A. B. Hurwitz and J. A. Fidell. Silly Signs (1974) A Scholastic book bought by Cassandra many years ago. Consists of what the title says: and some of the signs are pretty silly, too. Not known which are real and which are made up. I mean, some signs are purposely silly, others are silly by accident. I’d like to know which are which. Most are the result of the writers’ not thinking about how the sign will look to the intended audience.
Samples: Belt Your Family and Save Their Lives. Come In and Borrow Enough to Get out of Debt. Wanted - Man to Take Care of Horses Who can Speak German.
Amusing. Middle school pupils like this kind of thing in part because it confirms their growing sense of mastery of the language. One has to understand the language pretty well to catch the absurdities in these signs. ** (2002)
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