Posts with Let's Call Him/Her....

[LenaLamont]

Why do people do this? They write their OP with "I have this friend, let's call her Susan... Let's call him Steve..."

And then never once use the name in the rest of the post or any subsequent posts. Why give your "friend" a made up name, tell everyone it's a made up name, and not use it anyway?

It's a small thing, but it really rubs me up the wrong way.

YABU - get over yourself, you ridiculous pedant, who cares if people want to assign unused names

YANBU - Assigning names that are never used is just dumb. (It's a horrible blustery Monday and I am feeling as petty at LenaLamont)

YANBU see also anything with "A went to the park with dog, where they encountered B,C,D and E. E told C that B and A" ........... fuck off.

Beats the heck out of person A and person B.

When friend C turns up I hop it and get the dinner on.

This irrationally pisses me off too!

Also, when people say 'DD has an expensive hobby, THINK animal related blah blah blah...'

For some reason that '...think' turn of phrase is so grating to me (think, nails on a chalkboard).

Best of all are the ones that talk about BF, DS and DF and it's very unclear for a long time whether that's best friend or boyfriend, dear son or dear sister, dear father or dear fiance or dear friend, and consequently a very involved story becomes extremely confusing and the responses are no use at all.

YANBU it's annoying even if they do use the name. Surely everyone assumes the name will be fake so just call them Susan or Steve and get on with it.

For some reason that '...think' turn of phrase is so grating to me (think, nails on a chalkboard).

Yes! 🙌

Think isn't as bad as said. 'I was in the pub with said friend...'

Agree with all posts above!

I've only seen this when they do use the names in the post and it is helpful to understand who's who. Its also quicker to be able to say Steve in your response rather than your cousins boyfriends mate or whoever. If the OP didn't say 'let's call him Steve' you can bet your house someone would say 'I hope that's not his real name OP, because that's very outing'.

You lot are making me feel much better about my grumpy objection to "let's call her..."

I completely agree about "think" and Persons A, B, C, and D.

Even worse is when the OP gets muddled up part way through a drip feed and gets her Susan/Steves or A/B/C/D mixed up.

And we all know your husband's hobby is cycling. No, it isn't outing.

My pet peeve is when they say, I can’t tell you my hobby/job/kids ages as that would be too outing.

Yes because you’re the only accountant with a 5 year old who plays golf

I’d say it’s still better than when it gets complicated with dsil db dsil dsc dd and ds all in the same post, although my irritation generally gets calmed when someone tells op they can’t figure out her op!!

If it's preceeded by "buckle up, it's a long one" I never get to Person A, Steve or anyone else!

I don't like the phrase 'doing' his/her/my hobby it always makes me think of a small child 'look at me mum, I'm doing my hobby'

Hmm I dunno. I much prefer names of people to "person A, B", etc which just gets SO confusing.

I also hate it when they seem to think it necessary to hide the gender. So the entire thread is using 'their, them" etc.

This reminded me of something my ex does. He will say “I used to work with a woman they called Jane”, or “I used to play golf with a man they called Bob” or whatever. The first couple of times I asked why they called her Jane, or what Bob’s real name was and he replied “because that’s her name” or “Bob…”

Eventually I stopped asking and just assumed it was a phrase he used (that I’ve never heard anyone else use, ever), instead of saying “I used to work with someone called Jane”. It didn’t get any less annoying though.

Make a game of it.

The first thing I do when I open a Susan/Steve thread is have a quick scan of the OP to see if they use the name a second time - so far I've never seen one where the name is mentioned a 2nd time.

With A, B, C threads the game is to see how far through the first post you get before you figure out which of the people in the story OP is.

I have no idea why so many posters think their husband enjoying cycling at the weekend is 'outing'.

Ha, I feel the same about the think bla bla bla phrases!

For me it's adding 'D' to things unnecessarily ie ddog or dhorse

The whole DH, DD, DS thing was to make it quicker to type surely? Not to signal how much you love them

One yesterday said so I invited the GPs, I was thinking why? Why did you invite the doctors surgery to your kids play. BF sometimes means boyfriend and other times best friend ( how childish is best friend anyway) MOH maid of honour or mother of hen? I don't fucking know. The whole thing is infuriating

I agree. I have a friend, let's call her Susan who does this all the time 😾

Totally agree with all the comments, some posts can be so difficult to understand. I thought it was just me!

Yeah, I can't stand the "think" either.

I don't want to "think" golf. Is it golf or is it not? If you think saying golf is too "outing", then just change it to swimming. Leave the "think" out of it.

The D is often silent, I'd say.

My DH has run up a million pounds in gambling debts without telling me. AIBU to think this may be the end of the line? I've posted before about how he never does a hand's turn in the house ...

My DD19 has just pushed me into our pond because I asked her to help with the washing up, AIBU to be upset?

DM never contacts me unless she wants something and today I overheard her and my DS* slagging me off, AIBU to think I'm being taken for a mug?

*see my post above - sister or son?

Oh yeah, the ridiculous overuse of "said". Why? It's Mumsnet, not a legal document.