Category Archives: Working World

Unabashed mockery of work-related language

Being Patient

Every once in a while a word or phrase snags my mind and pulls my attention away from more important things, like oncoming traffic or melting polar ice caps. This message on a sign in front of a medical pavilion caught my eye and took me away, however briefly, from my worries about the serious illness treated there:

I’ll forgo all the jokes about why “patient” is the appropriate term for someone who waits, patiently or not, to see a doctor. The medical personnel I’ve recently gotten to know have a lot of patients — all of which require a lot of patience. Calmly and competently the doctors, nurses, and staff answer questions, soothe fears, and minister to every ailment, taking as much time as the patient, not the doctor, needs.

So I’ll skip the first word on the sign and focus on the rest of it, which at first offended me. It made me think of a loading dock, where things — inanimate objects, not people — are hoisted onto or off of trucks. How demeaning, I thought. But sick people, to an extent, do take on some characteristics of objects. They’re moved around, often without understanding where or why, because their bodies require attention. The normal dignity of adulthood rightly takes a backseat during illness. Still, “loading and unloading” seems harsh. No one wants to be viewed as cargo.

But what are the alternatives? My first thought was “pick up and drop off.” That wording is not as bad as “loading and unloading,” but it’s far from perfect. “Pick up and drop off” shows up on laundromats and dry cleaners, UPS stores, and so forth. The phrase still conjures up things, just smaller items like packages instead of larger loaded or unloaded crates. (True, kids are picked up or dropped off, but that fact underscores the loss of independence that adult patients experience.)

Nor do longer phrases work for this sign, because drivers need to comprehend the meaning immediately. For this reason I discarded (dropped off? unloaded?) “Stop here only long enough for patients to get out of or into your car.” By the time a driver comes to the end of that sentence, fifteen cars are lined up behind, horns blaring. Less common phrases have the same problem. Do you want a driver who’s decoding “disembark” or “alight” instead of flicking the signal lever and easing over to the curb?

Nothing I’ve come up with really works, so I’ll have to live with “loading and unloading.” I’m open to suggestions, though. Write when you have time. I can wait. I’m patient.

Breakage

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A recent article in the New York Times reported that airlines count on “breakage” to save money. The reporter explains that many airlines issue a voucher for a free checked bag on a future trip when the luggage you stashed for your current trip doesn’t reach you until more than 24 hours after landing. Which raises the question: What does the passenger do in the “acceptable” 24-hour interval? Leave teeth unbrushed, sleep without jammies, recycle underwear?

By offering you a voucher for the future, the airlines appear to hope that (a) you’ll be willing to fly with them again even though you’re in Seattle and your luggage is in Kuala Lumpur and (b) you’ll stop complaining because you have a voucher to pay a fee that they should never have been imposed in the first place. The third possibility is that they hope you’ll forget about the voucher completely, even if you do fly again on the same airline.

This last assumption, according to the Times, is known as “breakage.” The chain of reimbursement comes undone more often than not, and the airline incurs a theoretical but not a real expense. Why? My guess is that most customers forget about the voucher or lose it in the morass of junk mail that piles up on even the neatest kitchen counter. I saw this sign (unrelated to airline travel) that captures the phenomenon the Times describes:

Sitting in a remote office, the corporate big-wigs of the airline world wear down the customers’ sense of control with late and overcrowded planes, ever-tinier seats and bathrooms, and expensive inedible snacks. Voucher breakage is just the final tug on a fragile chain.

I speculate about another possible motive for breakage. It strikes me that it’s hard to believe that you’ll actually get a bit of justice in this unjust world. It’s tough to exert yourself to right a wrong that you didn’t create. As you’re watching the baggage carousel spit out suitcase after suitcase without spotting your own, you may have enough energy to act, but you can’t claim and use the voucher then. Three months later, as you contemplate a trip, it’s difficult to summon up the same level of outrage. To use a phrase that applies more and more these days, you may “normalize” bad behavior — which of course then increases.

My advice: resist breakage! Claim what’s due to you — in luggage and in life.

Going to Extremes

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No, I’m not talking about politics, though I certainly could find some extremes in that arena if I searched for, say, .00001 seconds. Instead, I’m thinking about the human tendency to take everything to the edges — even when those edges lie in opposite directions. Have you noticed simultaneous cut-downs and expansions? As I walk around the city, I see an increasing number of micro cars that could transport two people and maybe one small bag of groceries. I also see fleets of giant SUVs. You could stack an entire second-grade class in one of those vehicles, assuming you’re not fussy about seatbelts. Here’s a photo encapsulating the trend:

crate

The width of this truck stretches across the entire façade of a good-sized Manhattan high rise. The lettering is large, too. The only problem is that the last letter doesn’t fit — assuming, of course, that this isn’t a mobile ballet studio, but rather a “Crate & Barrel” delivery van.

