Category Archives: Now trending

Observing and all too often criticizing language trends

Got That?

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In this blog I often call attention to signs that omit essential information, thereby forcing readers to guess the intended meaning. These beauties have the opposite problem: desperate to be clear, they overexplain and complicate what should be a simple message. Here’s one I saw taped to a salon door:

I considered having my hair cut, but I couldn’t figure out how to get inside.

Here’s another sign, courtesy of my friend Don:

Note to potential customers: count heads before you enter this establishment. If it’s two, you’re fine, because that’s fewer than FIVE (3). If it’s three or four, enter at your own risk, because you’re in the gray area between the spelled-out number FIVE and the numeral (3). If there are five customers present, try again later, perhaps after snacking at this fast-food restaurant (photo supplied by my friend Jesse):

I don’t mind splitting a burger, but I do mind splitting myself to order a burger. I prefer to use just one lane, not both, when I’m selecting a meal.

As a belated celebration of Valentine’s Day, I can’t resist including this sign:

I get what the sign is saying. What baffles me is the intended market. Are there enough couples wandering around Manhattan, wondering how to elope? How many walk-ins does this store get? My guess: FIVE (3) a year.

The Trouble with D

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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

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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!

What’s for Dinner?

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Now that the holiday season has arrived, it seems appropriate to look at what we’re eating — not in terms of nutrition but rather identification. This is not always easy to do, as this label reveals:

How do crackers qualify as entertainment? They’ve always seem rather boring to me. I imagine the person who came up with this label decided consumers need to be told when to serve the product. But is it really so hard to figure out when to serve crackers? Are there rules for cracker serving, like a penalty if crackers show up in a lunch box?

On the same theme, take a look at this label for a vegan product, a Celebration Roast:

At least the label lets consumers know which veggies and fruit they’re eating when they tuck into a Celebration Roast. But stuffed implies a wrapper or a container (e.g. a turkey), and there’s no way to tell exactly what is stuffed with butternut squash, apples & mushrooms. The celebration? The cellophane the roast is packed in?

These signs offer specific (and useless) description:

Nice to know what shape my ham is in and the color palette and nationality of my cheese. And yes, I do know that American Cheese is the name of a processed product that bears a passing resemblance to cheddar. Nevertheless, I can’t help thinking that these signs lack essential information, such as whether the ham is cured or uncured and how many additives are present in a sandwich made from pear shape ham and yellow or white American cheese.

Bottom line: Please tell me what I am eating. Don’t tell me when I should eat it or what it looks like. Bon appetit!

Zero Problems

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Today’s theme is zero, with a short excursion into negative territory. First up is this sign, which I spotted while watching the New York City Marathon around mile 17:

I have to admit the statement is catchy. Who wouldn’t want to travel 0 MILES to reach a destination? But the emphatic O MILES obscures a different problem: 2.6 carbs and 95 cals (calories) in . . . well, in what, exactly? A thimble, a jug, or a barrel of BEER? The sign is akin to boasting of something’s being voted “the best” without specifying who cast ballots — perhaps the general public, experts in the field, or the owner’s two best friends. Context matters.

So does clarity:

Performing Arts for All Ages is clear, but the age range is puzzling. How does a 0-year-old engage in performing arts? Also, for how long is someone 0 Years old? Does enrollment take place during labor or at the moment of delivery?

Here’s a sign I saw in Madrid, Spain:

Translation: GROUP ZERO / POETRY AND PSYCHOANALYSIS. I won’t speculate why the group named itself ZERO or what happens in the illustrated room, with its flat couch and rather authoritative-looking chair. Feel free to send me your thoughts on how GROUP CERO might be combining POESIA and PSICOANALISIS.

Worse than zero problems are negative ones, as in this sign in a clothing store:

I understand, but object to, the labels attached to floors 2 and 1, partly because clothing doesn’t have to be sorted into rigid gender categories but mostly because the sign indicates two individuals: a Man and a Woman. (Otherwise the terms would be Men and Women.) The real problem, for me, is Kids -1. Having shopped with kids, I understand the temptation to drop one, but that temptation should be resisted, not codified. Or perhaps this is where you outfit kids who are 0 years old for their performing arts classes? But wouldn’t the floor be 0 in that case? Perhaps they sell maternity clothes there?

