Sunday 21 March 2010

Sign of the Times


I ran across a road sign story yesterday and tried to find a couple more – and succeeded.

This road sign below was put up by Swansea council workers. The English wording had been sent off to a translator by e-mail and whoever sent it off didn’t bother checking what came back.


The Welsh says: “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.”

The next one proved somewhat confusing for those who are bilingual and positively dangerous for those who only read Welsh.


The Welsh says: “Pedestrians look left.”

This final one was confusing for everyone.


The reason was that the wording is Welsh, but the sign was put up in Scotland.

It’s perhaps about time all these dual English / Welsh signs were consigned to the dustbin as an exercise in futility.

Talking of signs; I shall today be luncheoning at the sign of The Rising Sun near Lacock in Wilts. Having an early birthday party (it's tomorrow).


View Larger Map of The Rising Sun



View Larger Map of Lacock




9 comments:

The Girl With The Mousy Hair said...

I just love the first sign. Everyone at work will love it as they all speak Welsh. There is a good reason for this, they are Welsh.
Happy birthday for tomorrow enjoy your meal.I wonder what your favourite luncheon is?

Alan Burnett said...

Happy birthday for tomorrow. When you are having lunch buy yourself a pint from me - I will let you have the money the next time I see you. As for including the streetview pictures of the pub - it is a masterly idea.

Anonymous said...

Happy old day you OLD bastard !

Chairman Bill said...

Kerrie: In this case it was belly pork with cider gravy and colcanon.

Alan: Sorry, but I had a bottle of Old Black Shiraz on you. Hope you don't mind.

Anon (or Phil): you're not far behind mate!

Fletch said...

Many happy returns, Bill.

Lovely pub. Used it a couple of times as the 'endpoint' for our car rallies (sorry, 'Treasure Hunts'), because of its location and the space in the gardens.

Had to look up colcanon. Sign of a deprived adulthood ...

Avus said...

How I do agree about the absolute futility of those Welsh signs. I wonder just how much it costs to make everything bilingual - signs, forms, letters, etc. Do none of the Welsh speak English? Are we a united kingdom? (Might as well have all Scottish signs bilingual Gaelic and Cornish ditto.

Tom said...

"Are we a united kingdom?"

Have 'United Kingdom' and 'England' become synonyms all of a sudden?

Chairman Bill said...

Tom: I think so, especially when Welsh is a minotity language even in Wales (21% of the population) and the local councils need a translator to get it right. These bilingual signs cause more accidents than they're meant to prevent.

The Girl With The Mousy Hair said...

Just had to pop back to tell you all the Welsh at work say the " The look right " sign has obviously been put up in Wales as an attempt to get the English run over.