Sharp Words

Frequent readers will know that rogue apostrophes (for example, in it’s as a possessive, or else used in a plural) make my teeth hurt.

But lately, I’ve been driving regularly past a sign that on first glance appears to have a rogue apostrophe… but on second glance just might be right, if for the wrong reason.

It’s one of those solar-powered screen signs at the side of the road, with information about roadworks. Its first screen displays:

TRAFFIC CONTROL AHEAD

Its second screen shows:

QUEUE’S LIKELY

And it’s been bothering me a bit, since the more usual phrasing is queues likely. But then why? Why more than one queue? There’s only one line of traffic in each direction trying to get past the traffic lights, so that’s only one queue. Well, alright, there’s another in the opposite direction, but I’m not interested in that one since it’s not the direction I’m travelling in.

So having a sign that reads QUEUE’S LIKELY – in other words, queue is likely – seems to be almost right…

Or maybe it’s just me.

PS – When I titled my last post ‘Back Briefly’, I didn’t mean that I was only back for one post and then gone again for another long while (at least, I hope not)… It was just meant to be a reference to it being Microfiction Monday.

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Words cannot adequately describe the simultaneous horror and amusement I felt when I spotted this cushion in a local ‘cheap’ shop.

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Let’s face it, we’ve all seen apostrophes abused in horrible ways. (And no, Susan, I’m not referring to the time you stole one.)

But this sign in my local chippie (aimed at the schoolkids who swarm there at lunchtimes) set my mind wandering:

HAND’S OFF WINDOW’S PLEASE

Which of these might be a valid interpretation?

• the off window of hand is please (if it weren’t for the last word being please instead of pleasing, that sentence might almost make sense)
• hand is off the please which belongs to window

Anyone got any other suggestions? (I didn’t manage to figure out any more before my chips were ready.)

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How a comma is seriously affecting a contract – the placing of a second comma allows for a very (financially) large contract to be cancelled with only a year’s notice instead of five.
[Link shamelessly nicked from Neil Gaiman's blog.]

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The BBC online magazine and the Society for Editors and Proofreaders (SfEP) ran a competition before Christmas for people to write letters which could be punctuated different ways to give different meanings: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4583594.stm
The winners are really clever, particularly the first one.

This sort of thing has always tickled me, my favourite one being:

A woman without her man is nothing.
A woman! Without her, man is nothing.

Blokes always seem to leave the punctuation as in the first instance….

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