I also hear the same tendency when shoppers are summoned to the cash register. I wrote in an earlier post (“Following Guest” http://www.grammarianinthecity.com/?p=187 ) about turning customers into “guests,” and now this phrase has accelerated into the extended “Following Shoe Lover” and the contracted “Following” at adjacent stores. I asked the “Following Shoe Lover” employee how she had decided on that phrase, knowing, of course, that she hadn’t decided at all. “They tell us to say that,” she admitted sheepishly. I imagine that many of her customers, like me, don’t love shoes; they simply need them. But announcing “Following Shoe Needer,” however accurate, isn’t fashionable in the post-fact era.

It’s enough to make me nostalgic for the days when clerks bellowed “NEXT!”

When?

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Common wisdom holds that “it’s all in the timing.” Fine. But what time are we talking about? Here’s a sign I saw on the window of a bar:

So polite! And a semicolon, too.

The image is a little blurry, so I’ll repeat the message here: “Please respect our neighbors; try to avoid loud talking after a certain time. Merci. Amelie.” The courtesy is impressive, and the punctuation flawless. My only problem: When is “after a certain time”? Noon? Midnight? Now?

Here’s another, posted on the door of a construction shed:

Temporarily.

I think we can all agree that walking into “heavy demolition” is a bad idea. I’d have no problem with “Do not use this doorway until further notice” or simply “Go Away! Heavy Demolition!” What I don’t get is the concept of “temporarily.” Can you use this doorway permanently? If there’s heavy demolition going on, “permanently” for anyone who uses the doorway may be a very short period of time. Amelie, the bar owner, would probably say, “Do not use this doorway until a certain time.”

Speaking of time, it’s time for my vacation. Woods out — temporarily.

Take a break from debate

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Pretty much everyone I know has been debating The Debate since it ended, analyzing every facial expression, body movement, and comment. It’s time to take a break! Apply your analytical skills to these signs and answer the questions that follow. Send me your answers, but don’t expect any prizes. Sign number one:

No ordinary palms.

Questions: Is your palm special? Is it worth ten dollars?

On to sign number two:

Shorten your doctors here.

What sort of alteration does this shop offer to professionals? Does it nip in a billowy lawyer, cut up a surgeon, or dye a mortician? OR – Do they think other shops employ amateur tailors?

And sign number three, from an awning on a busy Manhattan street:

Serving Manhattan’s farm animals.

Does East 74th Street qualify as “country”? Do the proprietors believe that farmers will bring their livestock there? Or do the proprietors need “professional alteration” (see sign number three)?

Now for my favorite:

What’s a “tworl”?

Is this a line from “Jabberwocky”? If not, what does it mean?

Bad Mood

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New Yorkers are not normally celebrated for their cheery outlook, and current events haven’t improved the mood around the city. So this photo, sent by my friend Catherine, seems particularly relevant right now:

All natural ingredients.

Gripe jelly – gives a whole new slant on “you are what you eat,” doesn’t it? If your New Year’s resolution was to be more peaceful, you may want to avoid the jelly at this Lexington Avenue deli.

Moving on, here’s a sign from a truck parked on East 78th Street:

I can break my remote all by myself, thanks.

Remote control breaking?

I was under the impression that most people break the remote all by themselves. I do it all the time, usually by dropping it in a bowl of whatever I’m eating while I watch TV. But if this sign is accurate, you can hire someone else for that chore. Busy New Yorkers, take note. Alternate interpretation: If it’s too much trouble to attend, say, a political debate and bang your head against the wall in frustration, a techie will break your skull with a keystroke at a distant (probably outsourced) computer company. How convenient.

By the way, if anyone actually understands the meaning of “remote control breaking,” please let me know. In the meantime, snack on some gripe jelly and enjoy your bad mood.

Numbers Game

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In the spirit of “five out of four people don’t understand fractions,” I present these gems from math-challenged sign-makers:

How much more and less?

Forgive me for relying on logic here, but isn’t “more and less” a contradiction? Perhaps the writer meant “more or less,” a description that could apply to a penny and to a trillion bucks. At least that interpretation might be true. “More and less,” on the other hand, could only mean . . . well, what could it mean? Ideas welcome.

And then there’s time. Einstein’s theory of relativity (but not math) is alive and well in NYC:

Long week.

