“One morning, I shot an elephant in my pajamas. How he got
into my pajamas I’ll never know.” Groucho Marx was clever at turning
ambiguities in the English language into jokes.
The humor comes from his interpretation of the sentence in
an unexpected, but certainly grammatically supported, manner.
Sometimes the meanings of such sentences are not quite so
clear.
The lamb is ready to eat. Does this mean we should sit down to dinner?
Or prepare a feeding bottle for a pet lamb?
Accompanying interns can be tedious. Are the interns who
came with us tedious, or is it the act of accompanying them that we find less
than fascinating?
The mugger approached the man with a gun. Is the man in
danger? Or is the mugger in for a surprise?
Making your meaning clear sometimes takes a bit of introspection and some editing.
Making your meaning clear sometimes takes a bit of introspection and some editing.
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| Some people who got parking tickets contested them in court. The tickets were dismissed, but a period was added to the sign. |
Small variations in punctuation can make a difference, too.
There’s a world of difference between “When do we eat, Grandma?” and “When do we eat Grandma?”
A court case in Maine in 2017 rested on the absence of an Oxford comma in the state’s labor laws.
According to an account on CNN by Lindsay Benson on February 9, 2018, delivery drivers sued Oakhurst Dairy for overtime pay. The law in question exempts certain workers from overtime pay, including “The canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of" certain agricultural and food products.
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| Sounds encouraging, but it's more likely that someone left the "d" off the "fine." |
The court decided that the absence of the comma meant that those who distributed—the truck drivers—were exempt from the provision that limited overtime compensation, and they were awarded over five million dollars.
The law has since been amended, with semicolons replacing
the commas, and, yes, one has been placed after the word “shipment.”
English is a living language, changing all the time. But let's make sure our meaning is clear!
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| Don't children with diabetes have enough to worry about without people fighting them at a Christmas event? |
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Raising children is time-consuming and expensive.
Not many people will want to exceed 20.
Or is that a speed limit?
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I love these unclear or grammatically incorrect signs! Thanks for the smile this morning, KM!
ReplyDeleteHysterical!
ReplyDeleteMy favorite, with church signboards a close second. thanks, Kathleen!
ReplyDeleteClever... and a good way to start this morning.
ReplyDeleteGood morning, everybody!
ReplyDeleteSometimes I hear something or see a sign that just makes my day.
So much fun! I've always wondered about the Slow children playing signs. Does that mean they aren't quick enough to get out of the way of vehicles? There are signs throughout Maine that read Break for Moose it could save your life. Then there was the smart sign over I-95 in Miami-Dade County, Florida that read Cons ahead. I looked for a sign that said Pros behind, but alas, never found one.
ReplyDeleteI love it! Thanks for the laughs.
ReplyDeleteHilarious! Thanks for the smiles, KM!
ReplyDeleteGrammar and punctuation are critical when it comes to the law or children, both of which rely on technical interpretations and do not follow the “you know what I meant” approach.
ReplyDelete~ Jim
Love these signs! Just goes to show the importance of punctuation!
ReplyDeleteWe do have to be mindful of all children, slow or fast.
ReplyDeleteJust encountered another fun one. A child who had been permitted to use a family restroom in a store by himself came out and admitted that he'd tried to follow the "Employees must wash hands" directive, but nobody showed up, so he washed his hands himself.