Tag Archives: silly signs

An Attentive Pedestrian

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Readers with sharp eyes and a keen sense of humor often send me photos of signs they’ve spotted around the city. These are from Constance, an attentive pedestrian whose witty observations brightened my day.

First up is this gem:

Should wheelchair users head in the opposite direction or move backwards in the direction indicated by the arrow?

Now to the river:

The caption on the sign is rather small, so I’ll reproduce it here: “For your safety please keep to the right.” Are pedestrians expected to balance on the railing or dive off the walkway? And how does either option enhance your safety?

Onward to a shopping district:

Is this sign the reason I see so many discarded masks on the sidewalk? Can a mask, or a mask-wearer, sue for being denied entry?

Have these muddled messages given you a headache? If so, this sign will probably not help:

How far away is the Pharmacy when it’s not on lunch break?

Please feel free to send me your answers, along with photos of silly signs you’ve encountered.

Goodbye, 2022

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My last post of the year, written during this busy holiday/winter-storm/school-vacation season. First up is a cafe menu. Pay attention to the third-to-last line:

CAESAR CONTAINS NUTS, does he? What a clever way to indicate that power corrupts! Or maybe it’s an indictment of Nero, Julius, Augustus, and other CAESARS?

Next is a message from a dry-cleaning shop. It’s a poor quality photo, so I’ll reproduce the words: BUSINESS IS MOVING FROM JUNE TO A NEW PLACE.

A NEW PLACE? Like July or October? What was wrong with JUNE? Too many weddings and graduations?

Now to Seatac Airport in Seattle:

It took me two days to decode this sentence, partly because I lose my mind when I’m traveling and partly because there’s a missing comma. I kept reading the message as FIRE ELEVATORS, a noncombustible (and most likely nonexistent) subset of ELEVATORS. I think we can all agree that IN CASE OF FIRE, signs with instantly obvious instructions are preferable. (With that in mind, I’d be happy to proofread this airline’s signs in exchange for a free trip. If you’re an executive with Alaska Airlines, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you.)

Finally, a van parked on my block:

Wouldn’t it be nice to hire this company for the stock market? The economy could use a BOOM right around now.

BOOM or not, I wish you a peaceful, joyful, healthy 2023.

Light-Hearted Questions

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Holiday season is upon us, so I’m assuming that you, like me, need an antidote to the tension that comes with it. Hence this post of silly signs and light-hearted questions about them.

First up is this earnest appeal:

Questions: Is the sign-poster a fan of knocks or a hater of bells? Is it so difficult to ring the bell that customers have to be warned about attempting to do so? Does anyone attempting to ring the bell fail?

Next is this command, posted on a fence:

Questions: How many people, in a city where theft is not unknown, simply lean or tie their bikes? And how does one post a bike? Why doesn’t the sign mention “park,” “lock,” or “chain” — what bike riders in New York generally do with their vehicles?

Now to the gym:

Questions: What goals could 1 have? To grow up to 2? To find a soulmate and become 11? To add some muscle and reach 10 or 100? And how does one — er, I mean 1 — refine those goals?

Last up is this sign:

Questions: How do you drop off a shoe shine? Can people pick up what they dropped off, or is the shoe (or pair or shoe shine) gone forever? Has there been an increase in shoelessness around this shop?

After enjoying (or at least surviving) your Thanksgiving meal, feel free to send me answers.

This Is Not a Post

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It’s a promulgation, the fanciest near-synonym of post I could find. Fancy, by the way, is today’s theme. Here’s a paragraph from a catalogue mistakenly delivered to my mailbox:

I leafed through the catalogue but didn’t notice any serpentine candlesticks or large-scale hummingbirds (and I definitely wouldn’t buy any if I did). Instead I focused on expressive materiality, which means . . . well, what does it mean? I’m thinking quadruple pricing, but maybe that’s just me.

Onward and upward to this sign on a recently completed apartment building:

To protect the guilty, I try not to include company names, but I will tell you that the building has “Manor” in its name, a word equal in snootiness to Sculpted in Stature. All sorts of construction machinery littered the site for a year or so, but no stone-sculpting tools with which to carve Stature. And how does one carve Stature? Does that even have a meaning?

Skip the misspelled word on line three and go directly to the fourth line of this sign:

All this to describe paint! If only one person is making it (the sign says craftsman, not craftsmen), small wonder that the product is made only in small batches. Then there’s formulation and curated collection — words I reckon cost an extra hundred each, per can. Or jar, or whatever they sell curated paint in. Grecian urns? Space capsules? Something expensive, that’s for sure — unlike this completely free promulgation about snobbery.

Oxymoronic

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I’m tempted to drop three letters from this post’s title when I contemplate these photos. First up is a label on a pair of jeans I bought this weekend. (Those aren’t bullet holes, in case you’re worried, but rather the remains of the label fastener.)

The jeans fit fine, but I still don’t know what to make of the product description.

Next up: the front and back labels of some shampoo my friend Catherine bought for her cat, Lionel:

So far, so good. Apples and honey sound pleasing, though I don’t know whether these ingredients appeal to cats. Speaking of ingredients:

As I’m sure you know, ingredients must be listed on labels in order, from most to least. Question for the manufacturer: What’s the main ingredient in your waterless shampoo? Answer: Um . . .

