BS: Life's little absurdities

Subject: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 17 Jun 18 - 06:21 PM

A few years ago I bought a bag of salted peanuts, Sainsbury's own brand. On the pack it said "Warning: may contain nuts."

A couple of years ago I was looking for a birthday card for a bambino's first birthday. Found a card with a big pin-on badge that said in big colourful letters "I am one!" On the back of the badge was a little sticker that said "Warning: unsuitable for children under 36 months due to small parts."

Today I bought some citronella incense sticks (I use 'em in the garden to deter biting bugs in tbe evening). The pack declared "Bring your garden to life!" On the label in small print it said "For indoor use only..."

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: leeneia
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 12:58 AM

Good ones, Steve.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 02:42 AM

Reminds me of a garment I saw that bore a large label saying 'Proudly made in Australia'. The label in the inside seam, in small letters, said 'Made in China'.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 03:56 AM

We bought a small, square side table in a 'flat pack'. The instructions began 'Needs two people to assemble'. It consisted of the top, four legs (ready-drilled) and four screws. I did it myself in about 10 seconds.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 08:15 AM

At the doctor's today: "This door must be kept closed" on the entrance to the waiting room. "Please close the door" would make more sense.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 08:30 AM

My sister told me the Tesco's up in Dundee has a sign 'This door is alarmed'. She felt she ought to reassure it.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 08:45 AM

Cats and Sledgehammers.
Without completely closing the bathroom door Linus opened a drawer thereby preventing opening the door into the bathroom.
After fiddling with knives it was clear that only a sledge hammer would open the door.
I have a new door that still needs to to be fitted.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: DMcG
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 09:27 AM

Also at the doctor's today: They used one of these thermometers that clip onto the finger. When it flashed up "Low Battery" I couldn't resist saying "Presumably, that's not mine."

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 09:38 AM

On nearly every gents' toilet in the country, once you've washed your hands you have no alternative but to grab a seriously contaminated door handle in order to get out. Well, you can always try to open it with just your pinkie wrapped round the very top of the handle, or just wait until somebody else comes through the door so that you don't have to touch that handle...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 09:52 AM

Hahaha DMcG! That reminds me of the last time I had an ECG at the doctor's. The practice nurse set it all up, but the trace was absolutely blank (ink had run out). I smiled and said, "Ah! I must be dead!"

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 09:55 AM

Cue sub-thread entitled "amusing colonoscopy tales..."

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Iains
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 10:01 AM

Too much information I fear!

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 10:05 AM

You fear correctly, if you get me started...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Michael
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 11:48 AM

I had one last year: My Anus Horribilis!

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Will Fly
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 12:20 PM

I love the road signs that say:

"Potatoes please pull in"

"Caution - heavy plant crossing"

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 12:39 PM

A stall on Norwich market has a sign saying 'Jackets - Genuine PVC'

And the latest is a new launderette I noticed yesterday on Magdalen Street called 'Magdalen Laundry'. No nuns or pregnant lassies around, fortunately. And a good job the final 'e' isn't in the name of the street.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: gillymor
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 12:45 PM

I'm always amused by the items in the grocery that say cheese food product on the label. One out of three ain't bad I guess.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 12:47 PM

"Caution - heavy plant crossing"
Picture of the road sign with a man leaning against it reading "the Day of the Triffids"

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 05:36 PM

Either Aldi or Lidl (I can't remember which it was) the other day was selling packets of 'celery storks'.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Gurney
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 05:59 PM

A label under my wooden dining chairs says 'Careless use of matches may set fire to this furniture.'

Must be why they use wood for matchsticks, huh?

If I ever decide to burn them, I'll carefully split them into splinters first. THEN carelessly use matches.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 06:13 PM

We have lots of those PYO farms (strawberries, raspberries, apples etc) They display a large sign on the roadside 'PICK YOUR OWN' and someone has always written NOSE underneath. Pathetic really...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 06:41 PM

Steve: "May contain nuts" is nicely complemented by the legend on a packet of nuts I bought a long time ago: "If salted, contains salt".f

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 07:54 PM

And I don't know why all nut allergy sufferers don't just starve to death, when I see that almost everything you buy has a warning: "unsuitable for nut allergy sufferers as this is made in a factory that uses nut ingredients..."

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Donuel
Date: 18 Jun 18 - 07:57 PM

There is a sign here on mudcat that the news is too human to discuss.
Or maybe that feelings are a bit raw right now.
The threads about dogs, cats, salmon bunnies birds and varmints are all crowding the first page.


No bacteria were harmed in the production of this post.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: leeneia
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 10:41 AM

"seriously contaminated door handle"

Steve, I open the door with my hand under my shirt-tail. Or I pull my hand back inside a long sleeve.

The DH says that if the handle is made of metal (and they usually are), the metal will have killed any bacteria. Metal is toxic.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 06:38 PM

I wouldn't stake my intestinal wellbeing on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: keberoxu
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 07:18 PM

Driving through southeastern Phoenix near its airport,
I drove past a group of shops with off-street parking out front;
this little parking lot in front of the shops
had one large sign fixture with
the shops' identification signs, stacked on on top of another.

This included the following:

PSYCHIC
Shoe Repair

I dunno. You tell me ...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 20 Jun 18 - 08:19 PM

A psychic is a man who can see into your sole...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:11 AM

I haven't been to Kew Gardens by public transport for many years, but there used to be a sign as you left the station saying 'Kew Gardens Bear right outside station'. Maybe it's still there.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jon Freeman
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:32 AM

On signs, Jos, this one remains my favourite.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:33 AM

Glad to hear it's not just me who hates public toilet door handles. Having observed the huge number of people who don't wash their hands after taking a leak, or even a dump, my skin crawls every time I have to touch the door handle with my freshly-washed hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:49 AM

Would the Welsh road sign have been any better if they had used one of the online translation systems?

