NIMS and NOMS

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We New Yorkers, have, upon occasion, been known to be a tad self-absorbed. Common wisdom holds that Londoners see their city as the center of the world and New Yorkers view theirs as the world itself. Nor are we New Yorkers known for patience. I read somewhere that telemarketers receive special training so they can convey their messages to New Yorkers at double the pace they employ for other locations. And, this just in: New Yorkers also like to complain.

Add self-absorption, impatience, and irritation and you get a phenomenon known as NIMBY – “not in my backyard.” NIMBY occurs all over the world, of course, but in New York City, where backyards aren’t common, it’s more often NIMS – “not in my street,” or NOMS, “not on my sidewalk.”

Check out this NOMS sign:

Note the italics.

I might not have snapped a photo of this sign had it not italicized THESE PREMISES. The italics add emphasis and imply that you are free to loiter somewhere else, just “not on my sidewalk,” or NOMS.

A variation, which I’m still trying to decode, appears on this sign:

Let Fido poop on the sidewalk. Just not my sidewalk.

Around tree?

In a flush of optimism (no pun intended), I first saw this sign as a request to steer dogs to the stretch of curb around tree. (An impatient New Yorker, the sign-writer had no time to add the.) But this sign appears in New York, so I must conclude that instead of offering canine accommodations, the sign-writer wants dogs to go on somebody else’s sidewalk or street. It’s a NIMS/NOMS.

Slightly off topic, but too good to omit, is this sign:

Blessed or punished?

The tenuous connection to NIMS is the fourth statement, Private Property. Implied by that phrase is “go somewhere public” (NIMS). But I have to admit I snapped the photo because of the five exclamation points, each a vehement finger stab in the eye. (How New York is that?) The sign also attracted me by including one our language’s strangest words, sanctioned, which means (a) official permission and (b) punishment. You have to love a language in which a word may be its own antonym.

And you have to love New York City, or at least I do, for displaying signs like these.

(Truly Real) Real Estate

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When the apartment building on my corner was nearing completion, I checked the ads selling its apartments. I wasn’t buying; I was simply nosy. The website touted the idea that the property was “steps from Central Park.” True, if you take a lot of steps. Like, a LOT of steps – a brisk ten minutes’ worth, not counting time spent waiting at red lights. With that definition, every location is steps from Central Park – Nebraska, for example. You just have to keep walking.

That advertisement underscores the need for vigilance in approaching the New York City housing market. Only with constant attention will you know the exact moment when hipsters move in where hip-replacements once dominated. The language of this market is odd. The New York Times once wrote about the true meaning of some common real estate terms. I don’t remember all of them (and I may have added a few myself), but here is a selection:

Cozy means the kitchen is the size of a bathmat.
Private or secluded refers to an apartment whose windows face a brick wall.
A townhouse feel guarantees that passersby can watch you sip your morning coffee through sidewalk-level windows.
If you have skyline views, you probably have to take a train to work.
A charming apartment has an intact, never renovated (or cleaned) 1950s bathroom, which matches the style and condition of other rooms.

And speaking of rooms, do apartments in other cities have half rooms, as in two-and-a-half-room apartment? I never have decoded that one. Does a half room lack a wall? A ceiling? Or just space? If the last definition applies, is there an official standard for half and whole? Most NYC rooms would be third or quarter rooms anywhere else.

And then there are other claims:

No machines?

It took three trips to this construction site to get a photo not blocked by cranes and other heavy machinery, which presumably were not working on these apartments because then the sign would (gasp) be a lie.

I have more to say about what real in NYC real estate, but I’ll save it for another post. My home isn’t handcrafted, but my cleaning is. See you after the vacuuming is done.

And if you have any real real estate stories, feel free to send them in.

And in confusion . . .

The Signies

Say what?

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Overconfident, snarky New Yorker that I am, I was all set to mock the sign I see in every NYC bus stating that “it is a felony to assault a bus operator.” My tag line was going to be “feel free to assault everyone else,” because I believed that the sign had been poorly written and conveyed an inappropriate meaning.

But I was wrong. According to my son the lawyer, assaulting non-bus operators isn’t always a felony. If someone punches you, the charge may very well be a misdemeanor. Bummer, both in terms of life (I’d like to rate a felony if I’m hit) and the blog (there goes my post).

Fortunately, I found a number of signs this week that do rate some snotty remarks. Check out this awning:

For shy clothing.

I confess I thought all stores offering to clean your clothes were public, but this sign implies . . . well, I’m not sure what it implies. Must you join a club before you hand over your underwear? Is the washer behind a screen, so that no one will see your stuff? Or does the sign mean that your wash isn’t mixed in with others’ clothing? If that last one is true, in a non-private (public?) laundry, is everything in the tub together? First, how gross is that? Second, how does the proprietor know which pajamas belong to you?

Here’s another, which has been hanging on my street for a couple of years:

Please, please end it!

