Signs

Summary: I'm a sucker for signs, especially the ones with mistakes in them. This page has some of my favorites on it.

Crosswalk Button (2006-07-23)

I took the first picture on the north corner of Jefferson and Hoover in Los Angeles, the second on the south corner, and the third (a standard sign) on the southeast corner of the same intersection. Even though the first two signs look official, I think they were probably created by some maniacal genuis with time and money on his hands.

They read: Total Crisis; Panic Button / [person] Start Running; Danger is Imminent / [flashing red hand] Don't Think; Stay Fearful and Alert / [solid red hand] Obey Orders.

crosswalk sign 1 crosswalk sign 2 crosswalk sign 3

Cafe (2005-04)

I used to pass by this cafe on my way to work every day in Nagoya, Japan. The sign reads: "It's a blundering world. And a very sad one / Yet a little kindness can make it beautiful." The passage seems like something you might read in an E.M. Forster novel.

Retail Store Changing Room (2004-08)

This sign was posted outside the dressing room at a certain store in Hawaii. The odd Japanese at the bottom caught my eye, so I snapped a picture. I asked the attendant there what it meant and she said she didn't know. Thirty minutes later it was gone, and this pictue is probably all that remains. It wasn't until afterwards that I realized the English wasn't so great either. Even though it is written with Japanese characters, the sign is gibberish as far as I can tell--totally unintelligible.

There was a thread (Hawaiian written in Japanese script? ) on a languages forum about this a few months ago that was pretty interesting.