Don't touch ...
Philip Eden
Underground tries to warn us to be vigilant. If anyone sees an
unattended bag, however, they tell us:
"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
staff, or call 999."
Philip Eden
Jerry Friedman
Headline (below the fold) in today's _Santa Fe New Mexican_:
Buddy Holly, Crickets Member Dies.
Old news, I thought.
--
Jerry Friedman
R H Draney
>
>Headline (below the fold) in today's _Santa Fe New Mexican_:
>
>Buddy Holly, Crickets Member Dies.
>
>Old news, I thought.
That's pretty good...Buddy went into the cornfield 45 years ago but his member
lasted until just now....r
John O'Flaherty
Michael Nitabach
$31689$fa0f...@lovejoy.zen.co.uk:
Just scream bloody murder.
--
Mike Nitabach
Charles Riggs
Unless you're suggesting 'and then' should follow 'passengers', I
don't see anything wrong with it.
--
Charles Riggs
Email address: chriggs/at/eircom/dot/net
Martin Watts
cha...@aircom.net says...
> On Thu, 8 Apr 2004 18:21:42 +0100, "Philip Eden"
> <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom> wrote:
>
> >The Metropolitan Police's big poster campaign in the London
> >Underground tries to warn us to be vigilant. If anyone sees an
> >unattended bag, however, they tell us:
> >
> >"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
> >staff, or call 999."
>
> Unless you're suggesting 'and then' should follow 'passengers', I
> don't see anything wrong with it.
>
I'd be tempted to make it: "Don't touch. Check with other
passengers and then inform station staff or call 999."
R H Draney
>
>cha...@aircom.net says...
>>
>> <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom> wrote:
>> >
>> >"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
>> >staff, or call 999."
>>
>> Unless you're suggesting 'and then' should follow 'passengers', I
>> don't see anything wrong with it.
>
> I'd be tempted to make it: "Don't touch. Check with other
>passengers and then inform station staff or call 999."
It bothers me to realize that my profession would see nothing wrong with the
original; the "NOT" Boolean operator binds tighter than either "AND" or
"OR"....r
Skitt
> "Philip Eden" wrote:
>> The Metropolitan Police's big poster campaign in the London
>> Underground tries to warn us to be vigilant. If anyone sees an
>> unattended bag, however, they tell us:
>>
>> "Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
>> staff, or call 999."
>
> Unless you're suggesting 'and then' should follow 'passengers', I
> don't see anything wrong with it.
Oh, I don't know. Checking with other passengers, informing station staff,
or calling 999 might be a wise thing to do and shouldn't be prohibited,
don'cha think?
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
www.geocities.com/opus731/
Rolleston
>The Metropolitan Police's big poster campaign in the London
>Underground tries to warn us to be vigilant. If anyone sees an
>unattended bag, however, they tell us:
Please, that's no way to refer to an old lady.
>"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
>staff, or call 999."
A Daily Tomorrow headline:
Passenger dies contemplating grammatical complexities.
R.
Mark Brader
> "Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
> staff, or call 999."
Good thing Britain also has the European standard emergency number, then.
Clearly the thing to do here is to call 112!
--
Mark Brader | "The occasional accidents had been much overemphasized,
Toronto | and later investigations ... revealed that nearly 90%
m...@vex.net | ... could have been prevented." --Wiley Post, 1931
Mark Brader
>>>> "Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
>>>> staff, or call 999."
R.H. Draney writes:
> It bothers me to realize that my profession would see nothing wrong
> with the original; the "NOT" Boolean operator binds tighter than
> either "AND" or "OR"...
It bothers me too that R.H. feels that way, because the ambiguously
scoped "don't" isn't the only thing wrong here; the punctuation also
implies a 4-element "or" list, which isn't the right structure.
A minimal fix would be to replace the first comma with a semicolon
or dash.
