Tag Archives: English idioms

A Tiny Little Post

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Why are writers so drawn to repetition? Is it the worry that one word won’t get the meaning across? (Maybe that’s why “tense and nervous” is such a popular expression!) Granted, repetition can be beautifully emphatic and reassuring, but these signs go a little too far.

Here’s one I spotted on a restroom door:

I had intended to close door open before reading this sign, but I was persuaded to close door shut instead.

This notice frequently pops up when I’m scrolling through articles classified as “breaking news”:

New updates are so much better than old updates, don’t you think?

Now for a hotel ad:

What’s the difference between a short 5 minute walk and a long 5 minute walk? I’d like Einstein to weigh in on the relativity aspect, but he’s not available. Any physicist reading this post is welcome to offer an explanation.

This is the finish end of my post. Bye-bye.

Assumptions

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I can’t be sure who sponsored, created, posted, or, in one instance, chalked these signs. I can only tell you what I assume. The first arrived via my friend Constance:

Cuisine by Emily Bronte? After she finished writing Wuthering Heights?

I spotted this one on First Avenue:

I assume this declaration comes from Rene Magritte, who needed a change after painting this:

The next one was posted on the window of a nearly empty store:

As you see, the Creative Preposition Society is taking its business OT a new location. Or maybe UP OT?

My friend Deborah found this one:

Spa amenities provided by the Passive-Aggressive Association, don’t you think?

I assume you spot some odd signs, too. Please take a moment to send them to me at grammarianinthecity@outlook.com.

What’s For Lunch?

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In my neighborhood, just about every store that isn’t a nail salon is a restaurant. Thus it’s not surprising that enterprising food purveyors do whatever they can to entice customers, including displaying these signs:

The price of one of these LUNCH SPECIALS ($15) isn’t unreasonable in New York City, especially considering that they’re offering WOODFIRED SANDWICHES, which are . . . well, I don’t know what they are. Bread charred by burning branches? Unemployed victims of forest downsizing?

My friend Catherine sent this one:

I had no opportunity to speak with the SANDWITCH, who I assume was selling a consultation lasting as long as it takes to drink a cup of FREE COFFEE. If I had, I would have asked about the accuracy of the spells in Harry Potter as well as the rationale for enclosing FREE COFFEE in quotation marks. Perhaps the brew isn’t actually COFFEE?

I should note that the prices listed below have increased since I snapped the photo:

Inflation or not, who could resist an offer to DESIGNED YOUR OWN SALAD? Also, 16 oz (ounces) equals one pound. Thus the restaurant is offering a one-, two-, or three-pound salad, each with 1 meat and unlimited vege. I must ask: Who has room for much (many?) vege after eating three pounds of DESIGNED SALAD?

Last one:

If Mom gets Fri, who gets all the other days? I’m a Mom, but I prefer Tuesdays. Can non-Moms get the LUNCH Special on Fri?

My advice is to choose a restaurant carefully, eat well, and in the spirit of today’s MLK holiday, find a way to work for a more just world.

Dates

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I keep both an electronic and a paper calendar. That’s a bad system, because I sometimes forget to enter an event on one of them and commit myself to existing in two places at the same time. Thus I’m sympathetic to anyone who messes up a schedule — within limits. These signs definitely do NOT fall within those limits.

Whoever wrote this sign didn’t memorize the “Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November” jingle that I learned in elementary school.

Note to self (on both calendars): Avoid this street every September 31st.

This sign, posted in London, has a similar problem:

I thought the longest night of the year was December 21st, the winter solstice, but apparently it’s 29 Septermeber, which has 3 nights tucked into one date. Or perhaps the road closing begins on 29 Septermeber and lasts until Septermeber 31?

Moving from days to weeks:

There may be Only One NYC RESTAURANT WEEK because that week lasts for a very long time.

This advertisement, which I found in a catalog, stumps me:

I can’t make the numbers add up. From 1983 to 2023, I count 40 YEARS. So far, so good. But how does that connect to aptly named 1963 — a date plastered on all the clothing? Maybe the jackets are half as large as they should be (half of the 40-year span of A WINDPROOF, WATERPROOF LEGEND)? Theories welcome, as long as you send them in before the deadline, which is next September (Septermeber) 31st.

Job Hunting

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Looking for work? Perhaps one of the jobs mentioned in these signs is for you. This one, for example:

I’ve never met any Costumers, if that word refers to professionals who sew outfits that turn you into someone or something else. I have met a lot of people wearing costumes. Do they count as costumers? Both groups, I imagine, would appreciate the opportunity to have their very own restroom, though it might be a bit crowded around Halloween.

Maybe you’d like a job in this grocery store:

What does a miner mine in a supermarket? Or Is the store participating in the construction (actually, constrction, as the sign spells it) of miners? I don’t want a job here, but I would like one of those metal hats with a lamp attached. (If any costumers are reading this, please get in touch.)

I don’t want to neglect nonhuman readers. (Chat GPT, this may be of interest to you!) Here’s a caption from a recent New York Times article:

The print is small, so I’ll retype the caption here: “Machines could help ease a caregiving crisis in Italy, where many prefer to live with their aging relatives.” I wonder which aging relatives the machines prefer to live with: eight-track tape players? The Italian equivalent of Radio Shack computers? A 1910 Alfa Romeo? Not to get too English-teachery, but pronouns do need antecedents, and many is no exception.

This one is straightforward. Sexist, but straightforward:

Whether you’re spending time with machine families or humans (costumers, miners, pizza people), I hope you enjoyed this post. And if you didn’t, we apologies!

