Tag Archives: grammar

Food For Thought

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Grammar has a bad reputation, which it sometimes deserves, because many grammar rules are just conventions. You wouldn’t misunderstand this sentence if I deleted the apostrophe, would you? But some rules, such as those governing the placement of descriptions, serve a real purpose. That purpose is clarity, which this label lacks:

There’s no cat or chicken in my New York City apartment, so I am clueless about the nature of the product in this photo, which my friend Catherine sent me. So help me out here, cat/chicken fans: Is this FOR or FROM a chicken that lives indoors? Can an indoor cat eat outdoor chicken? Side point: Does the designation kittens to adults mean that this product is intended only for the feline equivalent of a teenager?

The next photo comes from my friend Mary:

I’ve watched Ray’s show and feel confident that she’s neither a cannibal nor a dog killer. Thus I’m not asking law enforcement to find out whether there are any missing Ray relatives, and I won’t petition the SPCA to check on the dog, who appears uncooked and healthy in this photo. However, I wouldn’t mind turning the headline writer over to the grammar police on a first-degree, misplaced-modifier charge.

I also recommend that law enforcement investigate this business, a restaurant in Midtown I glimpsed through a bus window. I was so surprised by the sign that I hopped off at the next stop and walked ten blocks back to double-check:

Pharmaceutical catering? Huh. What exactly is on the menu? Have these caterers given a whole new meaning to “food for thought”? Has the Food and Drug Administration approved the menu? Should the Drug Enforcement Agency get involved?

All this talk of food has given me an appetite. As I tuck into my indoor, completely legal, non-psychoactive lunch, I wish you bon appetit with yours.

Danger!

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We live in dangerous times. In addition to the pandemic, what used to be once-in-a-century weather catastrophes now take place every month or so. But danger comes from more than climate change and viruses, as these signs make clear. First up, a notice affixed to the fence around a motel pool, photographed by my friend Kim:

I can deal with children who splash water all over everyone. I don’t mind an occasional collision with someone who swims laps faster than I do. But if the Carnivorous can’t control themselves in the pool, I’m out of there. Fellow swimmers should not be dinner.

Nor should employees. Jeff sent this photo of a burger restaurant’s sign:

I don’t think minimum wage, or even much more than minimum wage, compensates new hires properly if they have to hop onto the grill or run themselves through a grinder. I prefer a secret ingredient that’s free of human DNA, don’t you?

From Sean:

The image is a bit small, so I’ve retyped the message here: Citizen Disposal Facility. I wonder if that’s where you end up if you don’t pay your taxes in the County of Fairfax?

Also from Sean, an appropriate response to the above sign:

I should probably conclude this post with a disclaimer in order to forestall the spread of cannibalism stories on social media, which would inevitably give rise to anti-cannibalism protests and then to anti-anti-canibalism protests by those who want the freedom to snack on their own elbows. The last two signs come from garbage dumps. The Country of Fairfax opens its facility to citizens who need a place for refuse. The last sign explains how to package refuse (noun, accent on the first syllable, not a verb (accent on the second syllable).

Cannibalism isn’t on the rise, as far as I know, but misinformation is. That’s the real danger these days. Stay safe!

Time to Eat

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We all like to eat, right? And most of us like to eat right. We do our best to select nutritious and delicious food that doesn’t bust the budget. But finding such food isn’t always easy. Indeed, sometimes figuring out exactly what you’re buying can be problematic. Take a look at this item, which my friend Sean spotted:

What is it with the canine references? A couple of posts ago I showed you a sign indicating a “large bread dog park.” Now someone’s putting pastrami on Snoopy! This label is also evidence of (in my opinion) a culinary crime. Lettuce and pastrami shouldn’t go together on a beagle, a bagel, or anything else.

The next photo comes to you courtesy of last night’s dinner:

The meal was quite tasty, but I did wonder whose hands were involved with my salmon, and how. Handcrafted, my dictionary tells me, means “made skillfully by hand.” Unless my biological knowledge is faulty, salmon make salmon, and fish don’t have hands. Yes, I know the handcrafted part might refer to grilled. In that case I hope the hands wore heatproof mitts. Otherwise those dark stripes on the salmon were . . . well, let’s not go there. I ultimately decided that handcrafted is similar to artisanal (a label I have also seen applied to fish). Both mean “you’re paying too much.”