I welcome your theories about any of these signs and wish you zero problems in formulating them.

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!

Hiring and Firing

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Recent walks around New York give me hope that the city is rebounding from some pandemic-related woes. Businesses seem to be hiring (and occasionally firing — more on that in a moment) and a new crop of gloriously silly signs have appeared. Nothing personal, sign-writers, but could you please check your dictionaries before hanging a help-wanted notice? Otherwise you end up with something like this:

Who knew that four words could encompass so many mistakes! I’ll skip the skipped subject, because the owners of the store posting this sign are, by implication, the ones who need, well, whatever a delivery personal is. Perhaps it’s what happens to a pregnant patient after nineteen hours of labor. Maybe it’s a supply of toilet paper, left in a package room. Those delivery situations are undeniably personal, but I’m betting the sign-writer meant delivery personnel, which is good news for job-seekers. Personnel is a collective noun, so the store hopes to hire several people to handle delivery.

Which brings me to this sign:

Okay, the word personnel is misspelled, but I can live without a double N. I do object to is. A group of workers, entering individually on their own two feet, deserve the plural verb are.

This one falls into the “so close!” category:

On the bright side, the sign refers to personnel, which is the correct term, correctly spelled. Not on the bright side is deliveries. How exactly do deliveries sign in?

That’s it for hiring. Now for the firing:

The pay may be terrible at the deli where this sign appears every month or so, probably because it’s hard to find a good grilled man who doesn’t take too much time off for visits to a burn clinic.

Parting, personal advice: stay cool!

Dazed and Definitely Confused

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Pollsters these days constantly inform us that we are divided. We can’t seem to agree on anything, they report, except that we do not agree on anything. That may be true (or not — feel free to disagree about agreement). It also may be true that we are simply confused. Certainly this signwriter is:

First of all, if someone is having so much trouble decoding the word FIVE that the numeral is necessary, why use the relatively sophisticated word MAXIMUM? Second, what does FIVE (3) CUSTOMER mean? Don’t answer that. Instead, take a look at this advertisement, specifically the middle caption:

I’ve spent a fair amount of time trying to figure out what an ORIGINAL REPRODUCTION could possibly be. I have given up, but I invite you to try your hand.

Each of these signs, on the other hand, is perfectly clear. Together, not so much:

The best meaning I can come up with: All roads lead not only to Rome but also to Lake Wallenpaupack Palmyra Township.

If you drive there, or anywhere else, for that matter, be sure you have enough fuel. You never know when you will encounter a pump like this one:

I sympathize with the gas station attendant. There’s an awful lot NOT WORING these days. Perhaps we can all agree on that?

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!

Signs of Covid, Part 2

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As the pandemic grinds on, it’s increasingly tough to answer simple questions like who? what? and where? — questions these signs unsuccessfully attempt to answer. Take a look at this sign, which was posted in the window of a math-enrichment center:

Where are the instructors, exactly? In your home? I guess you should be glad that your home provides comfort, and you should be REALLY glad that they’re live. The last thing you need is a deceased teacher in your living room.

Then there’s this one:

I wouldn’t mind a Manicure & Pedicure, but HOME CALL makes me think of ET, as in ET phone home. Yeah, I know, I’m being pickier than usual. Maybe I should be pleased that the nail-tender understands that we all need comfort these days. A home call is comfier than a house call.

I don’t think it’s picky to question this sign, though:

Are we talking actual food or virtual? Until yesterday I would have thought that actual was the only possible answer. Then someone paid almost seventy million dollars for “Everydays: The First 5000 Days,” a “nonfungible token” (NFT), which is an artwork existing only on a computer. Until the computer crashes during the next update, that is. Then it exists as a hole in your bank account, though as I understand it, the payment was in virtual currency, so nothing real was paid for nothing real. I should find the symmetry comforting, but somehow I don’t. Back to the sign: I hope they collected cans of tuna and whatnot in a physical pantry, because real people can’t eat icons from a pantry file.

In closing, this grammarian in the city offers one NFT of her own: a wish, existing here on my computer and speeding wirelessly to yours, that you stay safe and well.