Catch Jim’s Red Clay Diary podcast: https://youtu.be/Aki0_01dqFU
or read his transcript below:
NO LOITERING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
This sign at the post office is fastened securely to a brick-facade column. As I park and prepare to tote my bag of books-to-be-mailed, I take another look.
NO LOITERING VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED
Does this mean that it’s ok to be a loitering violator? That maybe a fast-moving, aggressive violator is the kind authorities would prefer to pursue?
I guess punctuation would help. Instead of all-cap letters of equal font, there are other ways to more clearly express whatever it is the sign-maker is trying to get across.
What about
NO LOITERING! VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED!
We’ve seen this sign so many times that it is invisible to all but natural-born editors and proofers like yours truly.
Besides, sitting on the curb right under the sign is a disheveled man who is soliciting money from all passersby. The city’s ordinance against panhandling is ignored, as is the LOITERING sign.
I’m making no judgments here. It’s acceptable by me for the man to solicit. It’s also quite in the scheme of things for the city’s sign shop to produce metallic embossed signage that no-one notices.
It just seems like busy work—signmaking for no purpose, and panhandling rules that are unenforced.
The ten-year-old inside me thinks it would be fun to produce and install official-looking signs, just to see how long it would take for “officials” to spot and remove them.
What about signs like
PROSECUTORS WILL BE VIOLATED
or
VIOLATORS WILL BE PERSECUTED
or
LOITERERS WILL BE LATTE’D
or
PROSECUTORS MUST NOT LOITER
I agree that this little whimsical exercise of mine is somewhat time-wasting, but there are much worse things I could be doing than giving my imagination a workout, in these times of what-do-I-do-next-that-would-be-productive-or-at-least-fun
© Jim Reed 2020 A.D.