This sign sounds like a command, or maybe a plea. It’s supposed to let the driver know that the car has passed through a construction zone and emerged on the other side. But that’s not true. The Second Avenue Subway project, the reason for this sign, began with a proposal nearly a century ago and progressed to demolition in 1942. Construction, in fits and starts, has gone on for decades. The earliest date for completion (which, like the horizon, can be approached but never reached) is December, 2016. The relevant point is that, regardless of the transit authority’s promises, the road work does not end. As every New Yorker knows, road work never ends in this city. If it’s not potholes, it’s new bike lanes, repaving, and cranes.

One more:

No drugs on the sidewalk!

Okay, you could argue that the sign tells passersby about what the store offers, but because this sign is on a drug store, the existence of a pharmacy would seem to be a no-brainer. So where else would the dep’t be? And couldn’t this national chain afford to write department? If you need to be told that the drugs are inside, you probably don’t know the contraction either.

That’s it for today. When it stops raining, I’m going to search for an outdoor pharmacy and a street without roadwork. Then I’ll wash my own clothes, privately.

What’s Up?

What’s in a name?

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Google and others are currently investing a billion dollars or so in . . . well, in what? An invention that has, at best, a dubious name.

Now, assigning a name that attracts attention and doesn’t intentionally mislead is no easy task. (I’m ignoring, for now, names whose sole purpose is to deceive consumers – something akin to “Healthy Cigarettes.”) So consider for a moment the race to develop a car that moves along without an active, engaged, human driver. Of which, judging from what I see when I walk around the city, there are many.

The current leader in the name-race is driverless car. I have a problem with that term. You can’t invent what already exists. True, humans sit behind the steering wheels of today’s driverless cars, but because the drivers are applying makeup, changing the CD, or uploading to Instagram, the vehicles are essentially driverless.

First runner-up is self-driving car, building on the tradition of self-cleaning oven, self-defrosting freezer, and other devices that replace human labor. In my view, this term is better, but picky grammarian that I am, I question the self portion of the name. Can an inanimate object have a self? If the lasagna drips out of the pan and sizzles on the oven floor (a frequent occurrence in my household), can the oven object? Does the freezer know that I have expired food stored in it? I rest my case.

Then there’s the robotic car. But how to differentiate between the sedan that turns left at the corner while human occupants send out selfies (Look at me! I’m inside a robot car!) and one that moves along, sans humans, to sweep the streets or scoop up poop? Plus, a robot car sounds like just the thing to transport sci-fi creatures that have artificial intelligence, unlimited working hours, and no need for health insurance beyond the occasional reboot.

On to autonomous. I liked this one until I looked up the official definition of autonomous and found that it means “independent,” “operating according to its own laws,” or “not governed by outside forces.” Do I have to mention the hefty DMV manual filled with rules a potential driver is supposed to know before receiving a license?

Not that licensees actually obey those rules. In fact, in tests of driverless, self-driving, robotic, or autonomous (pick your favorite label) cars, accidents occurred for the most human of reasons. Other vehicles – those with a human in charge – didn’t follow the rules. Hardly any came to a complete stop at a stop sign, for example. Non-human operated vehicles sat indefinitely, waiting with machine patience, for their chance to cross the intersection. I’d nominate that last term but somehow, somewhere (and probably in New York City) a German Shepherd is tooling along behind the wheel while its human companion considers the pros and cons of doggy daycare and leaves the driving to the canine.

If you have any suggestions for this automotive achievement, let me know. I’m off to walk the streets of Manhattan, self-walking and semi-autonomously. I’ll let you know if I run across any driverless cars, or if any run across me.

Don’t blame me!

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Harry Truman kept a sign on his desk in the Oval Office declaring that “the buck stops here.” Harry’s acknowledgement of responsibility is, unfortunately, not trending right now. Instead, blame-shifting is on the rise. Take a look at this sign, taped to the door of a major telecommunications company:

Management’s to blame

It’s worth noting that in front of the door is a single, short step. We’re not talking stoop here, or terrace, or anything other than the standard dirty, cracked, Manhattan sidewalk and what might reasonably be termed a ledge.

Some questions arise:

(1) Given the exorbitant rates for cellphone service, can’t the company afford a professionally printed sign? The morning I snapped this photo the paper was taped flat, but by the afternoon, the edges had curled up. Should I worry about network maintenance if the company can’t pay for a real sign?

(2) Has the property management been walking in and out of the building every day, tripping over passersby who sat on the ledge – er, I mean step? This building is near my home, and I’ve seen people sitting in front of it only once. On folding chairs. Striking workers tired of picketing, they weren’t barbecuing, just passing around sandwiches, listening to music, and generally having a fine old time. When the strike ended, everyone went away. Why the sign? Fear of copycat tailgating?

(3) Who is property management? The building, a giant windowless pile of brick, has been a telephone-company outpost since the dial-up era. Yet the sign appears to deflect responsibility to a nameless management. Maybe the person who printed the sign wanted backup authority? It’s not just me, a lowly secretary, who forbids you a seat. It’s them. Pay attention. Or should I say, ***ATTENTION***?

