I think and also hope that what these signwriters think they said is different from what actually landed on the page. Or screen. Or metal sheet. Wherever! Take a look at this one, courtesy of my friend Don:
Someone killed 3 Pedestrians for my own Safety? Please let that not be true. Also, what will Repeat to cross other side? Homicide? And don’t get me started on the green man’s activity.
Another, which I spotted while obsessively checking apartment listings in my building to find out who’s moving:
I’m wondering which hairdresser the apartment owner went to for Coiffured Ceilings. I have to admit that my own ceilings have never been cut, dyed, or curled. However, they are coffered by support beams. Does that make me stylish enough?
Probably not. I do sometimes shop at a fancy grocery, where the food is better than the accuracy of the “best if bought by” date:
True, time is relative and certain portions of 2020 have seemed endless, but September 31st? Nope. Well, maybe if there’s a recount . . .
We all know that 2020 presents a long list of dangerous situations, the pandemic being just one. But I haven’t read much about Food Danger: not what you eat, but the danger of being eaten. Take a look:
I’m not attending any event offering entree choices of beef, pork, or child. I wonder how many people took the last line seriously and listed“human flesh” as a dietary restriction.
When I couple the card above with the sign below, I fear cannibalism is becoming a trend:
Call me picky, but I don’t want a restaurant to serve me, as in serve me on a plate, or to serve anyone else, for that matter. Better to take care of each other! With that in mind, perhaps we should veto this plan:
I must admit that the above signs seem attuned to the mood of this awful year. Maybe the problem stems from too much disinfectant:
Please don’t satanize anything (or anyone, no matter how tempting). Do stay safe, and keep those around you as safe as possible, too.
Before autocorrect, I’d sometimes proofread my work and find hte. “C’mon, computer,” I’d think in exasperation. “You know I meant the!” Autocorrect has brought its own problems, of course, but it certainly would improve these mangled expressions:
I can think of a lot of reasons to swing open cell doors, but criminalizedonion relish isn’t one of them. Side point: Is Prime topside a real cut of beef?
Next is a sentence a friend found in a concert announcement:
We’re excited to open the series with a performance featuring renounced vocalist. . . .
I’ve omitted the name of the renounced vocalist, who is innocent, I’m sure.The copywriters, on the other hand — let’s just say that if we weren’t already in pandemic lockdown, I’d recommend they serve detention.
Whoever wrote this should do serious time for Crimes Against Language:
The spelling mistakes don’t bother me. If I can type hte, I can forgive becarse and unassemboed. Ditto for the odd capitalization and punctuation. What gets me is the last sentence. Is there really a correct way to cause a series of problems? Extending the point, is there an incorrect way? Just thinking about this is enough to make the screws loose.
Keep your screws tight, try not to renounce anyone, and don’t criminalize condiments. And stay fsae. I mean safe. Thanks, Autocorrect.
Lately I find myself thinking of 2020 as a real-life version of Ghostbusters 2, the one with a bubbly river of pink goo that makes everyone snarl and fight. Reinforcing that feeling are some signs that have a markedly defensive tone. Here’s one:
Pardon the bars. I took this photo during an early morning walk, so the store was closed and the gates were down. Nevertheless, the implied dialogue was easy to imagine: “Whadda ya mean, out of business? Yeah, the laundry has been shut for a while, but we still do dry clean.”
In the same vein, from the same walk, but in the window of a different shop:
More gates, more imaginary rebuttal: “I don’t care what the clerk said. I’m the owner and we do press duvet cover, sheets, pillow cases. So there!”
Last one:
The supermarket attached to this announcement is undergoing renovation, so it makes sense to proclaim, “We are still open.” But I don’t get the but. That word generally signals a change in direction or an exception to a rule. I can’t build a logic bridge from pardon our appearance to we are still open with but. Can you? If so, please let me know.
While you’re thinking, get defensive: wash your hands, mask up, and social-distance. And please, go on the offensive: fight the pink goo. This awful year needs all the kindness we can muster.
