Yesterday, I got a letter from Siganus Sutor in Mauritius regarding his comment in my last post:
Good morning Artur,
As promised, please find attached pictures taken at Vacoas‘s bus station (“la gare de bus”), where there is a sign saying “alighting platform”. I always thought that it was the place where engines were fired, i.e. allumés — even if buses don’t have steam engines anymore on Mars. Silly me…
Yours
Sig
The usual greeting at the end of Sig’s letters is Salaam, which I like a lot.
Sometimes I think I would like to be living in Mauritius or Argentina. Both are ideal for goats and horses.
A Bad Guide 
There should be a snuffing platform opposite.
It sounds a bit frightening: a prop from a snuff movie, perhaps.
My grandmother had a brass candle snuffer, and I always enjoyed using it–liked the idea of a special tool for extinguishing a candle by means other than blowing. It didn’t have a face on it, though.
“Candle snuffer” also has an older meaning; see the second half of this brief article.
I’ve seen those scissor things. I think my great-great-aunt had one.
“The instrument now known as a candle snuffer was formerly called an ‘extinguisher’ or ‘douter’ “.
“Snuffing platform” could be euphemised as “sniffing platform”.
But ought we to be giving these snuffers, or sniffers, a platform?
I’m afraid there were no salamalecs* this time. Next time perhaps.
* “bowing and scraping” (Harrap’s)
NO, NO, NO! you wouldn’t like living here in Argentina. You’re accustomed to nice people and an adequate, just and working State.
Come to visit, though!
Or just go a little to the East from us and try to live in Uruguay. I’m really thinking how to do it myself…
I love Sig’s pictures (I should visit his blog more often) and the snuffers, which, as Ø, I always found amusing.
Everyone should visit Sig’s blog.
That’s a good piece about Uruguay. I have never lived anywhere that had adequate news coverage of the countries in South America. Perhaps I mean “any news coverage”. I can’t believe the people are any nastier in Argentina.
I am guessing that:
(1) Dismounting from a horse is called “alighting” because horseback riding is in some ways like flying and a bird is said to alight on a perch.
(2) Getting off a bus is called “alighting” because getting off a bus is in some ways like getting off a horse and getting off a horse is called alighting.
It’s too bad that riding a bus isn’t so much like flying. In honor of the “Alighting Platform” sign one might cultivate a more birdlike way of getting off the bus. It would be stylish to leap off before it has quite come to a stop and then stand there poised for a moment like a gymnast at the end of his routine.
Or maybe the sign ought to read “Disembussing Platform”.
But Julia, would AJP be able to live for a long time with his head lower than his feet? It takes some time to become a bat. (Ah, yes, he lived in Australia too, didn’t he?)
On the BBC’s website it could be seen that Uruguay is in fact the “Oriental Republic of Uruguay”, which suggests that there is an Occidental Uruguay, which in turn can be nowhere else than in the nearby silver country. On the photo found on the BBC page, its president — Jose Mujica — looks so much like a vampire it seems as if it’s been done on purpose. (Are the Uruguayans claiming the Falklands as well?)
A candle can also be smothered with two fingers, given they are properly moistened first. (That’s for the fingers themselves, not the candle.)
Empty, the idea behind the expression seems to be to lighten the ‘carrier’ on which one has been sitting, standing, lying, etc. At some point in time people could alight from balloons, as if they were sandbags to be thrown overboard. Nowadays they alight from planes, sometimes without any parachute on their back.
PS — A question for the English native speakers: for you, would a signboard always be for advertising purposes, or could it be, as the AHD seems to suggest, any type of “board bearing a sign”, the board in question being made of wood, metal, plastic or whatnot?
Oriental Republic of Uruguay I think is because they are called the “banda oriental”, that’s it: they are in the east bank of the river Plate and river Uruguay.
And their president is one of the things I most admire of Uruguay,
The people have the goverments they deserve… you can have a look to our president and guess we’re not very nice people… And see Mujica (Uruguay’s President) and perhaps understand why I like this country.
(Yes, I’m in a terrible mood)
You can let it all out here, Julia, we haven’t had a good argument in quite a while … … I don’t think people get the governments they deserve. I can’t think of very many governments I like in the world, but I can’t believe the people are all bad. And anyway, wasn’t the Oriental Republic a dictatorship for a while? (I learnt that from your BBC link.)
I can’t remember ever hearing the word signboard, not that there’s anything wrong with it in principle. I’d say “noticeboard” for the cork thing in small shops where people put up signs saying they’re selling prams or puppy litters. I learnt the word “signage” as an architect, a collective noun for all the little signs for toilets and exits in buildings. The big board with a picture of a bottle of Coca Cola I’d call an “advertising hoarding”. But more than anything I’d probably say just “a sign” or “a notice”.
A candle can also be smothered with two fingers, given they are properly moistened first.
Yes! We use candles a lot in the winter. When I put them out, this is the only way I can stop them smoldering and making the house smell terrible.
