Bad Habits
May 27, 2008 by John in Interesting/Trivia, Of a Personal Nature
Like most people, I have bad habits. Most are not up for discussion but one is really starting to annoy me and just about everyone I know has been subjected to it.
When people end a conversation with me and say some variation of, “Thank you,” I say, “Uh huh,” which I intend to mean, “No problem.” Half the time it sounds more like a grunting “Uh hmmmm.” The truly annoying part is that it almost sounds like, “Hmmm?” Naturally the person either says, “What?” or they repeat, “Thank you!” When this first started manifesting itself I would get annoyed and wonder why the heck they were thanking me again, but just as quickly realize they thought I said, “Huh?” as if I didn’t hear them.
When I first started noticing this phenomenon, rather than retraining myself to say, “You’re welcome,” or “No problem,” or even the cheeky, “No, no, thank you!” I just tried to annunciate the grunting more. I started to think I would have a bowl movement, “UH! HUH!”
I don’t know if this comes from my desire for efficiency and getting the interpersonal interaction over with, or whether deep down inside I can’t be bothered with such niceties and courtesy. It’s probably a little bit of both.
So I need to get away from the gibberish. I might just start, “Yeah,” or “Yep,” but either of those would be more clear, if a bit unprofessional or anti-social. Eventually I’d like to graduate to real English words.