Agros

by dataport on Jul.05, 2009, under Politics, media

What’s oft been thought, but ne’er so well expressed…as the poet says…is exactly how badly the world can scrape against our nervous systems.

We need a new unit of measurement, a standard unit by which we measure and refer to the degree of annoyance, irritation, and aggravation caused by people, things or states of affairs.

Let’s call this unit the Agro. Unlike the ohm or the watt its name is not derived from the name of a famous scientist. Trust me…there was no Ludovicus Agro or any such person.

According to the American Dictionary of Obscure Usage the term was first employed by professor Wilhelm Sackpfennig to express his annoyance with students who came to class unprepared.

“You have caused me much agro-vations,” he would declare. Later he shortened agro-vations to agros. “Mister Johnson, your translation has caused me two agros!”

His students thought this hilarious and for a semester or two undergraduates took up the term. With Sackpfennig’s retirement the expression fell out of use. Historians of slang assume it was replaced by expressions like “bummer,” “drag,” or “downer.”

Our individual levels of resistance to an agro attack are, of course, different. In my own case my teeth are set on edge to approximately the 2.75 agro level by folks who pronounce the words “restaurateur,” “entrepreneur,” and “liqueur” as if they rhymed with the word “sewer”.

It is particularly annoying when these people are themselves restauratooers or entreprenooers, but having identified the level and cause of my irritability I can simply relax with a double shot of my favorite liquoor.

Of course driving in traffic is an agro-enhanced experience nowadays. What are we to do with Three-Agro-Arnie, who refuses to get in line with the rest of us when the signs announce that traffic is funneling down to one lane?

While we honor the unwritten social compact that says things will go reasonably well if we stay cool and stay in line ol’ Three-Agro-Arnie rushes up to the spot where the lane narrows and then expects to nose in ahead of us. Someday we’ll all close up bumper to bumper and make him sit there staring at the construction barriers until after rush hour.

I invite you, now, to add your own Agro.

5 Comments for this entry

Mike Brewer
July 5th, 2009 on 1:53 pm
Are there any Argo-Annonymous meetings in Tucson?

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leftfield
July 5th, 2009 on 3:14 pm
Your description of Three-agro-Arnie hit the nail on the head of my #1 agro. I often wonder what the person who flies by the long line of cars only to find himself in a disappearing lane (just as has been promised by five signs over the last mile or so) was thinking. Is he thinking, “Why are all those idiots sitting there in a line of traffic that isn’t moving when this lane is wide open?”. Or, is he thinking, “My concerns and appointments are clearly far more important than those of the other fifty people in this line. Surely they will see this truth as plainly as I do and let me cut in line.”

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Logical Lizard
July 5th, 2009 on 10:54 pm
Excellent post and an excellent idea for a new system. I’m in. Will it be based on a scale of 1 to 10?
When I was a lad growing up in London, the local thugs used to use the word “agro” as a noun, as in: “Let’s go out and cause some agro.” And they did.
On my current list of personal agros (3.8 on a scale of 10): The majority of our otherwise delightful Tucson restaurant servers appear to have recently replaced the word “you” with the word “we,” as in “Have WE decided what WE’d like to order tonight?” or “Would WE like anything else this evening?”
It sounds as if WE are back in kindergarten. Please find another way to be friendly. I know you mean well.

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Rynski
July 6th, 2009 on 4:52 am
Very funny! My traffic agro, which is pretty high on the scale, is motorists who come to a complete stop before making a turn, any turn. Even when traffic behind them is rolling along at 40 mph.
I happen to like the “we” thing. But then again I was quite fond of kindergarten. haha.

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azstargirl
July 6th, 2009 on 10:12 am
WE are sorry to cause you such agro mr lizard

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