Empty, the idea behind the expression seems to be to lighten the ‘carrier’
Sig, do you know this, or are you guessing? Because then I would have expected to say “I’ve alightened the bus” (direct object), rather than “I’ve alightened from the bus”.
From etymonline.com: “The notion is of getting down off a horse or vehicle, thus lightening it.”
There used to be a famous sign somewhere in the British countryside. All it said was “Do not throw stones at this sign”.
Oh, yes, I always think people are good and I believe the world is full of good people (I’m almost too optimistic about this). But when I say “people have the government they deserve”, by “people” I meant “society”.
Is my point clearer this way?
Yes, I understand what you’re saying, I just don’t think it’s true. In a typical parliamentary democracy nearly half of the voters have voted against the current government; so does that part of society deserve their government? The Madres de Plaza de Mayo didn’t get the government they deserved. Well, not for a long time, anyway.
In a typical parliamentary democracy (unlike e.g. Britain), parliamentary majorities are exceptional and the work of government is to forge broad agreement and solutions that will survive the next election. This means rule by consensus rather than by narrow majority. Frustrating when you know that you’re right and everybody else is an idiot, but still a good thing.
That’s a good point, but the reason why I’m concerned about this is really because of the United States. A lot of people around the world went around blaming USians in general for the foreign policy and wars of President Bush and his Dad – or now this Romney guy – which I felt was unfair. I, or Ø, say, or millions of other USians didn’t vote for these people and didn’t support their policies. I don’t feel that New Yorkers deserved Ronald Reagan just because they voted for him down on Wall Street.
Historically, AJP, it’s the Democrats who are the warmongers. The addle-pated W is the guy who broke the pattern. But even he didn’t claim the right to assassinate US citizens whenever he felt like it. That’s O’s doing.
That’s right, but not, perhaps, so much mongers as doers. And similar dynamics is true in other areas too. Right-leaning governments will spend more money in demand crises than left-leaning, and left-leaning governments are more likely to fight runaway costs with moderation than right-leaning. A party with positive views on immigration is more likely to impose restrictions than the tough-talkers. To get a peace-agreement the rabid nationalists have to be in power.
This goes to another interesting aspect of democracy:You can contain a revolt from your own base, but never give the opposition room to release their campaign. And conversely, you’ll never be criticised for doing the right thing when the opposition is campaigning for it I believe it’s more prominent in winner-takes-it-all democracies where losing means losing it all for years to come,
I think both teams go to war: Reagan had a couple of wars, didn’t he? And Bush I had Gulf War I. I’m no great fan of O or really of any US administration in my lifetime, it’s just that Romney & co. seem much, much more awful than O.
Trond, you seem to have figured it out except for the last bit: in winner-takes-it-all democracies where losing means losing it all for years to come. I don’t see much difference with coalitions: the Liberal leader Clegg in Britain has maybe ruined his party’s chances permanently by becoming the weak yes-man in a Tory-led coalition, and in Norway the parties out of office now have been out of office since 2005, when Jens Stoltenberg’s coalition took office.
I can’t remember ever hearing the word signboard
About signboards the website oxforddictionaries.com has this to say:
« a board displaying the name or logo of a business or product:
a shop with its name painted on a signboard over the door
sponsorship gives the companies four signboards surrounding the pitch
• chiefly North American a board displaying a sign to direct traffic or travellers:
there are signboards indicating the estate is closed to lorry traffic »
Maybe it’s an American thing after all, even if on Google.co.uk there are a lot of images when the expression signboard is feeded to the “engine”.
Sorry for the delay in replying, I had to prepare an important class for Saturday and I could not sit down and write before. I wrote in Castilian and asked for help to the translator of google (and I had to help it with its obvious mistakes by God). Since I’m not sure if the translator and I did a good job, I add my original text in Castilian below.
I agree with what you say, AJP. But I still think that is not completely understood what I said.
First, I want to make clear that this phrase “the people have the government they deserve”, I consider it as something to think about. Not an absolute truth which must be believed to the letter.
Secondly, I think the examples you gave, show that you are thinking in terms of single individuals. And, instead of what I’m talking about is the collective responsibility of the whole society.
I do not think about who voted for whom, or if many individuals must suffer the bad deeds of politicians that they did not vote. Especially when they are victims of dictatorships, as the example of the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo, where there were no elections and government decisions were taken by a small elite.
On the contrary, what I mean (and I say again, not as an absolute maxim), is that society as a whole is responsible, in one way or another, for the political class it has, for systems government that perpetuates in time, for the legal system that holds their society, etc..
This is not to say there are not good people in societies with bad governments, but, perhaps, we might suggest that a society is more kinder and just, when does “produce” for years governments and leaders who also have many positive characteristics .
ORIGINAL
Estoy de acuerdo con lo que dices, AJP. Pero sigo pensando que no se entendió completamente lo que yo dije.
En primer lugar, quiero dejar en claro que esa frase que dice “los pueblos tienen los gobiernos que se merecen”, la considero como algo para reflexionar. No una verdad absoluta que debe ser creída a rajatabla.