A while back I was riding a GO train (Toronto-area commuter service)
and copied down a similarly badly constructed notice about its alarm:
USE IN CASE OF FIRE, HARASSMENT
ILLNESS, ACCIDENT, VANDALISM
OR PASSENGER SAFETY
Apparently a passenger who feels safe is supposed to operate the alarm.
(I won't even mention "harassment illness".) On the same train was
another version of the notice, too:
USE FOR FIRE, HARASSMENT, ILLNESS, ACCIDENTS, PASSENGER SAFETY & VANDALISM
This avoids the "in case of safety" problem by sylleptically collapsing
two different uses of "for".
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | Keep out of eyes--if this occurs, rinse with water.
m...@vex.net | (Directions seen on shampoo bottle)
My text in this article is in the public domain.
Philip Eden
"Mark Brader" <m...@vex.net> wrote in message
news:107e87q...@corp.supernews.com...
> Philip Eden quoted:
> >>>> "Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
> >>>> staff, or call 999."
>
> R.H. Draney writes:
> > It bothers me to realize that my profession would see nothing
wrong
> > with the original; the "NOT" Boolean operator binds tighter than
> > either "AND" or "OR"...
>
> It bothers me too that R.H. feels that way, because the
ambiguously
> scoped "don't" isn't the only thing wrong here; the punctuation
also
> implies a 4-element "or" list, which isn't the right structure.
> A minimal fix would be to replace the first comma with a semicolon
> or dash.
>
Philip Eden
Mark Brader
> Yes. A semi-colon is all I would have asked for.
That's like a semicolon, but with a hyphen between the dot and the
comma-shape? :-)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "To the vector go the spoils."
m...@vex.net | -- Norton Juster, "The Dot and the Line"
Charles Riggs
wrote:
>Martin Watts filted:
>>
>>cha...@aircom.net says...
>>>
>>> <philipATweatherHYPHENukDOTcom> wrote:
>>> >
>>> >"Don't touch, check with other passengers, inform station
>>> >staff, or call 999."
>>>
>>> Unless you're suggesting 'and then' should follow 'passengers', I
>>> don't see anything wrong with it.
>>
>> I'd be tempted to make it: "Don't touch. Check with other
>>passengers and then inform station staff or call 999."
I'm fine with that, too.
>It bothers me to realize that my profession would see nothing wrong with the
>original; the "NOT" Boolean operator binds tighter than either "AND" or
>"OR"....r
The commas do the trick for me, except for the last one which somewhat
muddles things. I wouldn't need semicolons to make clear what the
writer intended. That leaves, for me, the other problem with the
sentence: the first two things having been done, one should inform the
authorities. My version, then, would be:
'Don't touch, check with other passengers, then inform station
staff or call 999.'
--
Charles Riggs
My email address: chriggs/at/eircom/dot/net
Stewart Gordon
A bit like "Don't guess, use a timer or watch". Which to Lynne Truss
means "Don't guess. Don't use a timer or a watch either." But to me it
means "Don't guess. Don't use a timer. Don't watch."
Stewart.
--
My e-mail is valid but not my primary mailbox. Please keep replies on
on the 'group where everyone may benefit.
Maria Conlon
One way to interpret the original from Philip -- actually, it was
the first way I interpreted it -- is "Don't touch, don't check with
other passengers, don't inform station staff or call 999." With a
comma after the first in the series ("don't touch"), the "don't"
carries forward to all commands that follow. (As RH has already
indicated.)
Adding "then" did make it a bit less likely to be read incorrectly,
but it did not fully eliminate the ambiguity. IMO.
Putting a period (or a semicolon) after "touch" would stop the
continuing "don'ts." (As Martin as already indicated.)
I asked someone else to read the sentence in question, and that
person did not extend the "don'ts" but saw the sentence the way you
did. That comes, I think, with grasping the point immediately and
not needing to read too carefully. The big problem with that is that
not everyone's mind works that way, and not everyone's native
language is English.
--
Maria Conlon
When it's you against the world, back the world. (Zappa)