[Rolig Loon]

3 minutes ago, Madelaine McMasters said:

But, don't get me started on patterns and...

...pockets, or...

...puckered pillows.

Plainly personal preferences.  People pick perfect patterns privately.  

[Madelaine McMasters]

5 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Plainly personal preferences.  People pick perfect patterns privately.  

Pfft!

[Rowan Amore]

9 minutes ago, Rolig Loon said:

Plainly personal preferences.  People pick perfect patterns privately.  

Pressing pleated plaid is particularly problematic yet pleasantly pleasing when performed properly.

[Silent Mistwalker]

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers while piping a pink piccolo peppered with purple polka-dots.

[Krystina Ferraris]

Positively peeved person plays the pastoral pipes while pleating the Pringle plaid. Perhaps the Patersons are peeling parsnips while picky pangolins peep at Pete’s pizza pancakes 🥞 

[Madelaine McMasters]

23 hours ago, Orwar said:

23 hours ago, Silent Mistwalker said:

You won't learn things like that from a school or bakery.

   .. Here they do teach us how displacement works in school, actually. 

Eureka!