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 03:02 AM

Nearby is what I have called the world's most unambiguous advertisement


XXXX's HOMEOPATHY
when all else fails


Ok, so you spent a fortune on every other type of snake oil - why leave this one out?

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: DMcG
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 03:09 AM

Unambitious, not unambiguous.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 03:38 AM

On Norwich market there are several stalls selling fruit and vegetables. One in particular has me grinding my teeth. Their large price list is something like this:-

cauli's
spud's
cherrie's
and the best one -
asparagu's

As a retired teacher, I itch to give them detention and make them write out the whole thing ten times, with NO apostrophes.
But they always greet us warmly, and are lovely to my husband, picking out the best Scotch bonnets for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Manitas_at_home
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 03:44 AM

I hear that many greengrocer's do this deliberately to draw attention to their good's.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 04:01 AM

Hahaha Manitas, you're probably right!

I do think however that language is constantly evolving, and the apostrophe may now be used quite widely to indicate plurals.
Just as the new pronunciation of H ("haitch") seems to have become the norm.
I'll have to stop grinding my teeth, I haven't many left as it is!

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 04:35 AM

And the new pronunciation of 'th' as 'f', Sen! Eastenders has much to answer for!

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Raedwulf
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 04:44 AM

Sen - These premises are alarmed

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 05:08 AM

I hadn't heard of Thomas Ades Raedwulf.
Maybe he goes to the same Tesco store as my sister!

I reckon TV has a lot to answer for Backwoodsman. The Australian interrogative lift of tone at the end of a sentence is perhaps the fault of 'Home and Away'.

And American rappers and hip-hop performers have influenced Londonspeak. But I love all that, I have to say.

It would be horribly boring if everything/everyone stuck to the norm. I do like 'different' stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 07:19 AM

" the new pronunciation of 'th' as 'f'"

Nothing 'new' about that, or about the disappearing 't' - though tha' has cer'ainly been ge'ing worse recen'ly.

One pronunciation that is relatively new is the failure to use 'an' in place of 'a', or to pronounce 'the' as 'thee', before a vowel.
It seems to have started with children and teenagers, but now seems to have spread to radio and television presenters (who, after all, will have been teenagers not long ago).

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Steve Shaw
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 07:19 AM

"And the new pronunciation of 'th' as 'f', Sen! Eastenders has much to answer for!"

You can't say fairer than that then...

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 07:44 AM

"One pronunciation that is relatively new is the failure to use 'an' in place of 'a', or to pronounce 'the' as 'thee', before a vowel.
It seems to have started with children and teenagers, but now seems to have spread to radio and television presenters (who, after all, will have been teenagers not long ago)."

My impression is that those are examples of Americanisms which have winged their way, via TV shows, across the Atlantic. There are many of those nowadays - i even heard a young person here recently say that something or other 'sucks', an expression never heard (certainly in my part of the UK) in my own youth.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 07:58 AM

It's very interesting to me to hear all these language and pronunciation innovations. Words such as 'like' seem to arrive like a swarm of bees in conversations among younger folk on TV.
And I always have said that I'm delighted with 'innit?' Love that one!

We just had an absurd moment in Asda this morning. My husband needed two packets of strong shoelaces for his work boots. He always loves the self-service checkout (I don't!) The machine didn't WANT him to buy two packets, and a disembodied voice kept repeating, "This has already been checked out. Please place in the bagging area!"
We sent for the lady, who kept fighting with the device, but it wouldn't budge. She eventually told us to pay for one packet, then start all over again as if we'd just arrived, in order to pay for the second. Luckily the machine didn't twig it was us again!
Blooming crazy!

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 12:29 PM

Those errors may have come from TV, but TV is not real life. I have never heard an American use a or thuh before a vowel. Foreigners, yes, but they quickly catch on.

As for saying f for th, didn't Dickens characters do that sometimes?

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Jos
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:22 PM

I, too, thought that 'f' for 'th' cropped up in Dickens, but I haven't time to look for examples at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 02:34 PM

I've just thumbed through Oliver Twist leeneia, and strangely enough, Dickens doesn't depict Cockney speech by substituting f for th. And one would imagine the urchins in Fagin's den would have spoken Cockney like the very Devil!

However, the accent of East London was probably heard for hundreds of years, while rhyming slang became current in the nineteenth century.

I spoke with rather a Cockney accent (with a West London twist) when I was a girl, much to my father's annoyance! My sister and I dropped our aitches and used f for th, but tried to modify our speech if he was around.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: frogprince
Date: 21 Jun 18 - 05:25 PM

I would fink fat fat would be confusing.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Backwoodsman
Date: 22 Jun 18 - 01:48 AM

That would be, "I fink vat vat would be confusing", Froggie!

The soft 'th' (as in 'think' ) is mispronounced as an 'f'. The hard 'th' (as in 'that') would, if mispronounced at all, be pronounced as a 'v'. However, IME, many who mispronounce the soft 'th' do actually pronounce the hard 'th' correctly.

That's my observation anyway.

Subject: RE: BS: Life's little absurdities
From: Senoufou
Date: 22 Jun 18 - 02:16 AM

Quite right Backwoodsman. Voiced and unvoiced dental fricative.

I'd say 'think' would indeed be 'fink', But 'that' might sometimes have nothing at all at the front, as in 'wossat?' (What's that?) or 'oozat?' (who's that?)
My sis and I used to say 'aas' for house. Drove my poor father mad.

To complicate matters, my mother (from Cork) spoke with a soft Irish accent, and used 't' for 'th', as in Tursday,
It's a wonder we learned any English at all!