Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Sign language revisited... from 'Beware of...' to 'PED XING'

In an earlier posting, I had wondered about signs like "Keep door closed at ALL times". Here's a suggestion for a harmless prank ahead of next year's April's Fool Day. If your office has such a sign, stand guard over the door (shut it first, of course). Stop anyone (except your boss... I said it's meant to be a harmless prank) from getting through, with this admonishment while pointing at the sign: "Which part don't you understand?"

Today's sign-sighing was provoked by this:



Why do I have to beware of windows? This sign is puzzling; it's not an open and shut case of a clear warning message. An unambiguous,  clear-cut "Beware of..." sign would be this one:


But sometimes such signs go too far:



This sign too is explicit and should not confuse anyone:


Okay, I think I've made my point here. Where "Beware of..." might be less appropriate, there are, for example:



This sign is advisory, and simply urges one to take care (but I would change the absurd "Road works ahead" phrasing to just "Roadworks"). A much more strongly worded sign is this one:



Or this one:



What if you just want words similar to "Caution". Well, "Watch out for..." and "Look out!" fit the bill:







At least one "Look out" sign (below) looks a bit strange:



This next one is also a strange sign. I've seen it in other countries but not here in Singapore (but I may be wrong):


For the clueless, it means "Pedestrian Crossing". The sign below, seen in certain parts of Singapore, means "Low Flying Aircraft":



But, okay, what are we supposed to do? Duck?

Finally, this sign is supposedly one that is used in Singapore, although I have not seen any yet:



Apparently, it means "No explosives permitted in vehicle"!

1 comment:

  1. The first sign "Beware of Windows" must have been found in a Sun Microsystems or Apple office

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