Pub makes a meal of Sunday lunch sign (From This Is Local London)

Pub makes a meal of Sunday lunch sign

10:15am Friday 28th October 2011 in Colin Baker By Colin Baker

This week, my wife spotted a blackboard outside a pub bearing the words “Sunday Lunches available”.

A simple enough message but, as she remarked to me, one that could be construed as suggesting that there were other things on the menu that were much more the ticket, but if you really insisted, you could have Sunday lunch. It’s a bit like when a broadcaster realises they have mentioned a product and therefore feels the need to add “other providers are available” just to cover themselves. As far as inducements go, it was a bit half hearted and did not tempt us to jam on the brakes and nip in to book a table for the following Sunday.

Sometimes people responsible for giving out information to the public just don’t give the wording enough thought. And I am not just talking about the variants on the plurals of potato and tomato and their plurals, beloved of greengrocers nationwide.

For instance, I recently saw a single urinal with a sign attached above it advising the user that the water was not suitable for drinking. You don’t say?

This of course is another example of signs erected for legally defensive reasons so that the very stupid can’t claim not to know that leaning over the wall on the promenade might lead to a rapid descent into the sea below. Other examples of the idiots leading the idiots include ‘Caution: water on road during rain’.

‘May cause drowsiness’ – on a bottle of sleeping tablets, ‘Indoor or outdoor use only’ on Christmas lights, and ‘Pedestrians please pass either side’ on a bollard in Oxford Street. Whereas the publican and the ‘available lunch’ were possibly written quickly – all those other signs were discussed, planned, approved, manufactured and installed.

Presumably no one with sufficient clout to suggest a re-think was involved at any stage after the original instructions were issued, so we are advised that a birthday card for a one year old is not suitable for children aged 36 months or less, that a microwave oven is not suitable for drying pets, that potty putty should not be used as ear plugs, that children should be removed from pushchairs before they are folded up and that a TV remote is not dishwasher safe.

My favourite was on a butcher’s knife – ‘Do not use in children.’ A translation issue there I think.