Signtax

Pictures of signs or printed postings that make funny or interesting linguistic choices--- sometimes with commentary.

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“We made you a video for your friendversary.” This isn’t technically printed media, but somebody needs to hire a linguist at Facebook to tell them it is obviously friend_a_versary!

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“Merry me.” Another entry in the “jokes you don’t get without the merry/marry/Mary merger.” I texted this to a non-merged friend, and they said, “Without the homophony, this just sounds dirty.” 🙊

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“Kasmati / Texmati” I’ve never seen a blend based on “basmati” before, and I can’t figure out the “Kasmati” one. What does the K/Kas come from??

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“And you thought our tacos were DAMN GOOD.” This is a story about graphic design and linguistics. The appropriate information structure here is “And you thought our TACOS were damn good,” because the implication is that these frozen drinks are also damn good (perhaps reaching new heights of damned goodness). But the layout of the graphic design makes it look like the tacos were not damn good, but something else. “And you thought our tacos were DAMN GOOD; turns out they were FROZEN DRINKS.”

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“Win a iPad” Wow— a phrase from an ‘an’-less idiolect prominently on display. I’m sort of surprised this got by the designer’s boss...

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“Hey! Unto you a child is born.” I just love the juxtaposition of “Hey!” which is firmly informal in contemporary (American) English, and “Unto you a child is born,” which is just oozing with age.

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"Kills bugs dead!" I think this is ungrammatical , but it also sounds like something a kid might say. I guess "kill" can't be used with a resultative secondary predicate.

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"Welcome to the Halloween Booporium" WHO signed off on this blend? This blend is just so bad--- I find the 'P' particularly intrusive. Anyway, welcome to the Halloween Booporium.

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“Don’t cliff jump!”

This is a great back-formation from the compound ‘cliff-jumping’ or 'cliff jumper’. I think verbs don’t typically allow incorporation of a noun (phrase) to form a compound (in contexts where they are unambiguously verbs), but it sometimes happens. Thanks to AP for finding this one!

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"May we help you at another register?" This is a pretty aggressively polite sign. What if I said no?

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"Kryptonite, Shmryptonite." This is an excellent example of shm-reduplication! And one that is phonologically complex! I think kryptonite-shmyptonite is also acceptable, as predicted by...... whoever analyzed shm-reduplication.

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"Squish 'em! Connect 'em! Create 'em!" Thank you for the suggestion, but it looks like they've already been created, actually.

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"Discover the pretzelbilities: mixability, S'moreability, Appetizeability" Discover the phonology! Pretzel-abilities is clearly worse than Pretzel-bilities, and mix-bility and appetize-bility are also clearly out. S'more-bility isn't terrible, imo, but definitely worse than s'more-ability.

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"Pizza Omlete" Just another entry in the typology of the spelling of omelette.

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"Avoid door dings and park in giant covered spaces" I wonder if this use of "and" has a particular name--- it has a sort of causation feel to it: avoid door dings by parking in giant covered spaces. This is not just signese, of course--- but signs can help you notice interesting stuff!

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"Emergency intercom. You are on car 1401. Push to use." I am so interested in the null NPs here! Push <button> to use <intercom> is clearly intended... but i sort of want to be using <car 1401>. Also, I wonder what other examples of disjoint reference we could find in headlinese object drop!

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"Labradors and poodles was an unlikely combo, too." Ah, singular verb agreement with conjoined plural nouns--- that's pretty special!