AS DOCTORS know only too well, as soon as you give a syndrome a name it starts popping up all over the place. So at the end of last year, when we coined the term semiopathy鈥攖he phenomenon of reading inappropriate emotions into signs鈥攄ozens of readers discovered that they were semiopathologists. And, in the best academic tradition, it鈥檚 time to create some sub-disciplines.
First come the 鈥渢ime-flies鈥� signs, named after the grammar-wrenching line from Groucho Marx: 鈥淭ime flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.鈥� Thus, is the sign 鈥淐rocodiles Do Not Swim Here鈥� at the Jinja Sailing Club in Zimbabwe an announcement that they鈥檝e decided to walk, or an injunction to literate crocodilians? And unfortunately for keen young lads, it seems unlikely that the sign outside the Sports Club in Bombay, India, reading 鈥淔irst hump 116 yards ahead鈥� refers to a much-anticipated experience.
Advertisers seem particularly keen on getting the wrong message across. What proud parent would want to buy Boots鈥� 鈥淓xtra Thick Baby Wipes鈥� for their little Einstein? And who would stop at the farm near Edinburgh announcing 鈥淏urning logs and peat for sale鈥�, unless they were really fed up with their car interior? And Janis Cortese was tickled by a spam e-mail promising that she could 鈥渁ttract men with larger breasts鈥�. However, she tells us she would generally prefer to attract men who have no discernible breasts of any kind.
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A subspecies of time-flies inhabits the world of instructions and warnings. Thus Paul Dear has never dared comply with the plaintive request from his computer printer: 鈥淚nput Jam鈥�.
Regulations tend to evolve toward greater complexity, George Daughters hypothesises, after seeing the street sign 鈥淣o trucks allowed鈥� metamorphose into 鈥淣o trucks between 6 am and 7 pm eastbound on Route 16 on Tuesdays over 8 tons鈥�. He claims never to have seen a Tuesday that was an ounce over 2 tons.
Only an Australian Department of Posthumous Jurisprudence could be responsible for the sign at a railway crossing in Melbourne: 鈥淲arning! Touching overhead wires causes instant death!鈥enalty $200.鈥� And outside the Defence Evaluation and Research Agency establishment at Fort Halstead in Kent you are, apparently, warned that 鈥淧olice Club Visitors鈥�. Best not go there, then.
Our second sub-discipline is what we鈥檒l call 鈥渄omain-specific semiopathy鈥�. While the time-flies inhabit language in general, this specifically infests jargon. For example, it will be cosmologists, mostly, who will be tickled by the sign in the car park by the Co-op store in Wadebridge, Cornwall, saying 鈥淧lease wait for space to appear鈥�. Neurologists, meanwhile, may not be terribly optimistic that they鈥檒l reach their destination if they get into a cab displaying the company name 鈥淎TAXIS鈥� on the roof. And it took a zoologist to be baffled by the advertisement in this magazine some time ago for a 鈥渟mall ruminant scientist鈥�.
Psychiatrists, on the other hand, may feel empathy with the 鈥渂affled fermenters鈥� that Margaret Clotworthy keeps hearing about in lectures on industrial bioprocessing. And they鈥檒l certainly avoid depending too much on the product in the truck with the big revolving drum that Peter Milner followed through Auckland: 鈥淐ertified Concrete鈥�.
Someone has probably tried to avoid psychiatric-semiopathic tendencies in the warning on the lids of jars of sauce: 鈥淩eject if the safety button can be depressed鈥�. Note the 鈥渃an be鈥�. Several cruel readers, however, persist in trying, telling it that it has no friends and no hope, before taking it home anyway.
Our last sub-discipline will, by nature, be the hardest in which to produce statistically significant studies. Serendipitous semiopathy is notoriously dependent on happenstance鈥攁s when a few months ago Richard Proctor saw a sign reading 鈥淧olice Accident鈥� and drove carefully round the corner, to find a police car in the hedge.
THE ACADEMIC PRESS is proud to announce the publication of the sixth edition of Table of Integrals, Series, and Products by I. S. Gradshteyn, I. M. Ryzhik, Alan Jeffrey and Daniel Zwillinger. According to the promotional blurb, 鈥淭his sixth edition includes hundreds of corrections to the previous edition.鈥�
After five previous tries, we wonder if this will enhance or diminish readers鈥� confidence.
SPARE a thought for 16-year-old Hereford schoolboy Christian King. He was travelling on a train with his school technology project, an electronic foot pedal for a guitar, but accidentally left the device behind when he got off. When the ever-vigilant police found the package a major security alert followed, with the busy New Street station in Birmingham being evacuated for several hours in case the device was a bomb.
The police have accepted King鈥檚 apologies for his mistake, but unfortunately his problems are not yet over. According to the BBC Online news report of the incident: 鈥淗is teachers are now consulting the examination board on how to grade the project since its destruction in a controlled explosion.鈥�
THE FLYER for Perrymen鈥檚 100 per cent pure blood and bone, on sale in gardening shops in Melbourne, proudly states: 鈥淭he product contains no chemicals鈥�. Directly beneath this it lists what it does contain: 鈥淣itrogen 8.00 per cent, Phosphate 4.70 per cent, Sulphur 0.48 per cent, Calcium 10.10 per cent, Manganese 37 ppm, Magnesium 0.20 per cent, Copper 4 ppm, Zinc 130 ppm, Iron 600 ppm, Boron 15 ppm, Sodium 0.44 per cent, Chloride 0.32 per cent.鈥�
FINALLY, on easycar鈥檚 website the following note is given in the details about the opening time of the Glasgow branch: 鈥渆asyRentacar regrets that it cannot remain open outside the published opening hours in the event of any delays or failures in the mode of transport used to reach the rental location鈥︹��
Just above this note, the page states: 鈥淗ours of opening 00:01 鈥� 23:59鈥�.