The above photo is from a store named Muji, where a week lasts thirty days. One can only hope that the employees are paid by the hour.

The next sign proves that government is just as “innumerate” (the number version of “illiterate”) as private enterprise:

Weak on the definition of “week.”

If anyone tells you that government employees indulge in four-day weeks, especially in the summer, whip out this sign. In New York City, Restaurant Week lasts 26 days.

Best wishes

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In these days of anguish, I’ve noticed many New Yorkers trying harder to take care of each other. On the Third Avenue bus last Saturday night, the driver told departing passengers to “have a very, very, very good evening” or to “be happy, be happy, be extremely happy.” She repeated variations of these statement at each stop with intensity and, as far as I could tell, sincerity. When I got off the bus, she told me to “enjoy, really enjoy” myself. I was grateful for her concern.

Earlier that day, in a pub near the former World Trade Center, the waitress asked my husband and me how “you guys’s day” had been. She really seemed to want to know and to hope that the answer was “good” or something even more positive. I spent most of the afternoon trying to decide how to spell what I had heard, which sounded like “you guizes.” The traditional rule for possessive plurals ending in the letter S, such as “guys,” is to tack on an apostrophe after the S. But “you guys” isn’t a traditional plural. Instead, it’s one of the ways New Yorkers indicate that “you” refers to more than one person. (The other common local expression for the plural “you” is “youse” — effective, but not Standard English.) The pronoun you, of course, may be either singular or plural. Lucky waitress: She didn’t have to write down her thoughts or worry about grammar.

That task falls to me. My first idea was “you guys’ day.” That seemed wrong, though, because the pronunciation would be “you guize” — more direct address or a simple plural than possession. I considered writing the phrase as pronounced (“you guizes” or “you guyses”), but then where would I place the apostrophe? And without the punctuation mark, the possessive sense is lost.

I haven’t settled the question, though as you see, I opted for the grammatically incorrect but phonetically accurate “you guys’s.” Your thoughts are welcome — as was the sense of inclusion the waitress was going for. She didn’t want to exclude anyone, a sentiment that, universally applied, would create a better society. And, you guys, we really need that now.

Business Bites and other follies

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I recently ate at a local pub, but instead of concentrating on the food (which was actually quite good), I spent the time trying to figure out the meaning of these words, which appeared in large type on the menu: “Business Bites Lunch.” There was no punctuation in the original, so I’m assuming this is not a sentence about pin-striped-suiters gnawing on midday meals. The only alternative meaning I could come up with was that “business” is biting into the time allotted for lunch. Your ideas welcome.

And then there’s this sign:

Which executive would you like to eat for lunch?

Continue reading →

Wading into a swamp of uncertainty

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To read signs in NYC is to wade into a swamp of uncertainty. Please, dear reader, put on your thinking cap and thigh-high boots. Rescue me from the swamp generated by these signs.

First up: this beauty, which was affixed to the fence surrounding a site associated with the never-ending construction of a new subway:

What kind of location?

I fooled around with hyphens for a while in the context of this sign. But what’s a “white-hat location” or a “white hat-location”? The punctuation mark solved nothing, because I don’t know the significance of a “white hat,” beyond the traditional (and somewhat racist) idea that good guys always wear white hats. I pondered whether the sign referred to “hard hats,” which are supposed to protect workers from head trauma. But then why not say so? Also, I’ve seen many construction workers wearing hard hats in other colors. Perhaps the hat color is associated with rank, in which case this location is open only to those who have earned a white hat, which, like a black belt in karate, signifies that they’ve achieved proficiency in something (subway building? procrastinating? maneuvering around piles of metal rods and concrete blocks?). Your guess is as good as mine.

Next up is this awning:

No candlestick maker?

I went through the hyphen calculation again with this sign and came up with nothing. If it’s “prime-butcher baker,” is the baker toasting top-notch butchers? Maybe it’s “prime butcher-baker” and the store employs a skilled (prime) person who works on both meat and baked goods. At one point the concept of prime numbers flashed through my consciousness, but I couldn’t link 2, 17, or 983 (to name a few) to the “butcher baker” idea. If any mathematicians have theories, please send me a note.

Last and maybe least is this one:

For cars?

What’s a “reduced garage”? For tiny cars only? A garage with fewer spaces? I thought the sign might refer to “reduced prices” until I took a look at the fees, which, I promise you, were in no way “reduced” unless your standard of measurement is the amount charged to park a car inside a luxury hotel suite (a ridiculous but apparently real offer to billionaires who have abnormal relationships with their vehicles).

I have more, but I’ll wait for a future post. I don’t want to swamp your speculative powers.

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