Everyone sends an email or leaves a note on occasion that makes perfect sense to the writer, but which could mean any of a dozen things to the reader. That’s the price of doing business in a hectic world. However, if your job is making signs, it seems to me like cutting through the ambiguity would be important. Take the sign below, whose intended meaning is completely unclear to me.
TAKEN IN HELSINKI
A few of the possible meanings that sprang to mind were:
- “Give a girl a fist bump!”
- Pedophile-friendly zone
- Go Zone (i.e. they are walking away, so from that point you may only “go” and never “come”)
- Take Your Dad to School Day
- Midget Dating Allowed
Below is one that I think I comprehend, but you may disagree.
TAKEN IN PHNOM PENH
I’m pretty sure that it means, “Limbo dancing will be punished by God.” Granted I’m illiterate with respect to the squiggly language used in the caption and so maybe it says, “Watch out for falling snakes.”
Some signs seem to make perfect sense, but the context throws one a monkey-wrench. The sign below was seen on a little door of about 6X6 inches on the side of a tour-bus.
SEEN ON A BUS IN HELSINKI
Now, obviously, this sign means, “Moose Fornication Zone.” However, how would you get the moose through that six-inch square portal?
Sometimes sign-makers add verbiage to reduce the ambiguity. This inevitably succeeds in making the sign more confusing than ever. I saw the sign below in a restaurant on Rue Sherbrooke in Montreal.
TAKEN IN MONTREAL
Now, seeing the photo, I was jonesing for some fatty, spicy pork product. However, every hetero male knows that you don’t ever want to be caught at a sausage fest.
I had a similar problem trying to decide whether to go into this gift shop at the Ming Tombs in China. The store bore this sign:
TAKEN AT THE MING TOMBS NEAR BEIJING, CHINA
While I favor economic liberty, I’m willing to shop at a store that is state operated. However, it occurred to me that it could be the souvenirs that are state operated. What if they supplied a balding civil servant to operate the music box I bought there? That possibility was too creepy to consider.
Some signs are clear both pictorially and verbally, but, at the risk of digressing, one has to wonder if the sign is necessary.
TAKEN IN BUDAPEST
If there’s a completely opaque film of diarrhea floating on the water, do you really need to tell people not to go for a swim?
It’s true that some times ambiguity is strategic. Who would go through a door, if they saw the sign below posted on it?
TAKEN IN XIAN, CHINA
Well, people do go into the DMV, so I realize there are some sadists who might be into being clubbed, starved, burnt, or being subjected to particularly fierce animal–such as an ill-tempered gerbil.
As I try live my life in a positive manner, I’ll leave you with an example of a sign-maker who got it right.
TAKEN IN AREQUIPA, PERU
Now this is a sign that is completely unambiguous. Clearly, this sign was located at a Baptist church, and it means, “Boys and girls doing the twist in the same room will go to hell.”
