If you spend more than five minutes in /r/whatsthatbook you'll end up

[conuly]

asking somebody "When did you read this book", and there are two annoying answers to this.

The first is "When I was younger". Yeah, no shit, everything you have already done you have done, by definition, when you were younger. (And if you want to avoid this answer you'll have to consistently use the somewhat silly phrase "calendar year" to ask this question. Annoyingly, the equally silly phrase "age in years" does very little to stop people from giving me their year/grade/stage at school instead, so I have to say "Age in years - that's your age, not year/grade/stage at school!" which makes me sound really pushy for no reason. There's a reason!)

The second is "Oh, it doesn't matter, the book was at least ten years old when I got it!"

And then you have to go back and explain to them that a book that was ten years old in 1960 is much older than one that was ten years old in 2020, so please - help us help you. Like, would it kill them to just answer the question? I genuinely have no idea why they do this. Why do people do this? Just, why?

Comments

[meowmensteen]

Norm MacDonald once told a story about his friend who was overweight. The friend said to him, "Would you believe that I was once 205 lbs?" Norms answer was, "I believe you were every weight between zero and what you are now at some point in time."

[conuly]

Well… I don’t know, how much does a zygote weigh?

[calimac]

I am reminded of the man who said his mother used to tell him that he was too thin but now that he weighs too much, but there was never a time when she said he was just right.

[conuly]

Or the one about the man whose mother bought him two sweaters for christmas/hanukkah/his birthday, and when he put one of them on to please her immediately demanded to know what was wrong with the other one!

[calimac]

I haven't encountered that particular annoying answer.

Most of my favorite children's books I did find as a child (I read The Hobbit when I was 11, for instance), and most of the children's books I've found as an adult I may have liked but they didn't become real favorites. With one exception: I didn't find The Wind in the Willows until I was about 24, but I glommed onto it as I would have had I been much younger.

[conuly]

I've always liked children's books myself.

[frith]

Why do people do this? Just, why?

I suspect that they're lazy and hadn't thought through just what data points are needed to narrow the search. If they had thought that part through, they very well could have answered their own question. Fortunately, LLM's spewing tons of greenhouse gasses will be there with enough surveillance data to fill in the gaps and answer these questions. R/WHATSTHATBOOK will be obsolete!

[conuly]

It's not the fact that they don't present the information upfront that bugs me, it's the part where you ask them directly and they refuse to answer you!

[shadowkat]

People really are annoyingly vague about things sometimes, aren't they?

[conuly]

I don't know why they refuse to just answer questions!

[redbird]

They can't all be thinking "oh my God, I read this fifty years ago, does that mean I'm Old? What if the people on Reddit notice my age?"

[conuly]

Well, this person finally said they read this book around 2020. To which I say, have you considered calling up your school and asking to speak to the librarian? If they rarely get new books then they probably still have this on on the shelves.

[minoanmiss]

I think (not least because at work I ask a lot of questions which are replied to with the answers to questions I didn't ask) they are over thinking and trying to figure out the "real" question, or underthinking and not understanding why the information is relevant, but either way trying to be clever rather than just. Answering. The. Question.

[conuly]

If they were really clever they'd either answer the question or say "Why do you ask?"

[minoanmiss]

Truly.

[low_delta]

One of my biggest frustrations - when people don't answer the question you've asked. They often read something into your question that's not there, or think their answer is more helpful than the one you're requesting. Or they just plain go off on a tangent. And my mom is famous for answering questions with a questions.

[conuly]

OH, yeah, that's the second part of my complaint - whenever I ask any question I say "Please edit your post to answer" and then at least 75% of the time I have to go back and say "More people will read the main post than the comments, you really should edit your post".

Of course, they probably think that *I* intend to find their book and no. If I don't know what it is without asking, I'm not going to find it myself. I only want to get them to give a little more info so somebody else can maybe find it.

[howsmyenglish]

Because most people don't have an organized mind, and they don't think about how YOU will solve the problem, all they want is to drop the problem on someone and wait until it's solved. "Let me Google it for you" was not invented for nothing.
But I know what you mean. Sigh.

[conuly]

Nah, your explanation is why they type up long stream of consciousness posts and then hit post without first going back and editing it into some sort of logical order.

"It's about a girl and she had a boyfriend and blue eyes and he was lost oh I forgot to say they're in high school and she found him and also he's a werewolf and they met because he was failing chem. And I read this when I was 12!"

"So, uh, when did you read this?"

"I'm 49 now!"

Which, by the way, if you're 49 and literate enough to type that you ought to be literate enough not to type that and to instead make it make sense.

[howsmyenglish]

Which, by the way, if you're 49 and literate enough to type that you ought to be literate enough not to type that and to instead make it make sense.
I agree. I'm a language teacher. Year after year I need to explain to the new students that "family" is singular despite there being several members in it. I hear you. *facepalm"

[conuly]

Hm. Are these students used to UK English? I believe that usage is standard on that side of the pond.

[howsmyenglish]

No, not at all.
But what do you mean?
English is far less infected that the languages I teach and teach in, so the difference would be less obvious, but do you actually mean phrases like "my family are abroad" or "my family like to dance? (as opposed to "is" and "likes"?) I don't think I ever noticed usage like that in literature, and I read a lot of British authors. Although... the more I reread those examples, the more they seem familiar... Hm...

[conuly]

but do you actually mean phrases like "my family are abroad" or "my family like to dance?

Yes, this is what I mean.

This is one of the better known differences between US and UK grammar.

[conuly]

Here's another link. I'm linking to this one in particular because I love that blog, both the posts and the comments.

[siderea]

My favorite hypothesis about this is that neurotypicals lack a theory of mind.

[cimorene]

Oh, I love that.

[conuly]

I thought we knew that already.

[oursin]

My archivist/historian's screaming version of this is people who cite something they have seen in an archive:
Either:
In Repository - Repository which holds numerous collections of archives.
Or, hardly better:
In Named Archive - which is huge archive, with no reference to specific file within it.

[conuly]

Just so long as they're not bullshitting as people inevitably do when they cite "the dictionary".

[moon_custafer]

My version of this is answering the phone at work and trying to figure out what person/department the caller wants.

I can't always blame them for being vague, but when I ask something like "Are you looking for plumbing or heating products?" and get the answer "It's for a house," I do blame them, silently.

[conuly]

Maybe they'd benefit if you were a little less silent.

[jack]

I feel like I UNDERSTAND why. Or rather, for me, I catch myself doing that when I'm embarrassed the specific answer might show something silly about the rest of my Q.

But I think it's really common from just not thinking much. And reacting as if everyone on the group were all in the same conversation.

Or, from being surrounded by neurotypical people where 90% of the time following their random instructions precisely actually isn't as productive as just talking or guessing what's relevant...

But that doesn't help with stopping people doing it or making it less annoying :(

[conuly]

I really don't mind them not knowing in advance, but it bugs me when they dance around the questions instead of answering them.

[siderea]

Oh, hey, I just noticed that this post and the next are from the future. FYI, you're gonna burn your fingers making pasta in four days.

[conuly]

You think you're kidding, but I really am like one of those ads. The only days that go by without me burning my fingers, or cutting them, or grating them, are days when I don't cook or do anything else.