The signs were all there

[venta]

Some years ago, there was a snippet in the back of Private Eye where someone pointed out the hilarious sign on the M40 which read "Use both lanes Oxford A34".

How could one, they said (presumably with sides splitting from the laughter) use both lanes. Surely the sign should advise you to use either lane for Oxford?

Now, while acknowledging that they are technically correct, I'd driven past that sign for years without batting an eyelid. It uses short words and it's easy to understand what it intends to convey, which is pretty much the main criterion for a sensible motorway sign.

When small, I was perpetually amused by the roadworks signs which advise you "Delays possible til October". But it's July, I don't want to be stuck in a queue for three months! I do, however, concede that the sign can't really be improved on; you can't be accurate in four words or fewer. Ditto "Police Slow" signs (I'm a civilian, I can go as fast as I want!) I suppose you could stick a colon in that one, but really only the most perverse alien would genuinely misunderstand it.

Making signs say exactly what they mean would ultimately degenerate into huge hoardings containing several paragraphs of legalese; not a great idea for drivers hurtling by and trying to absorb information at 70mph.

However, every so often I do observe a sign which seems so peculiar that I want to know the backstory. If, for example you saw the following sign, do you think you'd understand it?

Passenger lifts
→

Assuming you were a passenger who wished to change floors without climbing stairs, you'd get the general idea that walking the way the little symbol-thing pointed might be a good idea?

So, I want to know what humorous misunderstandings and mishaps led to the placement of the following sign in Reading railway station:

Passenger lifts
please follow the
directional arrow.
→

Having added all those extra words, they could have added a 'For' at the front, which would have corrected the only possible ambiguity I can see in my alternative version above.

Comments

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

"Delays possible til October".

I like those signs - the idea that after October, delays will suddenly become impossible.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'd never thought of it like that. I guess what we want is "Delays probable til October" :)

[the-alchemist.livejournal.com]

I think you also get signs saying: "delays likely til October", so I interpret the "possible" one as meaning somthing like: "Until October, there will be an increased probability of delays, but not so much that it would be accurate to say that delays are 'likely'".

And does "October" mean until the beginning of Oct, or until the end?

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

Round here, I more usually see the "possible" before the problem, so there'll be signs that say stuff like:

"Possible Congestion Ahead till October".

This always confuses me; I wonder what impossible congestion would look like (presumably it would involve bizarre configurations of traffic that simply could not have arisen through actual driving), and I also start to think that I am in an uncollapsed quantum wave-form, with Schrodinger's congestion just down the road, about to resolve into either Actual Congestion or No Congestion At All.

I was the boy who, whenever we passed a sign saying "Free Recovery Ends" at the end of the motorway, was always disappointed that there was no little man standing by the sign to give me my promised Recovery End.

My favourite one of these -- which I saw in New Scientist's Feedback column, always a likely place -- is "All Refuse To Be Thrown In Skip Upon Leaving Plane". Apparently the reader who spotted it got a very stony-faced response when she was quite loud and assertive in expressing her refusal to be thrown in the skip.

I have only once taken personal action along the same lines, over a greengrocer's apostrophe (well, technically an optician's apostrophe) -- there was a sign saying "Required: Contact Len's Specialist". I went in and asked for Len's specialist's phone number, so I could fulfill their requirement, but they just looked at me bemusedly.

[venta.livejournal.com]

so I could fulfill their requirement

I rarely actually act on such impulses!

The toilets at work have strict signs instructing me to use the sanitary bins provided. I feel dreadfully guilty when I have nothing to put in them.

On the refuse/refuse problem: I (quite genuinely) misread a whole bunch of Oxford council's leaflets which said:

REDUCE REUSE RECYCLE

I initally parsed that as encouraging me to recycle as a means of reducing my reuse of various objects.

[huskyteer.livejournal.com]

> Use both lanes Oxford A34

I frequently see people using more than one lane simultaneously. Usually when I'm trying to use one of them myself.

[leathellin.livejournal.com]

My favourite signs are "caution heavy plant crossing" - I have yet to see Audrey II or any Triffids though.

[phlebas.livejournal.com]

I'm a fan of "Dogs must be carried" myself.

[sushidog.livejournal.com]

I always get concerned when, at stations and airports, they remind me to take all my possessions with me; I didn't bring all my possessions!

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Police Slow....Yes, yes they are, but you still have to be nice to them =;-)

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

That joke is actually used in the film of Little Shop, iirc...

[undyingking.livejournal.com]

(The modern one, obv.)

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

If you cast your mind back to wayback when, when I was a lowly help desk lacky in the University of Liverpool, I often posted about how, despite the huge sign saying "HELP DESK" on the door, people would frequently ask "Is this the help desk?".

I fear that in today's multi-signed society we may have become blind/deaf to sign postings.

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

I'd like to offer a defence on behalf of the A34 signwriter here. The sign is in the second person plural.

My favourite theoretically misleading sign is "please take a seat". Although I've yet to hear of any instances of genuine confusion arising. It's the mental image which appeals!

[ylla.livejournal.com]

How can a door be a help desk? That's just silly...

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Favourite useless signs:

New road layout ahead.

I've never been here before. What is this sign telling me?

I've been seeing that sign for the past two years, and you still haven't taken it down.

I've been seeing that sign for the past two years, and now you've changed the layout again! I ignored the second sign, and it all went wrong!


Seen on the A418 to Aylesbury.

Caution! 13 causalities in the last 3 years.

(I may be misquoting that, but you get the gist.)

Argh. But where? That's 25 miles. Did a bus tip over on the next corner, and that's the only accident in three years? Pretty damn good that! Maybe it was at the other end of the trip, so I'm accident free for 24 miles! Or a pedestrian ran out of the hedge into the road? Not a lot I can do about that one, really.

[stegzy.livejournal.com]

We were very small people and we would sit on the beading.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

That sign gets me too!

[snathe.livejournal.com]

I'm still not sure what this sign is actually trying to achieve...

http://mydorset.files.wordpress.com/2008/05/sign-not-in-use.jpg

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

Quick! Find a do - I need to use the escalator!

[venta.livejournal.com]

I know that's a favourite sign to mock, but I have seen useful instances of it. I'm not sure that's one of them, though.

cf. "This page intentionally left blank" on exam papers.

[venta.livejournal.com]

You have to watch out for those causalities :)

[wimble.livejournal.com]

Damn it. I even thought that as I typed it.

It's the non-causalities you really have to have been watching out for.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I would like to agree with you there, but it's surprising how often you see such a sign, launch into your explanation of a problem, only to be greeted by a slightly grumpy comment that you're in the wrong place and the help desk moved three months ago.

I had a strange conversation with someone from Thames Water yesterday. Since my water bill said (in large, very black letters) at the top "This amount must be paid in full by Nov 5th" I rather foolishly assumed that that meant I had to pay it in full by Nov 5th. She was faintly amused that I thought that.

It turned out that was totally wrong, and I shall now be paying it in installments beginning on Nov 7th.

[ar-gemlad.livejournal.com]

There's a road sign on the M27, as it turns into the A31, that says something like "No Right Turns except for Rufus Stone and [somewhere else]". Fascinating - any other random facts about this road, Mr. Signpainter?