| Author | Message | ||
     Ramsey Campbell (Ramsey) Username: Ramsey Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 195.93.21.74 |
Merseyrail have advised the media that as of today, anyone who doesn't buy a ticket before travelling on the local railway will be liable to a fine. Fair enough, I suppose, as long as the facilities are always available. But one local radio station said in the news that "Anyone found without a ticket before boarding a train will be liable to a fine." I rang the newsroom, but the person I spoke to insisted that there was no difference in meaning. By gum, that's a harsh interpretation. | ||
| Joel (Joel) Username: Joel Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 91.110.187.252 |
That's a fascinating example of 'ghost' syntax: the meaning of the sentence belongs to its unspoken full version, the contracted version making no sense – or rather, the wrong kind of sense – on its own. Rather like those things office managers say that refer implicitly to past situations and make no sense at all unless you know that. The same 'historical baggage' sentences of warped dialogue occur in our personal lives, but rarely are they as charged with unspoken venom as in the workplace. Here's a proposition: work and money are for us what sex was to the Victorians: a feared, largely repressed, bitterly contended issue that warps language, invades our dreams and, if allowed out into the open, appears mostly in twisted and violent forms. Ramsey's THIEVING FEAR, Ligotti's MY WORK IS NOT YET DONE and the film DRAG ME TO HELL are notable recent examples. Sex is just so... cute by comparison. | ||
| Gary Fry (Gary_fry) Username: Gary_fry Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 86.26.61.140 |
"Warning: passengers standing too close to the edge of the platform line are in danger of being sucked off." | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Dogs must be carried on escalators. What if I don't have a dog? | ||
| Protodroid (Protodroid) Username: Protodroid Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 78.152.195.152 |
Our train driver once started an explanation for why the train was delayed that got asymptotically slower until it became apparent that he was trying to make something up as he was talking. The words just petered out and the intercom clicked off. | ||
| Mark_lynch (Mark_lynch) Username: Mark_lynch Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 217.171.129.73 |
'Flexible person required to fill vacancy.' Is one of my favourites of late. | ||
| Weber_gregston (Weber_gregston) Username: Weber_gregston Registered: 03-2008 Posted From: 194.176.105.47 |
Famous old headline on the front page of a local paper - Enraged bull kills farmer with shotgun |