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AIBU?

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Original poster

To have just fucking screamed at the man who put a leaflet through my door.

133 replies

Piggyleroux · 21/05/2011 12:42

despite having a sign up saying "no junk mail/leaflets"

We must get at least five a day.

Ds has been poorly and none of us had any sleep last night. I got him off about an hour ago and this stupid fuckwit pushed pizza leaflets through my door waking ds up because the dog started barking.

I fucking flew at him. The language was not pretty. He pretty much legged it up the road.

Can they not read?

OP posts:
RatherBe · 22/05/2011 14:03

It's not hyperbole, either.

theyoungvisiter · 22/05/2011 14:07

[I know, but I didn't want to rub salt Grin]

Shall we run away to pedants' corner and start a thread bemoaning the typos in takeaway menu's (sic)?

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 14:18

Erm....Yes your right it was very literal then.

If it makes you feel better it was very literal. It was not a type of metaphor.

HTH

theyoungvisiter · 22/05/2011 14:24

Actually I didn't have a problem with the word fly-tipping in your post. I think you made the point that you were viewing it as fly-tipping, not that it literally fitted the definition.

I just wanted to point out that it was not an example of antithesis (or hyperbole). The antithesis of fly-tipping would be one of those people on Aggie and Kim who pick rubbish off the street and hoard it in their houses for forty years.

Sorry - this is all getting v silly Grin

LadyOfTheManor · 22/05/2011 14:28

I am forever screeching at people who post unsolicited mail through my door. Especially the man from the German supermarket. I never ever ever shop there. I've taped my mailbox shut from the inside, the postman knocks on the door.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/05/2011 14:31

theyoungvisitor.. I was the 'fly-tipping' poster and I didn't think it was the wrong word, seemed appropriate. I used to work in a local authority's waste disposal section and it seemed just the right term.

Those posters who keep suggesting getting off to the 'Pedant's corner'... I don't know what you're waiting for, but it's really tedious to see giggling posts full of vim and vigour for spelling, punctuation, grammatical foibles and the like. Do you really think you're needed for clarity or something? Hmm

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 14:37

Actually I didn't have a problem with the word fly-tipping in your post. I think you made the point that you were viewing it as fly-tipping, not that it literally fitted the definition

Yes that really is all I meant, nothing more to it!

I suppose I meant antithesis in the sense of direct contrast but now I realise it was incorrectly applied as it not infact a direct opposite.

Though I would still stand by it as a hyperboleas in just to create a strong impression, but is not meant to be taken literally.

Tbh I managed on average 4 hours sleep all week (5 months pregnant) so probably shouldnt even allowed to remember my own name right now!

theyoungvisiter · 22/05/2011 14:41

Lyin - Coco used the term too, and she was the one who replied when RatherBe queried it and said that she was using the term fly-tipping as an "antithesis".

I have no interest in querying people's commas. I just thought it was mildly funny that a defence to a post about wrong terminology contained a much worse example of wrong terminology.

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 14:43

Oh you said it too LyingWitchInTheWardrobe?

Really cannot see the problem with comparing one irritation to another that have similar qualities!

theyoungvisiter · 22/05/2011 14:45

Oh sorry Coco - cross posted with you there!

I feel your pain - how do children manage to alternate their night wakings so THEY get a good night's sleep but you don't?

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 14:45

It wasn't worse at all.

Point was it,it was a metaphor which Ratherbe had utterly not comprehended and thought it to be literal.

Its a bit off to make out someone else is stupid due to your own lack of understanding, especially such an obvious lack of one.

edam · 22/05/2011 14:46

I suspect people get very irate about this because it's an intrusion into their private space. I've never shouted at a leaflet dropper but I DO get very irritated having to shovel all that crap into the recycling every day.

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 14:47

Yes young visiter- have no idea how will cope when dc2 is born!

RatherBe · 22/05/2011 15:40

I neither said nor implied that anyone was stupid. There is no lack of understanding on my part but I don't feel that to justify myself at this point would be helpful.

Peachy · 22/05/2011 15:45

Well am not a fan of junk mail but I suspect many of the people on the very annoyed scale would be as critical if the delivery person claimed benefits instead?