I did not buy this dessert, but I did wonder what the store was selling, and to whom:

Is this treat intended for an extremely small lover of chocolate? Or is the store informing the customer that the chocolate bits in the sundae are undersized? Maybe the sundae is smaller than the size the store usually sells. The whole thing can be resolved with punctuation: I favor a mini, chocolate-lover’s sundae. Actually, I favor a maxi sundae, but I shouldn’t indulge.

I hope this sign, like the previous one, has a punctuation problem, because if it doesn’t, someone better call the cops:

That’s it for today. Time to eat!

Punctuation Puzzles

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I live in New York City, so irony is my default tone. Thus I’m fairly sympathetic to “scare quotes,” the print version of “air quotes” — punctuation that writers insert to distance themselves from whatever’s inside the quotation marks. The problem is that sometimes readers can’t tell whether the quotation marks indicate a definition (as they do above), an exact rendition of someone else’s words, or an eyeroll. Take this sign, for example:

I’m not sure why NO appears inside quotation marks. If these are scare quotes, the signwriter is saying, “Cyclists, you are not supposed to park here, but [wink wink] you will anyway and I won’t stop you.” It’s also possible that the signwriter may be quoting someone: “Don’t blame me! The owner said NO.” Putting aside the punctuation issue for a moment, I still don’t grasp the intended meaning. Is the sign protecting cyclists (“There’s a HAZARD here for you!”)? Is it trying to safeguard pedestrians, who may trip over a parked bike? Keeping cars and bikes separate? Inviting cyclists to leave their bikes because there’s NO PARKING HAZARD? I can only speculate.

Nor can I determine the function of the quotation marks in this photo, sent by my friend Ellie:

Frankly, I have no idea why quotation marks appear in this sign. Nor do I know why there is an ellipsis (three dots) after flowers. Unfinished thought? An attempt to create suspense? I’d take a scalpel to this sign, excising two dots, both quotation marks, and one exclamation point. Then I’d use the scalpel to cut myself some flowers.

Another sign suffering from excess punctuation:

Here’s what I know for sure: the restaurant needs HELP in the KITCHEN. It also needs HELP in signwriting. The business is seeking a COOK and . . . well, I’m not sure who else. There may be two spots open, one for a DISHWASHER and another for a DELIVERY person. The forward slash in DISHWASHER/DELIVERY implies that one employee is supposed to wash a few pots and then dash out with a DELIVERY. Three exclamation points convey desperation, though perhaps not enough to raise the salary being offered to a potential COOK, DISHWASHER and DELIVERY person. PETER, if you see this post, please clarify. Readers’ theories also welcome!

May I Ask a Question?

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Four questions, actually, all simple, all based on photos from the past year. Free subscriptions to this blog to anyone who answers all the questions correctly. (For legal reasons, I should probably point out that subscriptions to this blog are always free.) Okay, here’s the first:

QUESTION 1: What did the deceased former Treasury secretaries call for?

Ready for number 2, which my friend Don sent?

QUESTION 2: Do employees check whether the kids really have gas before handing over free food? If so, how?

Moving on:

QUESTION 3: Can we ever trust Dovere’s pool report again?

Last one, which I admit is somewhat personal because I wrote the book on the left:

QUESTION 4: What logical thread unites these three items?

I am looking forward to your answers. Stay safe!

Precarious

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The world is precarious nowadays: danger seems to, and in most instances actually does, surround us. As a break from the deadly and serious, here are a few threats that may bring a smile and no damage whatsoever to anything other than the English language.

For the bad-breakup crowd:

For want of an apostrophe, a boy friend was lost. Well, turned into cash, which I’m pretty sure is illegal, no matter how toxic the relationship was. Side point: How do you turn cash into ca$h other than typographically? And why would you want to?

Although unemployment has risen sharply, I’m hoping no one is desperate enough to apply for this job:

Grilled man? I don’t even want to think about it.

And then there’s this placard*:

*Zero-star review from Marie-Antoinette and Thomas Cromwell.

As if we needed one more thing to worry about in 2020:

My recommendations: be kind to your ex-whatever, don’t barbecue yourself, watch the scissors, and stay off the sidewalk. Be safe!

How Do I Look?

