Hiap Tong crane truck thing
“Have you left your valuables behind?”
This warning from the Singapore Police, spotted in a toilet stall in Cineleisure at Orchard is semantically equivalent to “Have you left all of your valuables behind?”
Although it is a somewhat plausible question, I think a better question would be one that has a slightly different meaning, less like “Have you left everything behind?” and more like “Have you left anything behind?”
Siem Reap, Cambodia (November 2014)
Below are 27 selected photos of a brief trip with friends to Siem Reap, Cambodia.
“Please Watch Out For Your Belongings!”
This warning, spotted in The Clementi Mall, makes it sound like the belongings themselves are dangerous, like a sign that says “Beware of Dog” or “Watch Out for Falling Rocks”, though admittedly neither of those warnings starts with ‘please’.
Of course the intent is something like ‘take care of’, and ‘watch out for’ sometimes has this meaning. “Watch out for your children” means ‘keep a lookout’ so that they come to no harm, but the meaning doesn’t transfer to inanimate objects as nicely.
While we’re nitpicking, we might as well point out that the exclamation mark seems extraneous. No final punctuation is needed since the words are all capitalized. Alternatively, only one capital letter is needed, since it’s a sentence with end punctuation.
Pesky ‘with’
When I read this:
Dumex, proudly nurturing Singapore babies with global expertise and experience.
I thought, Wow, Singapore babies have global expertise and experience?
The preposition ‘with’ is ambiguous. It could mean ‘having’ (which is what I thought at first) or it could mean ‘using’ (which is what was intended).
Big lizard
Imitated
When I was working full-time at an enrichment centre, I made paper fortunetellers to amuse kids who are waiting for parents to pick them up or fill out registration paperwork or whatever. Sometimes I gave them away… it was easy to make new ones and it made kids so happy.
The ones I make now are slightly different from the ones I made when I was a kid, which start off with red/green/yellow/blue and inside have something gossipy inside about who you are going to marry or whatever.
My fortunetellers have sun/moon/stars/clouds on the outside, because these all have different numbers of letters and are all things in the sky and can be depicted easily using a pen or pencil (rather than colored crayons, markers or pencils).
The ‘fortunes’ are just faces: happy, sad, angry, surprised, sleeping, bored, silly and ‘idea’ (you’re a genius!).
Even though I’m not teaching anymore, I still carry a fortune-teller in my wallet, in case I run into a child who needs to be amused… don’t laugh, it happens!
For example, when my husband and I ran into some neighbors at Haq-Insaf’s Eating Place, I was able to amuse their young daughter. After playing with my fortuneteller, she even made one of her own!
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.
Confederate taxi
My husband and I rode in a taxi that had a confederate flag displayed on the dashboard. The driver had full cowboy getup. We chatted with him. Apparently, country-western is a culture with which he identifies. Strongly.
French beer ad
Kronenbourg, there’s a flaw in your logic:
If you think French wines are good, you should try the beer.
Actually, I think it could be either of these two flaws:
I guess appeal to emotion gets old among marketers eventually.
Lots of stamps on a box. Like, really a lot.
Like, um… 54.
Wait, no, sorry—forgot to count the ones on the front.
…79 total.
Actually, that’s not all, either, because there’s a $5.35 sticker from the bar code machine, which could have been used for the whole amount, no? I mean, you know, I’m just saying.
I guess my in-laws really wanted to use up some stamps that were lying around. Cracks me up! This kind of thing probably also cracks up the postal workers. Possibly not in the same way.