Junk mails comes in, through and into the recycling; and I never shout at people for doing their job, why would I?

Cocoflower · 22/05/2011 15:49

Ratherbe:

By saying

"but 'fly-tipping' is leaving things illegally in the open eg in the countryside or by the road, not putting junk mail through a letterbox"

You seemed to

i) Be suggesting you hadn't understood it to be not literal

or

ii) fastidious, but also attempting to imply we were daft for using the term incorrectly, when in context it was only meant to demonstrate a point.

I suppose I do take offence if someone tries to imply I have a lack of understanding ,when infact I havent and there is a mere misunderstanding on the other person part. It would be far more conductive to ask "do you mean fly-tipping literally" first.

Anyway... in the grand scheme of things it doesn't really matter :)

AppleyEverAfter · 22/05/2011 16:13

YANBU, I get loads of junk despite my sign and although I can't be sure that these people can't read, I think it's more likely that they walk down the steps to our front door and think 'Well I'm here now, I might as well post it,' and ignore the sign completely. And it's different people delivering the shite, some are clothing bags, takeaway menus, local traders etc etc. TBH I wish I had the nerve to shout at them like you did, OP! Next time I will politely ask if they can read and if they say yes, proceed to shout. Angry

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 22/05/2011 16:30

Sorry then Coco, didn't realise you'd said it too.

Anybody who thinks they should be heading off for 'Pedant's Corner', should just head off there... no need to tell us all, just GO... send a postcard.. Grin

Lunabelly · 22/05/2011 16:38

When you dread the rattle of the (old home) letterbox because, as there's a sign saying 'no leaflets' then, "Oh god is it another demented missive from the poisonous JanineButcher-a-like next door". To steel yourself to approach the front door, system nearly going into stress'n'adrenaline overload, to find anotherfucking pizza/carpet cleaning leaflet ...grrrraaaaarrrrr.

In our new home, where we are no longer living next door to malice, the dread of the letterbox rattle doesn't disappear. Plus if I've said no leaflets, I DO mean it, and, rightly or wrongly, make a point of avoiding companies that ignore any signs, because if they ride roughshod over something as basic as that, why then would I trust them in any other way?

AppleyEverAfter · 22/05/2011 17:33

And to those people say 'they're just doing their job', well they're doing it wrong.

If you worked in a hospital and it said 'Nil by mouth' by someone's bed, you wouldn't feed the bloody patient would you? Or if you were handing out leaflets on the street and someone said 'no thanks', would you run down the street after them and shove one in their pocket? No. It's just rude.

And if someone delivering junk mail cannot understand the words 'No' 'junk' and 'mail' then quite frankly they deserve a good bollocking. With the exception of genuinely illiterate people, of course.

Lunabelly · 22/05/2011 17:47

I shall stick my head out to say that someone else's illiteracy is not my fault.

Now I am going to hide

Blu · 22/05/2011 17:51

Train the dog not to bark ?

theyoungvisiter · 22/05/2011 19:28

Apply ever after - the comparison with the sign saying NIL BY MOUTH is ridiculous and fatuous.

In the first place, the health professional in the hospital is there solely to help the patient get well. Their professional duty is to the patient's health.

The person shoving leaflets has no responsibility or duty to your letterbox. They are employed by a business to help that business grow - they have absolutely no duty to obey your request, polite or not. Their only duty is to their employer and if that employer has asked them to ignore requests not to post junk mail then they have to obey their employer, or risk losing their job.

In the second place, conflating a health professional causing actual bodily harm by neglecting their professional duty, with a delivery boy causing someone to have to put a leaflet in a recycling bin is completely offensive.

ilovesooty · 22/05/2011 19:37

I am forever screeching at people who post unsolicited mail through my door. Especially the man from the German supermarket. I never ever ever shop there. I've taped my mailbox shut from the inside, the postman knocks on the door.

If everyone did that the post would never get delivered in any reasonable time. Who the hell do you think you are?

LadyOfTheManor · 22/05/2011 19:38

It isn't a legal requirement to have a post box. If a postie cannot deliver mail he/she can take it to the sorting office and you can pick it up there. You can also arrange to NEVER have it delivered and pay a fee.