I snapped this one a couple of years ago:

Sidewalks inside? And they cost only $10? Even allowing for inflation, that’s a pretty good deal.

Oddly Specific

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I usually gripe about vague signs, but today I direct your attention to some oddly specific notices, such as this one:

I’m not hugely surprised that dogs are excluded, because an expanse of lawn (in this case, a soccer field) would be a nice place to let Fido off the leash. But would people actually take cats there? If so, I’d like to know how they get a leash on a cat without incurring stitches for the leasher and the leashed. And what’s with the pot bellied pigs? If I were an iguana or a llama, I’d feel left out by this sign. And if I had a pot-bellied pig, I’d never exclude the hyphen.

Another exclusion:

Do I have to point out that ice cream is, in fact, food? For some of us, it’s a major food group. Also, why single out ice cream? Was this store owner once traumatized by mint chocolate chip? Struck in the eye by a cone of rocky road? On a diet?

At least the comparison is logically correct in this sign:

I do wonder about the comma. Grammatically it’s not necessary (some would even say it’s wrong), because the conjunction or doesn’t connect two clauses. To me, the comma sounds a bit defensive: I’m not anti-pigeon! I’m anti-other birds too!

One more bird (sort of), courtesy of my friend Catherine:

This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is cat-food-Catherine-e1633093629444-350x260.jpg

So glad the label is clear! Now I know that I’ll have to shop elsewhere for outdoor chicken.

Directionless

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Polls show that many of us feel adrift and directionless. I sometimes share that feeling, especially when I see signs like the ones in this post. The first one stands in a narrow opening between the Great Hall and the Egyptian wing of the Met:

Who knew Jean-Paul Sartre made signs for museums?

Here’s a puzzle for motorists:

It may not be evident in the photo, but it should be to motorists, that directly behind these signs is Lake Wallenpaupack. Do drivers really have to be told to turn instead of plunge?

In the same vein:

If you overthink it — my specialty, by the way — the sign asks you to be in two places at the same time. Modern life often demands multitasking, but this is a whole other ballgame, one you can’t win.

You can’t win this one, either:

These two signs stand in front of the United Nations. I spotted them a few years ago and have checked periodically to see whether an attack of sanity broke out and someone took at least one of the signs down. So far, motorists are still being told to do the impossible.

As are we all. It seems to me that what really unites nations is this: nobody knows where to go, how to get there, and when to stop. Who knew street signs mirrored life?

The Favor of a Reply Is Requested

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I have a few questions for you, starting with your thoughts on this advertisement for cigarettes:

Is this company trying to corner the health-food market? Organic says yes, but tobacco seems to undercut that message.

I gnashed my teeth when I read this label on a bottle of mouthwash:

What does less intense enamel taste like? Does the enamel on your teeth have any taste at all? I don’t think mine does.

I’ve held onto this photo for a long time — not for an entire historic era, but for a year or so:

Does climbing or descending these steps change history, altering the timeline or plunging the world into a different branch of the multiverse? Maybe the steps have fallen into disrepair and the homeowner is using historic as a get-out-of-being-sued excuse? Attention, attorneys: Would this hold up in court if someone did sue?

Now to a Seattle parking area:

Is the sign on the right intended to help firefighters? Somehow I thought they were supposed to notice things like hydrants without assistance from signage. Maybe some drivers back out without looking. If so, is there a way to revise the driving test to exclude them? I’m really hoping the answer to that last question is yes.

I also eagerly await your theories.

Expensive Words

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Every trip to the store reminds me that inflation isn’t just for balloons. I don’t pretend to understand the economic forces involved, but I do know some things that inflate the cost of food. Here’s one:

General rule: If you double the P in “shop,” you double the price. Which is understandable, because it’s expensive to import food from the 16th century.

Another general rule is “fancy language equals fancy prices,” especially when the words are associated with Britain:

“Made to order” isn’t cheap, but it is cheaper than “bespoke.” I would deduct 10% from the price for misspelling “disappoint,” however.

A variation of the fancy language rule sets higher prices to anything described by a three-syllable word that most people have to look up in a dictionary:

A “distributor” can’t charge as much as a “purveyor.” Oh, and “chefs” pay more than “cooks.”

To sum up: If you’re on a tight budget, stay away from shoppes that are purveyors of bespoke fruit baskets.

Geographically Challenged

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Does anyone study geography these days? Judging from the photos below, no. Or maybe the world has simply gotten a lot more interconnected than it used to be.

First up is a package my friend Priscilla spotted in an iconic New York City grocery store:

Perhaps the label should read “Produit du Pérou.”

Moving on: This poster advertises French Fries (no surprise there, except for the capital letters), along with Poland Water and Chicken Tundra.

I did a little research and confirmed what I suspected: Poland does indeed have water and probably can spare some small bottles. However, places classified as tundra generally aren’t associated with chicken coops. I mean, arctic chickens? Someday, maybe, if the climate continues to warm. (Don’t ask me about Tune Melt. I can’t deal with defrosted music today.)

This menu item features an ingredient from France by way of Voltaire:

I like my ginger candide, don’t you? I just hope it hasn’t been sitting in the cupboard since the Enlightenment.

By the way, the subtitle of Voltaire’s novel Candide is The Optimist. Let’s hang onto that and pretend that the world — and its geography — will sort itself out someday.