noticing solecisms in the grammar

[freckles_and_doubt]

DSCN1812, originally uploaded by extemporanea.

This sign has recently popped up at an intersection near our house. It fascinates me not because it's completely futile (the red-shirted gent in the background of the photo is, in fact, one of the cohort of usual traders, whose activities have diminished not one whit since the sign went up) but because its grammatical construction genuinely perplexes me. Why the continuous tense? If that is, in fact, the continuous tense and not some kind of misshapen gerund. The sense seems to be something along the lines of "[This sign is] prohibiting trading in the intersection", which is self-referential and redundant. I find myself mentally filling in chirply little slogans: "This sign! prohibiting trading in the intersection since 2010!"

As usual, it all seems curiously unnecessary - why the hell they couldn't simply say "Trading prohibited at intersection" I do not know, unless it has something to do with wanting the two halves of the sentence to balance out in terms of number of letters, for sheer artistic purposes. Honestly, I sometimes think that sign-painters are raised deliberately in sealed environments into which no vestige of grammatical sense is permitted to intrude.

Interesting sidenote: when I completely ignored the avocado-proffering trader in order to haul out my camera and snap the sign, he immediately wanted to know if I was "some kind of journalist." Only, I fear, the most limited and eccentric kind.

Comments

[egadfly.livejournal.com]

There's also the matter of the preposition when read with the illustration. The sign is prohibiting trading in the intersection, rather than near, at or around it. Clearly the car-dodging redshirt is plying his trading very much in the intersection. However the graphic which the sign is displaying is of a trader's stall complete with umbrella, which in the middle of the public carriageway clearly would be endangering traffic. Perhaps the sign is meaning that one should not be erecting one's stall so as to be trafficking in the way of oncoming traffic. In that case the nimble-footing of pedestriating tradingpersons might be something which the sign is accepting.

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

I can just see the court case that's likely to result, the trader's impassioned defense hinging on the preposition. "But your Honour! I wasn't in the intersection, I was on the traffic island!" - which, in fact, he is in that photograph.

This means that there is, as you point out, a curious disconnect between the picture and the wording - the picture in fact seems to be prohibiting trader's tables with umbrellas. Or else instructing traders not to pile their goods into pyramids, as a sort of weird religious injunction.

Gonzo Grammarians

[dicedcaret.livejournal.com]

Teh Missus and I also recently spotted the sign and chortled over its sheer futility, and the somewhat naive faith its erectors have in the Power of (Inept) Signage.

I'm intrigued by the untold story: what if you'd said "Yes, I am a journalist"? Perhaps you'd have been subjected to some rant over uncaring authority making it difficult for hardworking traders to earn a living.

Re: Gonzo Grammarians

[extemporanea.livejournal.com]

You forget the first rule of intersection traders: Never Engage. That's how to end up with a lap full of unwanted avocados and a demand for money.