Pet Peeves
Ahhh, pet peeves. Who among us doesn’t have a few? (And, given sufficient neuroses, some of us may have more than others!)
This particular one is really a mini-Peeve of sorts. Language being one of the things that has long been of great interest to me, I have found myself wondering why the headgear one attaches to a stereo is called “headphones” while a similar item one attaches to a telephone is called a “headset.” Shouldn’t it be the other way ’round?
More to the point, perhaps, is: Why do I expend energy being annoyed by that, when there are far more egregious usages taking hold in American English — for example, “bring” when it should be “take,” or “cement” when “concrete” is what’s meant (a Peeve I inherited from my late father), or “hot water heater” when if the water is already hot, one doesn’t need a heater, and so on.
Or how about a few physical Peeves, like the way so many so-called “actors” nowadays use head-tilting and other posturing affects, for no good reason? Don’t they know how silly they look? Or the way even real actors, when the use of a cane for support is called for, use it on the bad side, when anyone who’s ever been shown how to use a cane or crutch by a medical professional knows that you use it on the good side, to avoid throwing your weight onto the injured side.
Ahhh, Peeves . . . how dearly we hold them — and how much more relaxed we (that is, I) might be without them!
On headset vs. headphones: The crucial nano-diff, to me, is the pluralization of “phone” in headphones. Given that “phone” means summat like “sound” in Greek, “tele-phone” means “sound from afar.” (We gotta thank them Greex for “tele” as well) So by my lights, because “head-phoneS” means plural “soundS-in-the-head” and because what you stick on your head (to talk into and) into your ear to hear the phone/sound is singular, and that it might be difficult (esp. in presence of high-pitched background noise that can “eat” sibilants) to HEAR the distinction between singular “phone” and plural “phoneS”, calling what you stick on your head a “headphone” then it’s better to call that a “headset.”
Now I spoze if they ever create a headset with (a mic and) TWO earpieces, they’d have to call that “headphoneS” — but the chances of that are slim because the only reason that headsets are still legal is that they leave one ear free to hear the roadaphones. QED, n’est-ce-pas? :)
Now if I am against torturing people, then by the same token I should be against torturing LANGUAGE, so I’m way sorry about all of this and I would ask you to fuggedabowdit.
PS — love that “hot water heater” notion. And may I add a couple of physical peeves of my own — (A) how movie costumers think that clear (flat, unprescription and by definition INEFFECTIVE) glasses that reflect uniformly across their entire surfaces are not noticeable as such, and (B) how movie directors seem to insist that people drive at night with bright lights shining up from the dashboard right on their faces so as to make it easier to watch them emote (presumably, as they drive into road hazards obscured by the lights. “AAAaaaah, didn’t you see that the bridge was out?” “No, how was I spozed to see it with (gesturing) these 7,398 lumens shining into my eyes, but don’t my teeth look pearly-white as we plummet to our deaths?”).
Followup — earlier this PM I was telling Deb about these comments. She said I should have added something to my last: “… but don’t my teeth look pearly-white as we plummet to our deaths? And anyway, I’m nearsighted and these friggin glasses don’t work for shit!”