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I’ve been Zooming around a lot lately. I’ve had virtual dinners with friends, virtual classes (on both sides of the virtual desk), virtual doctor visits, and some virtual interviews about my new book. (Yes, this is a shameless plug for 25 Great Sentences and How They Got That Way, which debuted this week.) What I haven’t had is the ability to ignore my appearance while Zooming. I suspect I’m not alone. In fact, I bet the first humans fretted over their skin and hair whenever they knelt to drink from a pond.

These New York City signs, snapped pre-pandemic, indicate a whole new level of obsession. First up, skin:

I admit that German Black Forest sounds authoritative, though why those ingredients should surpass, say, the Appalachians I could not explain. And what has to happen for something to be wild crafted? Is a deer or a bear involved? A squirrel? For me, the words that tip this sign into lunacy are the last three. Does anyone create a system designed not to work?

A little more skin:

Given the lack of hyphens, this shop may be offering a consultation about the camera you use to check your scalp. Or, the store may have its own special scalp camera. Either way: eww. Why would you want to stare at follicles and record the experience for posterity?

Now, hair. Here’s a message I agree with:

Keep each tress to yourself, please! It should be easy to avoid passing one, if you’re Zooming. Not so easy, but much more important: stay safe!

Huh?

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I’ve always believed that one challenge of writing is distinguishing between what’s in your head and what actually makes it into the world. You know what you’re trying to say (presumably), but your words don’t always say it. Thus your reader or listener is left with one question: “Huh?”

Consider this sentence from a local politician’s newsletter:

Another portion of the East River Esplanade collapsed despite securing more than $275 million as Co-Chair of the Taskforce with Congress . . .

Ungrateful Esplanade! It collapsed despite securing so much money, though perhaps it was unreasonable to ask an esplanade to serve as co-chair of a Taskforce. Also, I have to sympathize with the rubble pile: we’re all on the verge of falling apart these days.

Then there’s this statement on the website of an airline I frequently patronize:

We’ve instituted a workstation cleaning program for the check-in lobby counters and gate counters where the surfaces are wiped down with a disinfectant at a frequent cadence.

A cadence is a “musical beat,” “voice modulation,” or “horse’s gait.” It’s not a time interval, and it can’t be frequent. I can only hope the airline staff’s antiviral efforts are more effective than their communication skills.

Then there’s this sign, courtesy of my friend Sean, by way of his friend Tom:

Sadly, the incoherence of this red-and-blue message seems to be the norm these days, when an esplanade has a tantrum and a cleaning product a cadence. One message I hope is crystal clear: stay safe!

Chickening Out

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Every time I think a bit of rationality has invaded food ads (which occurs, I admit, never), I see a sign so loopy I have to laugh. And snap a photo:

How is a “whole whole chicken” different from a “whole chicken”? Is it “wholer”? Or is there something missing in the usual “whole chicken” that I should know about? Perhaps, in these hyperbolic days, we need to repeat something just to make it seem true. Sigh.

Here’s an even more disturbing sign:

Maybe this sign explains the previous one: Perhaps the “whole whole chicken” includes the brain, obliquely referred to here as the quality it confers, “smart.” The whole (whole whole) thing makes me shudder and sigh.

I think I’ll eat veggies tonight. How about you? Having trouble deciding? Try this:

No decisions, just a grab. Ideal, until you notice that it’s “our favorites,” not “your.” Sigh again.

Writing this post has made me hungry. I think I’ll grab my favorite snack, which is not chicken — not “whole,” not “whole whole,” and definitely not “smart.” Bon appetit!

For the New Year

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Pundits are splashing us with rivers of ink to emphasize how crucial 2020 will be in determining the future of, well, pretty much everything. I’m not a pundit, but I do have some thoughts on the new year.

This sign offers good advice, albeit ungrammatically:

With the intense emotion floating around, “defensive boxing” seems like a good skill to have. Will you “learn to boxing” in 2020? I probably won’t (too conflict-averse), but I will obey this sign’s orders:

This is no time, I think, for “sitting or standing on the barricades,” and not only because it’s easy to fall off. I’ve resolved to educate myself, decide which side of an issue I’m on, and cross barricades whenever I can. I may even storm a few, but peacefully.

Realistically, here’s the sign I know I’ll follow:

You, too, will “do what you’ve got to do, to get through it.” I mean, what choice do you have?

Happy New Year to all!