Walking around Manhattan, I often feel the urge to enter a store, grab an employee, and ask this question: “What, exactly, do you think your sign says?” I’m rather shy, and I also understand that most storeowners and employees are far more interested in selling goods and services than in grammar and usage. So I don’t ask anyone anything. Nor do I explain the unintended meaning of the signs I see, such as this one:
Just one bagel?
Get there early, people, because after one bagel is sold, you’re out of luck. Here’s another puzzler:
Three adjectives? Two adjectives and a noun?
Does this sign offer the services of a gifted psychic or something else that is gifted, psychic, and spiritual? If so, what is that something else? Maybe the noun, psychic, is bookended by two descriptions – gifted and spiritual. I’d tell you the answer, but I can’t. I’m not psychic.
And then there’s this salon, which offers a facial for the neck or back. If you’re working on those body parts, is it still a facial? Or are you getting a neckal and backal? But that’s not the best part of this sign. It’s the high frequency and excellent custom mask. I don’t know what that is, but I want one.
Custom mask?
By the time I finished reading this sign, I had quite a few dead cells I wanted the shop to “eliminate” — from my brain.