En segundo lugar, pienso que los ejemplos que diste, evidencian que estás pensando en términos de individuos singulares. Y, en cambio, de lo que yo hablo es de la responsabilidad colectiva de toda una sociedad.
Yo no pienso en quién votó a quién, o si muchos individuos deben sufrir las malas acciones de unos políticos que ellos no votaron. Más aún cuando son víctimas de dictaduras, como el ejemplo de las Madres de Plaza de Mayo, en las que no hubo elecciones y las decisiones de gobierno las tomaron una pequeña elite.
Por el contrario, de lo que hablo (y, lo digo otra vez, no como una máxima absoluta), de los sistemas de gobierno que perpetúa en el tiempo, del sistema jurídico que sostiene su sociedad, etc.
Esto no quiere decir que no haya buenas personas en sociedades con malos gobiernos, pero sí, tal vez, nos puede hacer pensar que una sociedad es más bondadosa y justa, cuando logra “producir” dirigentes y gobiernos que también tienen muchos rasgos positivos.
Sig, I’m guessing it’s of US origin. Sometimes, in North American English, immigrants have made a literal translation of a phrase from their own language, and that might be the case here. In any case, I’d say that to use “signboard” for shop signage is either signmaker’s usage I don’t know or just old-fashioned. But that’s just my opinion, and I might be completely wrong, as I was with “panties”.
Oh, politics is so exhausting. I just want to give up. But I will cast my vote.
Like Mr Crown, my genuine native idiolect (a combination of parents’ and schoolfriends’?) has been overlaid by years in graphic design (and working for architects) so that signage and sign come naturally; but I believe “signboard” was once in my vocabulary. And possibly just meant the same as “sign”. Could’ve been the ones that say “Wrong Way” when you pass a freeway entrance and you’re already on the freeway…
What about the word signpost? (I don’t expect this one to be subject to much discussion, and I think its usage is fairly common, but again I might be wrong.)
Oh, yes, Artur, the famous panties… I read the word in a book by Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss if I’m not mistaken, and it appeared to be just an ordinary noun, without anything fishy about it. I shall try to find back that passage, and maybe put it in your post about goats wearing panties, so that it could act as example of the ‘normal’ use of that particular word.
There’s still no normal usage of ‘panties’ as far as I’m concerned. Nothing wrong with ‘signpost’, though. Signpost. A good, woody sort of a word.
Julia, Thank you for going to such trouble to write it in a foreign language, I know how hard that can be even with google. I agree with a lot of what you say, but since no one deserves a dictatorship it’s really “people get the kind of democracy they deserve”. And even that can lead to reinforcing ugly old stereotypes (the Swiss are neat & tidy, Germans are all Nazis, Italians are chaotic etc.).
I’d rather say “We get the world we deserve” – no country will take the corrective measures needed to end global warming and overpopulation, therefore we deserve it if the world stops functioning well for us.
In any case, I’d say that to use “signboard” for shop signage is either signmaker’s usage I don’t know or just old-fashioned.
What I read yesterday:
(R. K. Narayan, The Painter of Signs, 1977.)
Maybe it’s not just American, but Indian also — old-fashioned Indian.
I bet you’re right that it’s Indian. Odd that the name never caught on in Britain (to my knowledge). Stuart-from-NZ’s father is from India, I wonder if they would know…
Well, Artur, we must also bear in mind that the book is about a guy, Raman, whose jobs is to paint signs. It could be some sort of professional jargon. (But, as you suggest, I suspect it’s not and I would tend to believe that the word signboard is used often enough in the subcontinent among ordinary people.)
Signboard on google images seems to get a large number of Indian & Malaysian examples. But there are American ones too, it seems. Signboard is used twice in the Wikipedia Signage article. I think I say sign rather than signboard, but nowadays I might say signage as the collective noun. “I’m painting a yellow sign to go over the entry of my mother’s café”, but “I’m painting all the signage for the shop, including a little blue wheelchair on the toilet door”.
R. K. Narayan, The Painter of Signs, 1977
I’ll have to check it out.
It looks really good. I’ve ordered it (£1 book, £7 postage – ridiculous).
In Canada I am not sure if I know signboard rather than sign alone. What is written in large letters on shops and other buildings, or on a separate board or piece of metal perpendicular to the building, is a sign. A signpost refers to a post or similar vertical support for a sign, for instance in most cases the octagonal stop sign is mounted on a signpost, like most other road signs. So if I encountered the word signboard I would think of the board itself, perhaps before a sign had been painted on it, or in order to emphasize that the sign is not written directly on the building but on a separate piece.
Yes, so would I.
The word signboard…
I thought about what was discussed above while reading a South African book, where the word appeared a number of times, like in this passage:
(Ivan Vladislavic, Double Negative (2011), p. 157.
Maybe it’s also a South African thing after all.
Hmm. I’ll have to ask some South Africans. It sounds like you’re on the right track.
I go to see day-to-day some web pages and sites to read content,
however this websiute gives feature basaed articles.