My husband and I sometimes eat at Wild Honey. On our last visit, I was struck by this error on their new menu:
OPEN EVERYDAY FROM 9AM
It should say:
OPEN EVERY DAY FROM 9AM
The space between “every” and “day” is missing.
Now, you may be thinking, “Hang on, ‘everyday’ is a perfectly good word!”
Yes. Yes, it is, but it’s an adjective, and what’s needed in this and similar contexts is the two-word adverb phrase.
Here’s an example showing how to use the one-word adjective in front of a noun and the two-word adverb at the end of a sentence to modify the verb:
These are my everyday shoes. I wear them every day.
Now, can anyone tell me why there’s no such word as “everywhen”? We have “everywhere”, and “everything”, not to mention those vaguely plural singular words “everyone” and “everybody”.
This is a photo of a sign in a toilet stall in the Lot One shopping mall. It says:
Dear Shopper,
Please keep sight of your personal belongings while in the toilet.
For assistance, dial 5314 6211
This bit of written language inspired several thoughts.
I think “keep sight of” is or has been an idiom in some places, but it did not strike me as apt, though the negative phrasing “do not lose sight of” would have sounded okay. The phrase “keep track of” sounds better, though I wouldn’t expect to see it on a sign.
I’m imagining I hear the voice of the late comedian George Carlin mocking the phrase “personal belongings”. It isn’t as if I’m likely to have brought with me any other kind of belongings, such as public belongings, onto an airplane, he says.
Here, “toilet” is obviously being used not to mean the porcelain commode, but to mean either “restroom” or “restroom stall”, though how you could lose sight of your personal belongings inside a restroom stall is a mystery to me, especially if you have just hung them on the hook just under the sign; if you fail to notice your belongings hanging just below the sign, the sign itself isn’t likely to do you any good! (Some restroom stalls have a shelf behind the commode; the sign would be a useful reminder to check for items placed there. This stall did not have such a shelf.)
Finally, at the bottom of the sign, behold a reminder that we live in the future: it is normal (in a shopping mall in Singapore, at least) for individuals to carry personal wireless communication devices that can at any point be used to summon urgent medical assistance. Or toilet paper.
At 7:45, Sultana Book Store at the Peace Centre was supposedly already closed for the day, in spite of appearances (and eager customers).
We had better luck at Book Treasure next door in the atrium of Parklane Shopping Mall.
I bought two books from Book Treasure. I saw several other interesting used books at good prices, but they were books I already own.I say I bought two books, but actually I bought two editions of the same book. Go figure.That’s me and my friend, reflected on the underside of the escalator.
This sign warns pedestrians to pay attention near the entrance to a construction site between West Coast Plaza and Clementi Woods Park.
Forget your fear of swimming near sharks or camping near bears; walking around holding your phone under your nose is much more likely to kill you!
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a sign like this before, but perhaps such signs will become ubiquitous, like the mobile phones we are apparently obsessed with.
I think I’ve been to the Paradise Dynasty restaurant at Ion twice now. I really like the decoration, which you can sort of see here on the restaurant’s website.
So many restaurants in Singapore seem temporarily perched in some unit in some shopping mall; the lease expires, the rent goes up, the restaurant dies or moves somewhere else. So although every shop and restaurant does some interior decoration for branding purposes, the environment often feels like a cardboard set, too superficial for comfort. You eat there, and the food is fine, but you feel like the experience is just a flash in the pan.
Not so with Paradise Dynasty.
Even though the color-changing LEDs behind the curtains serve as a constant reminder that you’re in one of the countless flashy shopping malls built within the last decade, the plush red chairs, dramatic lighting, wood screens, and stone floors make the place feel older and more authentic.
I recently learned that Nanbantei, my favorite Japanese restaurant in Singapore, has a new outlet at Chinatown Point.
There it is!
Even if I were already in Chinatown, though, I would probably go to the Nanbantei at Far East Plaza. I don’t know how long it’s been there, but it’s all wood and brick and cozy inside, whereas this just looks like every other Japanese restaurant, more or less, and I know it hasn’t been there long at all. I’m pretty sure the unit used to be occupied by a French roast chicken restaurant called Poulet.
Like I said, high real estate prices make every business vulnerable to rent fluctuations. Poulet’s Westgate outlet has also closed down, and not long ago when I went to the Japanese restaurant I liked at Westgate, it was only after sitting down and ordering that I realized that the place had been converted into some other Japanese restaurant. My husband’s favorite Japanese restaurant (Aoki) is now undergoing renovation, and his second-favorite Japanese restaurant (Chako) closed permanently just before the building (Hong Leong Garden) was knocked down and replaced with a newer one (NEWest). The closure (in 2013) of the authentic Swiss/German fondue restaurant Stammtisch at Sixth Avenue might qualify as the worst of them.
I wish I knew of more great restaurants that feel like they’ve been here forever and will outlast even me, but things just keep changing. Whatever it is you like, enjoy it while it lasts; blink and it’s gone.
Kindly dispose sanitary pads in the sanitary bins provided. Please do not throw them into the toilet bowl as it will choke the sewage sewerage. Thank you for your co-operation.
There are several things I’d like to point out about the sign, including the use of ‘dispose’. See below for details.
Brick-and-mortar bookshops in Singapore (as elsewhere) face high rent and stiff competition from online sellers, so they’ve been dropping like flies. The major chains and a handful independents are still scraping by.
This is an attractive locally-produced book (featuring a Singapore neighborhood I’m not personally familiar with).
Genre: non-fiction (art)
Date started / date finished: 25-Mar-17 to 25-Mar-17
Length: 96 pages
ISBN: 9789810736231 (paperback)
Originally published in: 2012
Kinokuniya link: We Love Toa Payoh