This don’t-blame-me sign is one example of a common type:

The manufacturer’s to blame!

The sign implies that you pay what the manufacturer demands, and not a penny more. The store owner takes no profit. The rent is a charitable contribution, as are the utilities and staff salaries. Right? Or, perhaps the store has ceded its pricing authority to the manufacturer, who applies an algorithm that includes the store’s expenses? Either way, it’s don’t blame me.

A variation on this theme is “lowest prices allowed by law.” I see this phrase on signs atop cigarette racks. Does this statement mean that the store gives you the smokes for free, except for taxes it merrily sends along to the state, city, or wherever? Doubtful.

That’s it for now. If you want more examples, you’re out of luck. I don’t write the signs. I just post what appears. Don’t blame me.

Do you have insurances?

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Lately, every time someone mentions a problem with a doctor, prescription, or what physicians call procedures (which are operations to the rest of us), everyone nods and cites Obamacare as the cause. (I have no idea whether they’re right.)

I’m therefore assuming that this problem too will be blamed on the Affordable Care Act:

Insurance policies?

Do you have health insurances? This physical therapy office accepts them, or I should say it, because insurance has traditionally been correct only as a singular form. Following that rule, the sign should say health insurance plans or types of health insurance. However, the word may be changing to reflect the comparisons we all have to make these days between one health insurance plan and another. Recently I’ve seen several signs advertising clinics that accept many insurances or most insurances. Language evolves, and anyone who doesn’t like the direction of its evolution can always blame this expression on Obamacare (or politicians, who are always an easy and generally a justified target).

Here’s another plural issue, this time with a singular form (menu) in a spot where a plural makes more sense:

No menu?

For non-New Yorkers, I should explain that the many restaurants delivering takeout food like to slip menus (plural) under the front doors of apartment buildings, hoping that hungry citizens returning from work will pick one up and order dinner from it. More likely, of course, is that a hungry citizen will step on a menu and do a floppy-armed dance maneuver to recover balance – and then retrieve the offending piece of paper and order dinner from it. Building superintendents and doormen wage war on menu-distributors and the mess they generate. This sign is one tactic, probably ineffective and definitely grammatically incorrect. It is, however, polite.

One more plural, with a twist:

Refiles?

The interesting part of this sign, on a phone store, is the third item: “Prepaid Refiles.” I don’t usually mock spelling, but this one was too tempting. Can’t you picture the clerk, file in hand, sawing away at your phone’s rough edges? Or placing the phone in a file marked “way too many photos” instead of “judicious use of photo capacity”? I’m assuming the sign-writer intended to say “Refills,” but perhaps not. I’m a novice in the phone world. In fact, when I go into a store to “refile” my device, the clerk generally laughs at its antiquity. So if there’s another meaning, please let me know.

Disclaimer: Part of this post originally appeared as a separate page under the category, “Signs of the City,” which I am gradually dismantling.

Time to get to sea

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The narrator of Moby Dick explains that when he feels the urge to walk, “methodically knocking people’s hats off,” it is “time to get to sea.” I know exactly how he feels, because late August in New York has turned me into an even grumpier grammarian than usual.

Two signs illustrate my point. Here’s the first:

What’s with the “pre”?

I’ve become accustomed to reading ads for a “One Day Sale!” that begins on Friday and ends on Sunday, not to mention “pre-Christmas sales” that start on December 26th and last until the following Christmas Eve. But I barely managed not to rip this sign off the window of a store selling housewares and linens. Why should I shop during a pre sale? (And what happened to the hyphen?) I imagine two possible situations: (1) Buy this blanket today, pre sale, for $50. Tomorrow the same blanket costs $30. (2) The pre sale price of the blanket is $30. Once you buy it, though, you owe the store $50. That’s the price at the time of sale.

I couldn’t resist either scenario, so I bought a silk flower during the pre sale. The price tag read $5.99. The sign over the flower display read “Up to Half Off!” The clerk charged me $1.95. Do the math, as I did, and you’ll discover why a popular t-shirt declares “5 out of 4 people don’t understand fractions.”

One more, on a Manhattan outpost of a major wireless network:

Where?

I won’t comment on the fact that the sign unwisely separates Mexico from Latin America, even though Mexico is, in fact, part of Latin America. Instead, I’ll focus on what’s FREE. As written, the sign implies that the caller has to be in Mexico & Latin America to talk and text without charge. Okay, many New Yorkers travel south, so perhaps the sign means that with this wireless plan, they can take their phones and communicate without paying a cent (or a peso or a boliviano or a colon or a something else). Also possible: New Yorkers can call or text people in Mexico & Latin America from New York – or from somewhere else. I didn’t go into this store, so I can’t give you a definitive answer.

See what I mean about grumpy? If you have a boat I can borrow, please let me know. It’s time to get to sea.

Grammarian in the City

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

NIMS and NOMS

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And in confusion . . .

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What’s Up?

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