OPEN LETTER TO NORTH AMERICAN SHIPPING INDUSTRY:
When someone answers the telephone, an appropriate response to the word "Hello" is not "With Bob". "With Bob" is not even a sentence - it is a sentence fragment, and an unintelligible one at that. That's like me saying "When he writes about" in response to the question, "Who is your favorite author?" Come on, people...your time is not so ^%$@#&^$* precious that the extra words, "Let me talk to", "Can I speak with", or "I had sex with" are going to cost you a million dollars, but they will provide some much needed clarity. If you don't care about politeness, but you still want to demonstrate some goddamned ability to speak your native tongue better than, say, a golden retriever with a severe concussion and a family history of inbreeding siblings together, you might try stripping off the word "with", so that you have a simple demand, thereby leaving all the other words implied, and yet grammatically correct. "Bob". Or, in the interest of minimalism, still maintaining an air of civilization, and retaining that all-important number of two words (which has apparently taken up a position of mystical importance in your tiny little minds that rivals medieval numerology in its cultural significance), "Bob, please". I can understand people whose native language is Spanish or French making errors like this, it's perfectly understandable...we tend to translate our imperfect idioms literally, which is why thngs get so confused. However, I must ask the rest of you...AM I THE ONLY GODDAMNED NATIVE SPEAKER OF ENGLISH LEFT WHO ACTUALLY KNOWS HOW TO TALK?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!? Jesus, people!