Friday, June 27, 2008

Signs

I've come along a number of signs in English that make absolutely no sense and it is extremely fascinating to me.  














These two pictures where of signs in a bathroom in a store.  I think this first one is supposed to prompt you to knock on the door prior to entering.















And this second one, I think, is supposed to prompt you to 'celebrate' washing your hands or something.











Even though this isn't a sign, I had to put this picture up of men sleeping on the subway.  The two guys on the left didn't know one another at all, as at the next stop one got off without saying a word.

2 comments:

JP said...

This sleeping on the train thing is mystical. Did you feel the need to "fake it" every once in awhile when riding?

Jacqui Pépin said...

There is a popular website called engrish.com that compiles photos of absurd or badly translated english signs for native-speakers' viewing pleasure. Sometimes it seems like they'll just pick any random word out of a thesaurus, for example one sign read "No hullabaloo" instead of something like "quiet please".