Pet Peeve

My biggest pet peeve involves express checkout lanes at grocery stores. I do not understand why people purposely disregard a rule that is meant to make shopping easier for everyone. It profoundly annoys me when I use the express checkout lane for a quick purchase of one or two items that I really need but instead I end up in a line with people that greatly exceed the maximum amount of items allowed. It isn't fair! Express checkout lanes should have a 10 or 12 items or less limit for the line to function in a speedy manner. But since many people treat express checkout lanes more like regular lines with their grocery carts overflowing of items, express lanes will soon become obsolete. For example, a local supermarket in my area use to have an express checkout lane of 12 items or less but then it was changed to 15 items or less. Now, there is no express checkout lane.I probably should not let this upset me as much as it does since research says that mathematically people spend more time waiting in an express line that has more people with fewer items than in a regular line with less people that have more items. Although I know there are always other options, so far I have not chosen to use the self-checkout lane because that will create another pet peeve.  

Grocery Store Grammar





Vocabulary:
pet peeve (noun) – personal complaint
disregard (verb) - ignore
profoundly (adjective) -  deeply, greatly
purchase (verb) – to buy something
exceed (verb) – to go beyond the limit
typically (adverb) – in most cases
function (noun) – purpose of something
obsolete (adjective) – not used anymore

Vocabulary Exercise: Fill in the crossword puzzle by matching the vocabulary word to its definition. 

Grammar Point:  A contraction is the shortened form of two words. The spelling of contractions formed with "not" usually does not change. The apostrophe takes the place of the "o." For example, in the passage above the contraction isn't was formed from is + not.

Grammar Exercise: Form contractions with not with combinations from the passage above.

                  (do not)                   do + not      =       ________       
                  (is not)                     is  + not      =       ________
                 (should not)       should + not      =       ________
                 (have not)             have + not      =       ________