Category Archives: Snotty Comments on NYC Signs

Mocking double meanings and pretentious language on street signs and ads

Grade D+

I’ve written elsewhere (“Missing and Presumed” at http://www.grammarianinthecity.com/?p=311) about dropping the letter D from expressions such as “grill cheese,” “old fashion,” and “never close, open 24/7.” This sign has the opposite problem:

Grilled and Deli Man

Reflected light mars the photo, so to clarify, the store is hiring a “Delivery, Cashier, Grilled & Deli Man.” If I take the noun “man” as the center of this statement from a non-equal-opportunity- employer, the other words serve as modifiers. So the store seeks a “delivery man,” a “cashier man” (turning the noun “cashier” into an adjective), and a “grilled and deli man.”

The last phrase leads me to a couple of questions. Does an applicant have to submit proof that detectives placed him in a windowless room under a bright lamp where they grilled him for hours about, presumably, his qualifications for working in a deli? I can hear the boss now: “Pre-grilled applicants save interview time.” Or is the shop hiring a man who has spent some time over charcoal? I shudder at that last possibility. I shudder at the spelling/grammar error too, but less. Much less.

Speechless in New York

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It takes a lot to shut New Yorkers up, especially this one. But every once in a while I see a photo that leaves me speechless. Here’s one, sent by my friend Jacqueline:

Pork for Hanukkah?

The only way to deepen the irony would be to add a shrimp cocktail appetizer. (For those unfamiliar with Jewish dietary laws, neither pork nor shrimp is kosher.)

One more, from a barber shop:

You have to ask for scissors?

I won’t comment on “hair line clean up,” though that line makes me picture barbers with pointy sticks and trash bags, patrolling the border between forehead and hair, like work-release prisoners on a garbage-strewn beach. Instead, I’ll focus on the middle line. I know little about barbering tools, and my “stylist,” who refrains from sighing when he asks if I want “the usual” during my thrice yearly visits, snips away with scissors automatically. So I’m perplexed. If you don’t request scissors at this salon, how does the barber cut your hair? With a lawn mower? A scythe?

Okay, I wasn’t speechless after all. If you aren’t either, please feel free to add your comments.

Woof

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Most of my posts are about two-footed New Yorkers, but this one concerns those traveling on four feet – actually, four paws. What do you make of this sign, painted on the window of a store specializing in wireless communication devices?

“Proud to be . . . dog friendly.”

Does this mean that the phones are chew-resistant or taste like premium dog chow? That they transmit every nuance of “arf arf” with perfect clarity? That the keyboard letters are far enough apart for paw-typing? I pondered these questions as I stared at the window. My first theory was that the store allows dogs inside, perhaps handing out chew toys or meaty bones. I considered the fact that lots of stores brag about their welcoming attitude to customers’ dogs. But those signs are usually smaller and located near the doorknob or handle. This one takes up a good portion of the shop window. Letting Fido into the establishment would seem to merit a less prominent sign. I still don’t know why it’s there, and I’m too shy to go in and ask.

This one is much smaller and located in the usual spot for such notices, right on the door. But it’s still strange:

Everyone else’s pets – come on in!

The sign suggests that employees’ pets are banned, but customers’ pets are “allowed in the store.” What do you think?

Hey, I’m Walking Here! Part 2

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As a pedestrian in New York City, I generally feel that I am the lowest of the low, the bottom of the barrel, the – well, insert your favorite metaphor for “unimportant” here. Why? Stoplights are timed to move motor vehicles along, not to give me a chance to put one foot in front of the other and reach the other side of the avenue before the next wave of cars approaches. Bikes get their own lane on many streets and all too often, uninhibited and unticketed, dominate the sidewalk as well. And then I saw this sign:

I’m “traffic” now!

