Grammar Moses: A picture is worth a thousand laughs
Last week I asked you to send me pictures of funny signs. And by funny, I mean signs that are humorous because there is something wrong with them.
Thanks to all of you who responded. Here are a few of them:
"My sons occasionally ate at the Diner Grill in Chicago. Or was it the Dinner Grill?" wrote Ken Juranek of Des Plaines.
As you can see from the photo, it pays to have the same sign maker work on both the front and side of your building. Don't look for the joint so you can pester the owner about it. It closed after a fire.
En Espanol
Maureen Donehey is a Spanish teacher at Conant High School in Hoffman Estates who just completed her 36th year at the head of the class.
She took a photograph of a shop up the street from the Plaza Mayor in Madrid, Spain.
"The owners of this 7-11-style store must have used a Google Translate type of system instead of a dictionary," she wrote. "I have always encouraged my students to double-check their work, because the first translation is not always the right one. REFRESCO in this store means 'soda pop' or 'soft drink,' not 'refresh' in this case. CHUCHERIA in this store means 'candy' or 'sweets,' not 'bauble' as in jewelry. Please, guys, use a dictionary to double-check your work!"
When purses attack
Carolyn Wissmiller of Wheaton saw a sign in the Ogilvie Transportation Center in Chicago seven years ago before she had a smartphone with a camera, which explains why she has no photographic evidence for her story.
"After seeing 'Jersey Boys,' a friend and I stopped in the women's restroom before catching our train home. Signs posted on the inside doors of the stalls read, 'Watch out for stolen purses.' As I covered my head and glanced up at the ceiling, I laughed hysterically. Fortunately, I was not injured. The signs have long since been removed."
While not specifically a mistake, the wording of the sign evoked a different sort of warning than was intended.
Perhaps "Mind your purse" would have been better, but even then some might interpret that as "Listen to what your purse is telling you."
I imagine sign-making is a stressful business.
-yes? No!
Pamela Lytle of Palatine sent me a photo of a sign advertising "blackberryes" in a suburban grocery store.
I surmise from this attempt at creating a plural that the person started going in one direction and then went in another.
If you're wondering, follow the old "y" becomes "ies" rule.
Captions
Sometimes a photo can be interesting, but the caption makes it funny. Believe me, we don't intend for this to happen.
Take a recent Daily Herald photo of a guy in a golf cart looking warily at a coyote trotting past him on the fairway.
A nice out-of-place photo, right?
The caption read: "While shooting a separate assignment at Arlington Lakes Golf Club, this coyote decided to appear on the 10th fairway after sunning himself in a sand trap."
Marty Robinson of Prospect Heights sent it to me and wrote, simply, "That's some smart coyote."
This is an example of faulty construction. As it reads, the coyote was shooting a photo assignment. The last time I checked, coyotes, while wily, do not have opposable thumbs, which are required to operate most cameras.
The caption writer could have solved this problem by starting it "While I was shooting ..."
Write carefully!
• Jim Baumann is vice president/managing editor of the Daily Herald. Write him at jbaumann@dailyherald.com. Put Grammar Moses in the subject line. You also can friend or follow Jim at facebook.com/baumannjim.