Hello everyone! After spending some vacation time (a.k.a. writers block phase, a.k.a. lazyness phase) from this blog, I'm ready to come back and write some more, and this time with a J.log 2 (English) exclusive! (which means you won't find this post translated to Portuguese.)
It's been a while since I had my rants about weird and irritating language expressions, so I'm gonna kickstart with one of these. Today's rant is about: people who cannot wait.
At a first glance, when you put it this way, there's no much sense in not being able to wait. If you think of the easiest, laziest thing that a person can do, it's waiting. I mean, you just stand there and do nothing! How hard can it be?
And yet, people have this strange idea that they can't possibly wait for something that they really, really want. They see that new taller, lighter smartphone coming up in a month, and they're already starting screaming "Omygod I can't wait to get it! Omygod I can't wait to see it! Omygod I can't wait! Omygod I can't wait!" What do you mean, you can't wait? You have to wait! It's only coming next month! What other choice do you have?!!!
You know, the reason this is an English exclusive is that the Portuguese language doesn't have the can't wait expression. Instead we use "Mal posso esperar" which translates to I can hardly wait. And I personally think there's nothing wrong with this. I can hardly wait, but I can wait. It will be painful, but I can wait. There is literally nothing preventing me from waiting.
Other than that, the can't wait expression is perfectly acceptable when it's meant to say that you lost all interest in the thing you were waiting for, and you're not gonna wait for it anymore. Let's give you some examples where a person could rightfully use I can't wait:
- You arrive to some government office of bureaucracy and take a number. Your number is 545. You then look at the number on the display panel and it's 389. You say "I can't wait for this." and go away.
- You plan on visiting your sister next month, but she says she will be unavailable next month and you'll have to wait another two months to see her. You say "I can't wait that long. I'm going right this week!"
- You drank a lot of beer and you're walking home. Suddenly a wild urge to urinate appears. You say "I'm gonna go there behind the bushes". Your embarrassed girlfriend asks "Can't you wait until we get home?" You answer desperately "No! I can't wait!!!"
and a list of things people think they can't wait for:
- the launch of the next smartphone / tablet / videogame console;
- the next concert of their favorite band (even if they've seen the last one the past week);
- the premiere of the typical superhero action movie (even though they'll probably see the movie a few days later);
- Christmas (!!!!!);
- next Summer (oh, man, you're gonna have a hard time);
- the weekend.
And I don't know what's gonna happen to you guys after you read this post, but for me, each time I now hear someone saying Omygod I can't wait it gets more and more irritating. It makes me want to grab their heads with both hands and say Listen to me. You don't understand. You can wait. If you really want it, you have to wait. You don't have a choice. Even if you say you can't wait, you're gonna end up waiting anyway. Look at me. LOOK AT ME! YOU CAN WAIT! Trust me on this one.
Here's one last short story to lighten up the mood. A guy's on the line to buy the latest iPhone. The line is already 1,5 km long and it's not moving forward at all. Filled with Apple fanboys screaming "Omygod I can't wait! Omygod I can't wait!" like if they were dying of starvation. The guy breaks the line, gets in the shop, walks out of the shop with a Samsung. The guys in the line are shocked, they ask the guy "What the hell happened to you?" The guy turns to them and says: "Well... I couldn't wait."
It's been a while since I had my rants about weird and irritating language expressions, so I'm gonna kickstart with one of these. Today's rant is about: people who cannot wait.
At a first glance, when you put it this way, there's no much sense in not being able to wait. If you think of the easiest, laziest thing that a person can do, it's waiting. I mean, you just stand there and do nothing! How hard can it be?
And yet, people have this strange idea that they can't possibly wait for something that they really, really want. They see that new taller, lighter smartphone coming up in a month, and they're already starting screaming "Omygod I can't wait to get it! Omygod I can't wait to see it! Omygod I can't wait! Omygod I can't wait!" What do you mean, you can't wait? You have to wait! It's only coming next month! What other choice do you have?!!!
You know, the reason this is an English exclusive is that the Portuguese language doesn't have the can't wait expression. Instead we use "Mal posso esperar" which translates to I can hardly wait. And I personally think there's nothing wrong with this. I can hardly wait, but I can wait. It will be painful, but I can wait. There is literally nothing preventing me from waiting.
Other than that, the can't wait expression is perfectly acceptable when it's meant to say that you lost all interest in the thing you were waiting for, and you're not gonna wait for it anymore. Let's give you some examples where a person could rightfully use I can't wait:
- You arrive to some government office of bureaucracy and take a number. Your number is 545. You then look at the number on the display panel and it's 389. You say "I can't wait for this." and go away.
- You plan on visiting your sister next month, but she says she will be unavailable next month and you'll have to wait another two months to see her. You say "I can't wait that long. I'm going right this week!"
- You drank a lot of beer and you're walking home. Suddenly a wild urge to urinate appears. You say "I'm gonna go there behind the bushes". Your embarrassed girlfriend asks "Can't you wait until we get home?" You answer desperately "No! I can't wait!!!"
and a list of things people think they can't wait for:
- the launch of the next smartphone / tablet / videogame console;
- the next concert of their favorite band (even if they've seen the last one the past week);
- the premiere of the typical superhero action movie (even though they'll probably see the movie a few days later);
- Christmas (!!!!!);
- next Summer (oh, man, you're gonna have a hard time);
- the weekend.
And I don't know what's gonna happen to you guys after you read this post, but for me, each time I now hear someone saying Omygod I can't wait it gets more and more irritating. It makes me want to grab their heads with both hands and say Listen to me. You don't understand. You can wait. If you really want it, you have to wait. You don't have a choice. Even if you say you can't wait, you're gonna end up waiting anyway. Look at me. LOOK AT ME! YOU CAN WAIT! Trust me on this one.
Here's one last short story to lighten up the mood. A guy's on the line to buy the latest iPhone. The line is already 1,5 km long and it's not moving forward at all. Filled with Apple fanboys screaming "Omygod I can't wait! Omygod I can't wait!" like if they were dying of starvation. The guy breaks the line, gets in the shop, walks out of the shop with a Samsung. The guys in the line are shocked, they ask the guy "What the hell happened to you?" The guy turns to them and says: "Well... I couldn't wait."