I thought about the phrase “pedestrian traffic” as I plodded through the detour this “notice” required. According to the dictionary, the noun “traffic” means “vehicles moving on a road,” “dealing or trading in something illegal,” or “communications between people.” I am not a Ferrari, a drug transaction, or a text message. I am a person who travels via feet. So what does this sign really mean? If the first definition applied, I’d expect an upgrade in “pedestrian traffic” flow – lights timed to the average traveled-foot-inch per minute, for example. Nope. If the last definition applied, I’d expect the Department of Transportation to respond to the many cries for bike-free sidewalks. Nope again. So I’m choosing door number two. And I thank the DOT for banning trades of, say, one babysitter pushing a double-wide stroller for two guys with briefcases plus an oblivious texter to be named later.

Emboldened by this upgrade to “traffic” status, I went out again – and found this:

Wait where?

At the start of my first year as a teacher – and this is a true story – I questioned my principal about the schedule calling for me to teach two different classes at the same time on two different floors. Her answer? “Young people don’t want to face obstacles.” Oh. So too, at this corner, was I obliged to “wait” at two different places at the same time.

I won’t bother discussing the indignity of being a “ped.” It’s nice out. I’d rather take a walk.

Hey, I’m walking here! Part 1

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I’m not a great fan of the classic film Midnight Cowboy, but anyone who walks around New York can sympathize with Dustin Hoffman’s rant at a car that cuts him off in a crosswalk – the line I used as the title of this post. I found so many examples of signs telling walkers where to go (pun intended) that I’ll post them in two parts. Here’s the first one:

At least this one’s polite!

“Use opposite side of street.” Hm…m. Not the opposite sidewalk? Okay, I’ll put that one in the “you should know enough to walk on the sidewalk” category, notwithstanding the number of people wandering in the roadway near this sign – and everywhere else in NYC. But there’s another problem. Given that Midtown street corners inevitably host a small crowd, regardless of the time of day, the singular “pedestrian” is puzzling. Maybe the signwriter thought the personal touch – I’m talking to you, only you! – would be more effective? New Yorkers, after all, have a reputation for self-absorption, and common wisdom holds that we frequently ignore rules.

That rebelliousness, though, may simply be confusion. What would you do at this corner?

How’s that again?

Lest you think that two crosswalks, one open and one closed, are involved, let me reassure you that only one appears at this site. So you should use the crosswalk, which is closed. Got it?

One more for today:

At least this one is clear.

In case the context isn’t visible in the photo, this spray-painted sign tells “pedestrian” (again with the singular!) that under no circumstances can he or she walk through the stone wall of the building behind the sign. (And yes, I know it’s a temporary barrier, but it’s been in place long enough to qualify as “nonsense walkers put up with” in NYC.)

Stay tuned for part 2, coming soon, but not to a theater near you.

New in New York

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A recent discussion on New York City’s public radio station repeatedly referred to “a new initiative” to reduce the number of traffic accidents. As someone who walks around the city every day, dodging bicycles (illegally) on the sidewalk and aggressive drivers in pedestrian crosswalks, I should have been listening carefully. Yet my mind drifted, caught by the phrase “new initiative.” I wondered whether there was such a thing as an “old initiative.”

My dictionary lists four definitions for “initiative,” the most appropriate in this context being “an act or strategy intended to resolve a difficulty or improve a situation; a fresh approach.” That last bit fits poorly with the adjective “new,” because then you’re talking about a “new fresh approach.” It’s worth noting, though, that the dictionary’s sample sentence refers to a “new initiative.” Why?

I was still trying to figure out the answer to this question when my husband snapped a photo of this sign:

So much better than an old tradition.

Traditionally, a “tradition” is a custom passed along from generation to generation. How do you know you’re creating a “new holiday tradition”? By employing a soothsayer? If so, how much does that career pay? For some reason, it’s not listed in the Occupational Outlook Handbook published by the US government’s Bureau of Labor Statistics. I can’t imagine why. After all, this is a city in which the marketing campaign for a building under construction referred to the structure as “prewar.” (For non-NYers, let me explain that “pre-war” in a real estate ad generally means “built before World War II.”) Given the state of the world, it’s likely that everything, everywhere, at any point in time is pre- some sort of war, but still, you have to wonder what the builders foresaw.

