Respectful Recycling

Some simple please and thank yous can really help set positive, polite and engaging tone.  Here for some recycling bins.  A less formal font for the please and thanks yous too.

Solo Motorcycles Only

Some dedicated London parking for 'solo motorcycles only'.

Given that the alternative to a solo motorcycle is a motorcycle with a sidecar,  and motorcycles with sidecars are so rare, then the word solo is rather overprescriptive, even superfluous.  

Also, most solo motorcycles can carry a pillion passenger.  Technically that would make them no longer solo.  So motorcyclist and passenger, just as with a sidecar.

Properly Private Property

Some lovely old and substantive 'Private Property' signs adorning the edge if a public footpath across a meadow.  Super three dimensional signs cast in metal, and have stood the test of time.

Please Sweep up

At the local recycling centre... "Please sweep up. Thank you'.

So please and thank you, so as many polite words as instruction words.

What is nice about this is that the implication is that you sweep up your own mess. But if course this could be read as a direct instruction to sweep up mess, irrespective of whether it's your own or not.  Even if you don't have any rubbish...coming across this sign seems to ask you to muck in.

Cupboard Door Exit

A fantastic large old house converted to a tea room.  With some alterations to provide all the necessary facilities of course.

From inside the toilet the thing that looks like the exit door - delightful and substantive four panel - is not exit/entrance door but in fact the cupboard.  There's a wonderful sign near the handle saying as much....'This us a cupboard not the way out'.  The actual exit is a more plain affair, flat with a run handle and grab rail.   So the visual clues are less.... with the cupboard there are fur panels and and handle to naturally draw you.

To help, as well as the negative "don't use this door message", how about a positive "This is the exit sign" on the real exit door.

Door Challenge

A sturdy oak door to the farm shop tea room.

So there's a clear polite sign... 'Please close the door behind you'.  Tis lrft at's reasonable enough as it's winter and its chilly.  However, as it's winter the door has swollen and is very difficult to pull properly closed.

That sign now takes on a very different messsge.  The owner/staff will know the door is stiff but still the sign is there.  So now the sign means that you're being expected to win the battle with the very stiff door.  Be prepared to use all your might and make some noise. 

Now that reasonable, clear and polite sign now seems like a much less reasonable customer test.  In reality, the door Is left jammed against it's frame but not fully closed.

Right, off to the farm shop now, curious about what other unreasonable customer requests are yet to come.

Sorry Warden

Not in use sign on a loo door at a camp site...."Not in use until further notice Sorry for any inconvenience Warden"

So the first couple of lines seem like a whole sentence.  "Not in use until further notice" with the slightly bigger "Not in Use" to emphasise the point up front.  

Then what you might think was a second sentence...'Sorry for the inconvenience warden'. So an apology to the ward.   It's really a second sentence with an authorship statement underneath...which makes it an apology from the warden.   The second sentence idea sense is reinforced by the fact it's longer and hence scrolled onto the next line. 

In this case it white space which is missing, a blank line before warden, so that is sufficiently separate and then will feel like an author/signature line.