I know, sometimes I point out things I think are weird, and it starts to make you think I'm weird for even thinking that, but I guess that's just the risk I run.
Here's a good example. Last weekend we passed by this printing place, and this was the sign they had hanging outside:
In case you're wondering why this kind of thing bugs me, please, let's remind ourselves that my entire professional career, and really, my whole life has been dedicated to words. I was one of those AP-English types in high school, then in college, then in grad school, and now I've been a professional writer in some capacity (books, websites, marketing brochures, whatever's clever) for twelve years. I have to say, this kind of thing, when people write their own stuff and do a marginal-to-bad job at it, drives me up a wall as much as, say, your friend who thinks they know the law because they watch alot of Law & Order. It's not like I would try to be my own lawyer, or electrician, or doctor. So– why do people put so little effort sometimes into the way things sound? By the way, in case you're wondering, I blurred out the name of the business so they wouldn't get all upset that I was slandering them. But, I will tell you if you're curious.
Let's unpack this weird sign, shall we? "A business with no sign….is a sign of no business." Huh? You know the person who wrote this was like "Yes! I am a genius! I don't need to hire a professional writer! Who needs so-called "creative types?"
Only, this sign makes so sense. It's a sign that, instead of drawing you in to the store to purchase more of that cleverness, instead makes you stand there, scratching your head. You know it's not right, but you're not sure why. "A business with no sign….." there's the subject and some modifiers, and now we're getting to the verb, "is." OK, a business with no sign is what? Totally screwed? Badly prepared? Not going to have any customers?
Nope. A business with no sign is a sign of no business. See, it's meant to be one of those clever double-entendre kind of signs, like Office Depot's tagline "Taking care of business." But, a business with no sign CAN'T be a sign of no business. A business CAN NOT BE a portentious omen of the non-existence of its very self. No no no! That makes no sense, dammit!
Here's how this sign would have sounded better, just because once I saw it I couldn't get it out of my head.
"No business? Maybe it's a sign….."
or
"Open for business? Give your customers a sign….."
or
"See the signs of new business coming your way…."
Or, I don't know– you come up with something. Because seriously, ANYTHING would have been better than "A business with no sign is a sign of no business." I MEAN…..WHAAAAT? I think what bugs me most is that most people aren't even going to notice how bad that sounds. They're just going to pass right by, and if they happen to glance up at this weird attempt at cleverness that bothered me enough to write about it, they're going to go "oh, ok— I get it! IT'S A SIGN!"
Blurg.