A side effect of the pandemic is the flood of deliveries pouring into our homes — that is, pouring into our homes IF the package-deliverer figures out how to get them there. It’s not enough that these essential and surely underpaid workers have to deal with Covid while lifting heavy stuff. They also have to decipher signs like this one:
Why the quotation marks? Is it “we call it ‘door bell’ but it’s really an ejection button” or “that guy calls himself ‘Door Bell‘ because his real name is Mgkysdn”? Maybe door bell is meant to be a verb, what any package is supposed to do. I’m going with the last interpretation because picturing a package in the act of door-belling makes me smile.
Here’s another sign giving life to packages:
I removed the address to avoid embarrassing the sign-writer, who appears to think that packages will be eager to elope with the doorman.
Not every sign is bad:
I’m all for anything done graciously, a quality in short supply these days. And the fate of deliveries . . . graciously received appeals. It’s bound to be better than packages treated as this sign requests:
I hope no one’s in that yard, ever. Head bonks hurt! Plus, you end up writing a sign like this one:
Final thought for today: Wherever you or your packages land, I hope you’re safe and well.
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 turncash 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!
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 systemdesigned 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!
Podding up with my son’s family in Seattle, I’ve been thinking a lot about the language that has emerged during this dire period. Some terms I love: Quarantini, anyone? I’m also very fond of pod, a repurposed word now applied to the group you’ve chosen or been stuck with as quarantine-mates. I especially like its verb forms, “podding” and “podded.” Ditto for “pandemic,” as you probably guessed from the title of this post.
But not all pandemic vocabulary is helpful. My word-alarm rings when I see something like this package label:
This bit of literary nonexcellence describes a cloth mask, and was written, I imagine, with a translation program that lost its way, if it ever had a way. I’m assuming that carry is “wear” and, because the mask was folded in half, that divide the opposite side means “unfold.” Did the manufacturer really have to explain that? Would anyone wear a folded mask with both loops hanging over the same ear? (Don’t answer that. These days, the absurd seems all too possible.) Your guess is as good as mine when it comes to deciphering anti-external will stick dust power. I am similarly stumped by wash the poison. Both must have something to do with the virus, because in 2020 everything circles back to Corona. Pun intended.
Here’s a pre-pandemic sign that caters to the anxiety and ignorance far too often attached to physical well-being:
First there’s the phrase itself. I’m not a medical professional, but isn’t all health based on what’s going on at the cellular level? Can you have a disease or condition that doesn’t involve cells? Then there’s the location of the sign, the window of a spa. No offense to the hard-working employees, but I really don’t want anyone but a doctor to mess with my cells.
One more, also pre-pandemic but more important now than ever:
This is what we all have to do to get through to the other side of our 2020 nightmare: PULL a little harder. Remember that! Also, wash away the poison once a day, and look for kindness, compassion, and duty within yourself, as far down as your cellular level.
This post is entitled “Repurposing” because I’ve dug up some photos I posted a long time ago and added Covid-pertinent commentary. (It’s “Part 2” because I did the same thing last week.) Before I begin, though, I offer sincere gratitude to the heroes who leave home each day to tend to the sick, staff the markets, deliver the packages, and keep the city running.
Now, to those of us who have the privilege of protecting ourselves by sheltering in place: How many weeks has it been? I’ve lost count, which is why it’s been long enough to need this:
Check all that apply: (a) grumpy (b) annoyed (c) exasperated (d) nuclear meltdown imminent
Self-checked? Now select a remedy. For the grumpy:
Caution: Avoid serving to significant others. May be habit-forming.
Annoyed at your isolate-mates? Try this:
A little blurry — like most of us these days.
No matter how much your offspring are getting on your nerves, don’t give in to this:
Unless of course the arrow points to “silent treatment rooms.”
As for me, I’m grateful to be safe and fervently hoping you are safe as well.
With all that’s going on, it’s time for a little silliness. New York City sign-writers are happy to oblige, albeit unknowingly. Here’s one from a coffee shop:
The right side is blurred because of the coat-to-chalk effect, so I’ll retype the message here: “Not only was Aretha Franklin the first woman to be inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, she was the first woman, period.” One question: Did Adam give her R-E-S-P-E-C-T?
Onward, to an art store:
I’m not “prude” either, but I am a grammarian, and my preference for “prudish” is not “just highly selective.”
Last, an all-too-accurate sign:
We are indeed in a “mean time.” Things will eventually improve, but in the meantime, laugh as much as you can. Then wash your hands.
