Tag Archives: grammar

Quality Time

How do you judge the quality of something you’re purchasing? By listening to friends’ recommendations, checking online reviews, reading tea leaves? Perhaps you place your trust in signs — not omens, but actual signs, such as this one:

This may be the workplace of a superb tailor, but I object to the phrase one of the best. What does that mean, exactly? One of the best on the block? (That’s likely, as it’s the only tailor on the block.) One of the best in the neighborhood? There might be some argument about that. In the country? The world? The universe? (Hey, if there can be a “Miss Universe,” there can be a “Best Tailor in the Universe,” too.) However vague the claim may be, the store has guaranteed it. It would be interesting to see a dissatisfied customer try to collect!

I had to check the dictionary for this next statement of quality, painted on the side of a van. I usually hide company names when I post signs, but in this case, the name is part of the point.

WE STAND UP TO OUR NAME! When I read this sentence, I pictured someone from the High Definition Cooling Company with hands on hips, defiantly facing the name because . . . well, what does a name have to do to motivate workers to stand up to it? Unable to think of a plausible scenario, I turned to the Oxford English Dictionary for other definitions of stand up to. I found “remain firm in the face of” (stood up to a strong wind), “pass a test” (stood up to close examination), and “rise for a purpose” (stood up to dance). I confess I can’t make any of these definitions work.

Nor do I know what this sign means:

Returning to the OED, I read that uncompromising means “not willing to seek compromise,” “stiff,” “stubborn,” and “unbending.” Okay, the signwriter is touting a style and quality that will not change. But what sort of style and quality does the product have? If it’s an ugly style or a poor quality, most people would prefer a little compromise. I would, and in that spirit, I welcome alternative interpretations of these signs and of the style and quality of this post.

Quiz Time

Why? Such a simple question. Unfortunately, the answer may be anything but, especially when it comes to signs, as in “why did they write that, in that way?”

My friend Amy sent this photo:

There’s some punctuation missing from the sentence beginning with wildlife. A comma after area would directly address wildlife, telling them to be cautious. That interpretation gives rise to two questions: (1) Aren’t wildlife instinctively cautious? and (2) Can wildlife read? Another possibility is that a colon went AWOL from its spot following area. Reinsert it and the sentence becomes a command to be cautious, addressed to whoever is supposed to STAY OUT. That’s more logical but probably ineffective, because some forms of wildlife (the human variety) are capable of interpreting a simple prohibition as a dare. Side point: can somebody please explain the rationale behind the capital-letter and period distribution?

I spotted this sign in a botanical garden on the east bank of the Hudson River:

The Shop is stocked with unusual items, and I’m always interested in checking out a sale. I didn’t buy anything during my visit, though, because I spent my time wondering why at is italicized. Also, why at? What’s wrong with The Shop in Wave Hill or The Shop of Wave Hill? Even The Shop for Wave Hill makes sense, as this is a nonprofit.

My friend Jacqueline found this message in a fortune cookie she cracked open after dinner at (unitalicized!) our favorite Chinese restaurant:

She pointed out that what is right and what you should do are generally supposed to be the same thing. Right?

I welcome your theories about (or for, on, or even at) these signs.

Surprise!

When I snap photos of signs, I am frequently amused and often puzzled. Seldom am I surprised, but occasionally . . . well, take a look.

I saw this sign at a construction site in Seattle, where on average it rains 149 days a year and where the news media keep headlines like “Heavy Rains Bring Floods” ready to roll:

Even though Seattle has not escaped climate change (no place has), it’s still startling to think that someone needs to rent rain there. Also, quick question: if you rent rain, how do you return it when the lease is up?

This sign left me dumbfounded:

There may be a connection between preschool children and beloved dog/dogs, but I’m not seeing it. Thoughts, anyone?

Bureaucracies are generally boring, but Seattle’s Department of Construction delivered this surprise:

I don’t know about you, but I still don’t have an answer to the question What is it? Whatever it may be, don’t look there for units or parking.

Last one, courtesy of my friend Barry:

I can understand banning smoking, but poets? True, the average poet makes, as Calvin Trillin once remarked, “in the high two figures,” but that situation would seem to be covered by an income minimum, not an art form. Maybe someone walked out of English class with Post Traumatic Sonnet Disorder?

If you run across any surprising signs, please feel free to let me know.

Proof

The signs in this post are proof (noun) that you should always proof (verb) your writing. If you don’t, well, read on to see some possible consequences.

My friend Barry sent me this headline:

Oh, the irony! Also the confusion, because the Spelling Bee might be on Thursday if the letter h went astray or on Tuesday if the letter r was mistakenly inserted in place of an e. Perhaps this year’s champ can be enlisted to proofread next year’s notice.

Also sent by Barry is this portion of a law proposed by state legislators:

The politicians crafting this sentence telling teachers how to teach should have spent a little more time on their own homework. Then perhaps they’d know that the word they were looking for is tenets, not tenants. Again, the irony.

This one, which my friend Mary sent, is fun:

I don’t own a car, but if I did, I’d certainly obey this sign and DRIVE WITH CAKE.

Last but not least:

Perhaps the council snatched an r from the Spelling Bee headline and grabbed an extra e from somewhere else?

The point of all these examples: rememberer two proffread!

