I couldn’t tell what color this car was. From some angles it looked pink and from others it looked orange or brown.
It’s not necessarily a good thing for a car, though. I’d probably have been tempted to gawk even if I’d been driving!
Tag: vehicles
Ice truck slogans
I’m fascinated by the commercial vehicles in Singapore, especially JM Ice trucks.
J.M. Ice: There’s always a better service!
This bizarre slogan is struggling mightily to convey the message, “Our service is always better!” but unfortunately suggests that “There’s always a better service than ours!”
Iceman: You ring, we bring.
Descriptive, concise, memorable. Could apply to anything being delivered, though.
Tuck Lee: Have ice will revel.
So pithy, clever and downright hip, it’s no wonder they trademarked it! You win, Tuck Lee.
No-boarding and No-alighting Zones
The intent of this phrase is to designate zones in which people are permitted neither to get in a taxi nor to get out of one.
However, I think “no-boarding and no-alighting” is a whopping long phrase to use as an adjective in front of the noun “zones”. It’s so cumbersome that my initial inclination was to read it as an elliptical formation designating two different kinds of zones:
[Be aware of the] no-boarding [zones] and [the] no-alighting zones.
This would be analogous to a sentence like:
If the medium-size shirt doesn’t fit, let me know; there are bigger [sizes] and smaller sizes available.
Obviously there are no sizes each of which is both “bigger and smaller”; the adjectives are separate, and there’s a noun implied but omitted after the first one.
I’m not even sure the intended reading of “no-boarding and no-alighting zones” is syntactically possible, unless you hyphenate the whole thing, which would be ugly and probably violate most style guidelines:
No-boarding-and-no-alighting Zones
Since there’s a set of illustrations below the text, I think probably I would write it as:
No boarding or alighting in these zones.
Or, even shorter:
Do not board or alight in these zones.
You can run but you can’t hide, JM Ice Truck #15
So cute. It’s trying to hide behind that plant, but it doesn’t realize that just because it can’t see me doesn’t mean I can’t see it…
I collect sightings of JM Ice trucks because they’re so colorful. I’ve now seen at least 22 of the 38 or more trucks in the fleet.
This is the first time I’ve ever seen #15, though, and it was sitting still so I got a photo!
I thought usually #37 delivered to Chinatown… Ah well.
Bukit Panjang Light Rail Transit (LRT)
It was my first ride on one of Singapore’s LRT lines. I went from Bukit Panjang Station on the Downtown MRT line to Choa Chu Kang.
The train I was on had one car; the ones going the other way had two. Looking at the trains going the other way, I wasn’t so sure they were trains. There’s one rail under these things, but they’re not monorail trains. They’ve got rubber wheels on either side and they roll on those. So is this thing a train? A bus? Or what?
It felt like a theme park ride, to be honest. The track seemed bendier in the left-right and up-down directions than the MRT lines, but since I don’t look straight out the front of the MRT trains, maybe I’m overestimating how smooth the tracks are. The platforms at the stations, which were sized like the trains, contribute to the theme-park-ride impression.
It kinda freaked me out that the elevated track didn’t really have edges. It looked like we could just plunge right over the side. The vehicle didn’t really go very fast, though.
When I left Choa Chu Kang during rush hour, by taxi, the driver pointed out to me where one of the LRT trains had broken down on the track over the road. I was glad I’d gotten to experience the LRT in working condition.
Buildables
This morning on the AYE I saw a yellow truck belonging to a company called Buildables (not to be confused with Build-a-Bear). On the side, the truck said:
We build walls and ceilings faster than the speed of this truck.
I wanted to take a photo, but of course it was gone too fast.
Just now I did a Google search and found the Buildables website. I have no idea whether their products and services are any good, and I’m not in the market for walls or ceilings at the moment, but the design and content of the website was better than I was perhaps expecting.
I’m always fascinated to see products and slogans on vehicles rather than just the company name. Maybe someday I’ll get a photo of one of the trucks that advertises those purple Japanese sweet potatoes or a truck from that moving company whose bee mascot is cross-eyed (!).
Thank yoe for traFelling with Prime Txi
This is a hilarious receipt for a taxi ride with Prime Taxi.
For some reason the capital letters that are supposed to be on the far left are appearing on the far right instead. But that’s not what’s funny; what’s funny is the message at the bottom.
Another ’nother Ferrari
In the same parking spot where I saw a red Ferrari, now there’s an orange one. I like the color and shape of this one better.
Somebody must really like pink
Update! A fellow member of the Singapore Writers’ Group says this car belongs to one of her neighbors.
Small world island.
No Admin Fee and GST
This is a sticker on the inside of the window in a taxi. It says:
NO ADMIN FEE & GST
when you pay with Dash!
Even assuming you like the ampersand in this font (I don’t), the conjunction needed here is ‘or’.
(No admin fee) and (no GST) => No (admin fee or GST)
The sign that says “no food and drinks” is also wrong for the same reason.
However, “Don’t leave your handphone & wallet behind”, assuming we find ‘handphone’ acceptable, sounds fine, since ‘handphone’ and ‘wallet’ can easily be considered a pair of items that would be forgotten together.
I would rewrite that as follows.
Records show that 50% of the items reported lost in taxis are mobile phones and wallets.
On the other hand, I like the ampersand on this half of the sign much better. Even if it is crowding the descender on that letter ‘y’.
