Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Pretentious Sign Contest

OK, let's have a pretentious sign contest!

The winner will receive a prize.

Rules: the sign should be as pretentious as possible, saying something simple in a flowery or ridiculously verbose way.

Here's my nomination:



Translation: "Be nice to the janitor! Put trash in trash cans."

Now, it's up to you.

7 comments:

dot said...

If you really want to make a contest, you should put a deadline for the submissions...

PS: Did you know that Knuth was collecting pictures of signs (another way he could have inspired you :D )

andrew said...

Pretty much everything from passiveaggressivenotes.com. I like this one: http://www.passiveaggressivenotes.com/2007/10/30/be-more-of-a-peoples-person-ok/

What do I win? :)

Jeffrey Shallit said...

That's a nice note, Andrew, but I wouldn't call it pretentious.

Anonymous said...

I find the apparent battle of wills between two sign makers amusing. It seems the Market Square sign maker has one the battle ...

this time.

Anonymous said...

%s/one/won/

Anonymous said...

I nominate any sign that says "For your convenience..." Usually it's something the merchant wants that makes my life miserable:

"For your convenience, we no longer accept personal checks."

"For your convenience, these premises are monitored by video cameras."

"For your convenience, all bags are subject to search when leaving the store."

Anonymous said...

Reminded me of one of the funniest scenes in "Yes, Minister", in which Sir Humphrey attempts to say "I did it":

"The identity of the official whose alleged responsibility for this hypothetical oversight has been the subject of recent discussion is not shrouded in quite such impenetrable obscurity as certain previous disclosures may have led you to assume, but, not to put too fine a point on it, the individual in question is, it may surprise you to learn, one whom your present interlocutor is in the habit of defining by means of the perpendicular pronoun."