Mulling all this, I finally came up with a theory. The desire to distance oneself from the past with a “new initiative” or to control the future by establishing a “new tradition” is hardwired into New Yorkers’ psyches. Notwithstanding the fact that the city sports a record-breaking concentration of psychotherapists plumbing our personal pasts, the city that never sleeps never stops changing, too. New Yorkers reinvent themselves and their city. It’s our tradition. Maybe we should slow down and savor what we already have. A change like that, though, requires initiative. New or not.

Please tell me . . .

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Please tell me that two apostrophes are missing from this sign, and not the verb “are.” Even though it’s unlikely that Fido and Mittens can read, I’d also be happy with direct address, created by a colon after “cats”:

Please tell me that the employees of this store are not making neat rectangles out of little humans:

Fold how?

I understand the “wash” part, as I subscribe to a theory I discovered in an Angela Thirkell novel: that kids are born with a bag of dirt inside that leaks out little by little, beginning anew every time they emerge from the bathtub. But the rest is a mystery. Fold? Doubled over at the waist, or vertically from left to right? Also, what’s with the “n”? Why use this contraction of “and,” which is more a grunt than a word? Maybe the workers are too busy bending kids’ hands and feet (and then keeping the limbs in place) to add the missing letters? And what’s the market for folded babies and toddlers? Okay, as an experienced mother and grandmother, I can actually answer that last question. After a long day chasing little kids around, having someone fold them neatly is, unfortunately, appealing. Wrong, but appealing.

More Is More

To boldly split

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Some grammarians groan when they hear the Starship Enterprise’s mission “to boldly go” into television ratings history —not because they hate science fiction but because they object to the split infinitive. That’s what I thought about when I saw this sign, which appears on construction sites all over New York City:

To anonymously report.

An infinitive is the verb, the whole verb, and nothing but the verb – except for to, which grabs onto the infinitive most of the time. In the sign, to report is the infinitive and anonymously is the word that interrupts it.

A side point before continuing: grammar terms, like wire coat hangers, reproduce at an exponential rate. Give a couple of grammar terms a bit of privacy, and soon you’ll have a dozen more. Split infinitives may also be called cleft or interrupted, and infinitives without the to are known as bare. These terms make me wonder what, exactly, is being interrupted. Paging Sigmund Freud.

The rule against split infinitives dates to a 19^th century grammar text, which declared that the prohibition would “prove to be as accurate as most rules, and may be found beneficial to inexperienced writers.” Not exactly a rave review. On the opposing side, playwright George Bernard Shaw went so far as to ask that an editor who objected to split infinitives be replaced by “an intelligent Newfoundland dog.”

My position on the subject? Split an infinitive whenever you want. I promise to not report you to the Grammar Cops.

Of Mice and Man

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Okay, I lied. This post is about man as a singular form. No mice appear. To be clear, mice appear regularly in New York City, but this post is mice-free. Instead, this post is about man-ly signs:

One guy does everything.

The construction manager must be on a tight budget if only one man is on the job. No wonder there’s danger! I’d cause all sorts of danger too if I had to do all the work myself. (Oh wait – I do have to do all the work myself, but no one ever got a concussion from a dangling modifier.)

Here’s another:

Man and Ladies.

To be fair, this sign should read (1) Gentleman and Lady or (2) Gentlemen and Ladies or (3) Men and Women. Or, judging from the fact that nearly every garment on display in the shop is a business suit typically worn by a man, the sign could also change to Men and Woman.

One more, from an earlier post:

This store sells clothes for one kid. Just one kid.

The placement of the apostrophe signals a singular noun, so the store sells to one kid (no word on the gender). With such a limited market, I’m not surprised that the store is now out of business.

Grammarian in the City

Snarky remarks on language I see and hear in New York City

Category Archives: Snotty Comments on NYC Signs

Speechless in New York

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Hey, I’m walking here! Part 1

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Please tell me . . .

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More Is More

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To boldly split

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Of Mice and Man

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