There are many things the world needs less of: pollution, violence, people who seem to be entertained beyond belief by the sound of their own voices, women and Republicans.

Of course, there are many more things the world needs more of: ice cream flavors, meaningless, noncommittal sex and beer.

Yes, as one can see, this column is turning out to be the epitome of everything shallow. But that?s not so bad.

A provocative argument now and then is a good thing, but columns tend to get a bit bogged down by intensely significant issues like abortion or stem-cell research.

I mean, sooner or later we really need to step off the pedestal of incredible social affairs and recognize that sometimes the shallow stuff makes life equally unbearable.

For instance, I?ve got a friend who seems to be under the delusion that everything he has to say is worth hearing.

This is dreadfully boring, as it prevents the poor soul from ever shutting up. Even worse is the fact that the rest of the world seems to find this amusing, which only amplifies his damn voice?which seems to only have one volume (loud).

But while I?m definitely not the most profound columnist for The Daily Utah Chronicle, I wouldn?t write a column in a futile endeavor to humiliate my loudmouthed friend. In fact, I rather like the fellow.

Instead, I?d rather step away for a moment from the political popularities and social atrocities and deal with something people encounter on a much more regular basis?pet peeves.

The slightly perverse sounding ?peeves? began circulating in the mid 1500s in the form of peevish, which?at the time?was synonymous with spiteful.

Since then, it has evolved into a slightly less egregious word, slowly making its way to the verb form of peeve which, at present, means simply to irritate or annoy.

Pet is a derivative of petty, which, in the early 1500s, was reserved for describing a pampered and arguably spoiled child who was often referred to as a pet.

So a pet peeve might be construed as either a spoiled or pampered annoyance or a trite irritation.

However, given the fact that I neglected to do any actual research, I stumbled upon the etymology of the term pet peeve.

Apparently, the phrase had already discovered a cozy and prosperous slang life by 1919, the year of the infamous?and very real?Great Molasses Flood.

At this time, a close friend of Albert Einstein, Garret Peevie, happened to adopt a small goanna as a pet.

Now, for those of you who, like myself, watch the Animal Planet only for Steve Irwin, a goanna is a small possum-like mammal that has the unfortunate propensity to climb things constantly.

Since there are very few trees in Boston, especially after the Great Molasses Flood?which not only drowned 21 people in a considerably demeaning fashion, but also destroyed the six trees that had been growing in Boston at the time?the small goanna was notorious for its habit to climb quite painfully upon any person it happened to mistake for a tree.

Garret Peevie, slightly disturbed by the absurd incident with the 2.2 million gallons of molasses and his irritating?yet considerably buoyant?goanna, attempted to rid himself of the pest by leaving him to climb Mr. Einstein.

Einstein liked neither the goanna nor Garret Peevie. No one is quite sure if the term pet peeve evolved from Peevie?s irritating pet, or from Einstein?s irritating friend Peevie perpetually trying to pawn this pet onto Einstein.

Either way, most of this story is crap?aside from the part about the molasses.

Pet peeves range from the serious to the ridiculous. Some people are annoyed by bad drivers while others are annoyed by blind drivers.

Some are annoyed by everyone from people who can?t shut up in a theater, to the people who can?t shut up at all, to the people who dedicate an entire column to the etymology of the term pet peeve.

We human beings are bombarded daily with an onslaught of unwarranted nuisances known as each other.

And how do we deal with these nuisances? Well, it seems columnists often find it healthy to proclaim their immunity from error by pointing out the insanity of the political dilemmas that plague our society.

So I thought it might be nice to take a break?to step back and remind ourselves that while the occasional opinion might be revolutionary, it is, in fact, likely to be nothing more than regurgitated babble kindled by our inability to ultimately find a compromise to these issues.

In short, there are things the world needs less of. At the top of this list are opinions?at least the kind that are so vehement that they build walls between people.

So, now and then, might it not be better for people to just sit back and slightly annoy each other?to revel in the beauty of a world free from fanatical opinions and soiled with idle pet peeves?

Chris welcomes feedback at:[email protected]