Recently at work, I overheard a co-worker take a personal call from his brother. Since they apparently didn't have anything to talk about, they began a discussion of the weather. I hate talking about the weather. If someone brings it up to me, I will immediately make them feel stupid. For example...
Random Person: It sure is hot out there.
Me: (Loud sigh) Well it is July. It's supposed to be hot.
or
Random Person: Can you believe this snow?
Me: (Annoyed) Yeah, I can. I guess I don't have the same weather skepticism that you do.
Does that make me a dick? Probably, but I don't care. I feel like if you have nothing better to talk about than the weather, then you shouldn't be talking at all. But do you know what is worse than talking about the weather? Listening to other people talk about the weather. So I was already annoyed to begin with when the coworker made the following statement: "Yeah it's really nice out. It's about 71 degrees up here."
This nearly set me off. Do you see what is wrong with that statement? Take a second to reread it. Focus on the second sentence. Do you see it?
I asked several people to identify the problem with that sentence. Some saw it, some didn't. So if you see it, you can stop reading. Also, if you think this post is one of the dumbest things you've read in a while, I advise you to stop here, for it gets dumber. But if you didn't see it, here it is: He said it was about 71 degrees.
The problem with that phrasing is that the word about, in this context, should be used to qualify an approximation. 71 degrees is not an approximation. It is a very specific number of degrees. (A quick note to those of you thinking, "But Mike, it can be about 71 degrees. If it was 70.4 degrees, or 71.6 degrees, it would be about 71 degrees." Go fuck yourself. You suck at life.)
It is common and accepted that when it comes to numbers, we only approximate multiples of five. If you are going to give a non-multiple of five a value, it should be an exact number. This coworker could have said, "It is about 70 degrees," or he could have said "It is 71 degrees." He even could have said "it's in the low seventies." But under no circumstances could he have said what he did and not sounded like an utter douchebag.
Think of it in this context: Let's say you were arriving on a plane at 5:17. If someone asked what time the plane landed, you could say it landed at about 5:15, or even at about 5:20, or you could say it lands at 5:17. You would sound like a retard if you said it lands at about 5:17. That just isn't how people talk.
There is one more thing you need to know. The coworker who's reckless disregard of proper number approximation linguistics is the coworker I unaffectionately refer to as Loud Guy. When I revealed this fact to a friend, she asked me how much that affected my annoyance. My answer: Because Loud Guy said it, I was exactly 57% more annoyed.