Your Guess Is as Good as Mine

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What’s clear in a writer’s head is not necessarily clear in readers’ minds. This truth I learned the hard way during my first year of teaching, when I directed students to “answer true or false” on a pop quiz. Not a few wrote true or false after every question. With this episode in mind, I sympathize with these sign writers. No doubt they thought their meaning was obvious. It isn’t.

First up is this sign, which I spotted in a restaurant window:

I won’t even speculate about the meaning of dishrealated. I’d rather focus on intolerance issue. If the chefs indeed have a solution for intolerance, I hope they share the recipe. The world needs as many servings as possible, STAT.

The world might need this product, too:

Um . . . I know the product has SEED in it, with Detox is the goal. The words in the green band mean . . . well, I don’t know what they mean! Frankly, I find this sign a little scary.

One last puzzle:

Are those quotation marks equivalent to a wink and a nod signalling that “officially there’s NO PARKING but you can park here anyway”? Or is the writer attempting to emphasize NO? And where does HAZARD fit in? Is there NO PARKING HAZARD?

Because your guesses are as good as mine, I hope you’ll share them with me in the comments.

Happy In(ter)dependence Day

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Today Americans celebrate Independence Day. Barbecues aren’t an option in my dense, cement-covered portion of New York City, and I generally go to sleep around the time Macy’s sets off its first firework. Lacking traditional outlets, this year I’m dedicating my holiday to grammar. (Do I know how to have a good time or what?)

An obscure grammar rule holds that collective nouns (jury, class, committee, etc.) are singular when everyone in the group is united in performing the same action (The drama class meets every Wednesday) and plural when the group is divided or acting individually (The cast are writing “Best Actor” acceptance speeches). This convention is followed more often in the Britain than in the US. Americans are more likely to employ a singular verb (The cast is writing) than pair a collective noun with a plural verb. To American ears, “the cast are” just sounds wrong.

Lately I’ve been wondering if this usage mirrors an ideal embedded in the fundamental fabric of the country — in its very name, which declares that individual entities (States) are United. The same ideal appears in America’s self-definition (melting pot) and motto (E Pluribus Unum — “Out of many, one“). The preamble to the Constitution begins “We the people,” emphasizing unity.

Of course, the people granting themselves rights in the Constitution excluded an awful lot of Americans. In the preamble, they acknowledged that their work was flawed, declaring that they were striving for a Union that was more perfect — not actually perfect. And despite their shortcomings, the Founders’ goals were worthy: “to establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”

With all this in mind, I suggest that instead of focusing on the Declaration of Independence this July 4th, we celebrate the preamble to the United States Constitution. At the very least, its minimal length (52 words) allows more time for the barbecue-inclined. At best, the preamble may prompt us to rededicate ourselves to interdependence, to the notion that what’s good for all of us is good for each of us. Perhaps then this divisive era will become less so, and pairing a singular verb with the collective noun, American citizenry, will be both accurate and grammatically correct. Happy July 4th!

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.

Splitting Hairs

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As the world crumbles — for indeed, that seems to be the only appropriate description of current events — I hope you’ll enjoy distracting yourself for a few moments with these signs. The first arrived courtesy of my friend Ellie:

A few questions: what happens to boys with long hair? Do people with short hair roam free? Who’s being thanked, and for what?

Moving on to facial hair:

BESPOKE, according to the dictionary, means “made for a particular customer.” Thus BESPOKE is the opposite of mass-produced. I admit I don’t know much about makeup, but isn’t BROW work inherently individual (i.e. BESPOKE)? Is there a production line somewhere fabricating BROWS?

Staying on the face:

I waited more than a year to take this photo without scaffolding blocking the sign, but the way things are going, the construction project will probably last longer than the shop. My question: do amateurs rent stores for EYELASH EXTENSION? Is there an accrediting body to attain PROFESSIONAL status?

Last one, spotted during a trip to London in simpler times:

How does one EDIT HAIR? By deleting an unnecessary strand? Inserting a barrette? Rewording the hair’s thesis statement?

My objections to these signs are petty, the very definition of “splitting hairs.” Nevertheless, if you come up with answers to any of the questions I’ve posed — or to any of the problems plaguing the world — please feel free to post a comment.

Twenty Something

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Regarding the title of this post: “Twenty,” because that’s the number trending on signs around town. “Something,” because the message of each of these signs means something. I just don’t know what. Take this sign (please, please take it away):

I like a discount as much as the next person, but I’m a little hesitant to buy a “damaged boxes item.” And no, there was nothing under or near the sign to give me context. No damaged boxes, no item.

Here I know what they’re selling, sort of, but there’s still a problem:

Actually, several problems. Once you say “Coca-Cola,” doesn’t that narrow things down, making “beverage” redundant? Are there Coca-Cola sandwiches? Cookies? (Forget I asked. I don’t want to know.) My real issue is with “200Z,” which looks like a serial number. Given the nearby illustration of more sugary beverage than anyone should ever drink, I’m assuming that “200Z” needs a space, as in “20 OZ,” the abbreviated form of “20 ounces.”  I’m not sure whether the pizza crust and sauce under the pair of cheese slices are included in the $5.95 price, but at least the store inserted the hyphen correctly.

I saved the best (actually the worst) for last:

If you hope to meet a regular customer, your odds are 4 out of 5, I guess, because  “today” has “20% new clients.” Actually, new “client’s.” I was tempted to erase the hyphen with my sleeve, but I can’t spend all day deleting apostrophes from NYC signs. I have better things to do, like figure out what the shop offers. The part I glimpsed through the window left me clueless. Besides, the sign may be referring to something belonging to the 20%, in which case the possessive is appropriate.  The only problem, aside from the fact that there’s no indication of what’s possessed, is that the apostrophe should appear after the letter S (the plural form), because “20%” implies more than one person. They can’t chop up one person!  I think at least twenty-something percent of us can agree on that point.