The Trouble with D

At first glance, D seems like a simple letter. It’s hard to mispronounce and easy to write, so long as you remember where the lower-case letter bulges and don’t draw a “Happy Webbing” card for a bride and groom, as a child I know once did. But deciding when and where to insert the letter D is anything but simple, judging from signs I see around the city. I posted examples of problematic D signs in two previous posts (Got a D? | Grammarian in the City and Grade D+ | Grammarian in the City). A recent spate of signs mishandling this letter prompts me to revisit the issue.

Here’s an example I saw at an arts venue:

Advanced? Are we talking tickets with doctorates? Stubs with evolved thinking?

Another gem, courtesy of my friend Catherine:

Ignore the misspelling of appreciated, if you can, and focus on the d. If the business owners appreciated (or appriciated) the business, what do they do now — take the business for granted?

This one comes from my friend Wendy:

Further noticed sounds like a temper tantrum: until we get more attention and are further noticed, we’ll be closed.

This sign, sent by my friend Ruth, lacks the letter d:

Selective? Hm..m. Does the store owner say, I’ll let you buy this at a discount but the guy behind you has to pay full price”? Or maybe the selective items refuse to be bought by customers who are not up to the items’ high standards? Substituting selected for selective solves the problem.

I wished you a happy 2022. Oops — make that wish. And I really do!

A Rough Road

When I snapped this photo a couple of years ago, I had no idea how accurate its message would be, nor how long it would remain relevant:

Rough indeed. As Covid-19 turns toddler age, we’re all fraying at the edges. And it shows! Clarity has turned to ambiguity and often dipped into downright incomprehensibility, as in this headline from the Seattle Times:

I’m happy to report that later editions of the paper added an H to pus. I am even happier to confirm that there is no pus in the hepatitis A vaccine — or any other vaccine, for that matter.

Covid has also melted our sense of time:

An hour that lasts from 12:00 PM – 10:00 PM — that’s 600 minutes! I do hope employees aren’t paid an hourly wage. Sidepoint: Why not say Every Day instead of Monday – Sunday?

One last thought, about a photo my friend Sean sent me:

Please DON’T light up Christmas with a can of fuel. The road is rough enough already. Instead, stay safe. See you in the new year!

Number Games

Innumeracy — the mathematical equivalent of illiteracy — is on full display in signs I’ve seen around New York in the last couple of years. Take a look at these:

Notice that Off-Broadway Week is 14 days long and Muji Week runs for 32 days. That’s good news for ticket-buyers and shoppers, but potentially bad news for actors, crew, and other employees. I hope they get paid by the hour, not by the week.

Here’s a sign I spotted on the First Avenue bus:

A note to non-New Yorkers: Manhattan streets are laid out on a numbered grid. The numbers get larger as you travel uptown and smaller as you travel downtown. The photo is a bit fuzzy (snapped on a moving vehicle) so I’ll type out the relevant parts: The stops are 14th Street, 23rd, 34th, 29th, and 42nd. Loopy route or miscalculation? Judging from the ride I took, I can affirm that the latter description, unlike the sign, is correct.

Before you go, check your numeracy by solving a math problem based on this sign:

If Alex and Sasha polish off six, 8 FL OZ servings of this beverage, how many calories does each ingest if Sasha drinks twice as much as Alex?

This is the spot where I should place the answer, upside down so you’re not tempted to peek. That’s beyond my Word Press skills, so I’ll leave you hanging. Post your answer in a comment, and I’ll let you know whether it’s correct. If you have trouble solving the problem, meet me on the uptown bus, somewhere between 34th and 29th Street, and I’ll tell you the answer.

Obviously! Or Not.

On some of my excursions around New York City, I find signs that are stunningly obvious, the equivalent of a message I once saw on a book of matches: “Warning — may cause fire.” Here’s one such sign:

Does the owner think anyone’s going to pay $26.00 for amateur haircuts & shaves? Professional would seem to be self-evident, given that someone is paying rent, utilities, and so forth to hang out inside and tend to customers’ tresses in exchange for money.

Also obvious is this sign I saw in Midtown:

If you were searching for a satellite, where else would you look? Under the sidewalk grate? Not obvious is what’s holding the satellite. A giant leash? A Star Trek magnetic field? Also, why are they holding it? Send the satellite into orbit, already! Despite the pandemic, rents in New York City are high, and Space is free.

Also unclear is the meaning of this message, which I glimpsed on the side of a van belonging to a cleaning service:

I have always assumed that every doorman in my building showers, with perhaps an occasional bath as a change of pace. That a doorman might opt for dry cleaning never even entered my mind. Now that the thought is there, though, I wonder whether the dry cleaning ticket is pinned or taped on, and to which body part. Actually, on further reflection, I’d rather not know.

One more puzzler, to balance out the pair of obvious signs earlier in this post:

The bar looks old, so I’m not questioning the age of the place but rather the quotation marks around 100, which are most commonly used to indicate a direct quotation. That doesn’t seem likely here. Nor is it likely that the marks signal doubt about the accuracy of the information enclosed by quotation marks, as in We listened to Henry’s “singing” until our eardrums ruptured. The dates show 100 years (2021 1921 = 100). So why quotation marks?

Obviously, I invite you to send me your theories.

Food For Thought

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!

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!