Thursday, February 5, 2009

(un)Dead End

British roads are ever-more cluttered with nannyish and often pointless signage. My pet hates are those boards instructing 'pedestrians' to walk around the fenced-off 8ft deep hole some gas company or other has dug, rather than attempt to walk through it. Cheers. Thanks for that. In the US, hackers have been risking $250 fines by tampering with road signs in Texas and Illinois. Presumably these are a genuine warning in the remoter bits of Louisiana.

4 comments:

Affer said...

A beaut! Many years ago, lots of road signs in Newcastle were in dialect: I had a photo (now lost) of one that said: "Gaan Canny!" which obviously meant lots to the locals but a bit less to visiting Southerners!

TIW said...

I've heard that because "while" means "until" in Yorkshire dialect, it's caused some problems - not least on trains where there's a sign in the toliets advising passengers not to flush the loo "while the train is in the station", and at level crossings where you have to wait "While lights are flashing".

Affer said...

Hahaha! I have a vague memory of Flanders and Swann singing "Please refrain from urination, while the train is in the station..."

Anonymous said...

i always wondered why i said while in the context of until and why the people of lancashire never really understood me!