THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, February 11, 1997 TAG: 9702110002
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A15 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Opinion
SOURCE: George Hebert
LENGTH: 55 lines
When we head out in the car, whether for a couple of miles or much more than that, I often find myself flipping out my shirt-pocket notebook to jot down the wording of some attention-grabbing sign or - at stopping points - some scrap of curious conversation I happen to overhear.
I started this way back when I first came across, somewhere in Virginia Beach, that unambiguous ``Don't Even Think of Parking Here'' - then sassy and new and long before it had become a national fixture (or I discovered that it already was).
Among my recent collection of such snippets of life and language, most have also been copied from signs and/or notices.
For example, in a new West Virginia craft place called Tamarack, where a lot of delicate stuff was displayed, we recently saw a rhyming variation of that old warning: ``If You Break It, It's Yours.'' The verse went like this:
``These Mountain Treasures Are Handcrafted and New
And If You Should Break One
We'll Gladly Wrap It for You.''
Can't say much for the meter, but the point was gently and firmly made.
On another junket of ours, somewhere between Breezewood, Pa., and Winchester, Va., we encountered one of those church-connected signs, you know, the kind where the lettering is changed from time to time to announce a sermon topic or something on that order. The message this time:
ANGER -
ONE LETTER
FROM DANGER
Much closer to home, I've enjoyed the cleverness of a big billboard alongside the I-64 (eastbound) approach to the tube under Hampton Roads. With a glowing city skyline stretching from one edge of the advertisement to the other, the sign hails Norfolk as ``The Light at the End of the Tunnel.''
As for overheard comments, my latest gem was provided by a tourist visiting the state museum in Lansing, Mich. This man was educating a youngster, perhaps his son, about the significance of the Liberty Bell, represented in the museum by a full-scale replica.
``Of course,'' he confidently told the boy, ``this is just a copy. The original is in Washington, D.C.''
To get back to signs (and to something more reassuring), several times lately I've found checkout-lane signs in grocery stores, here and elsewhere, that prescribe ``10 ITEMS OR FEWER'' instead of that jarring ``10 ITEMS OR LESS'' so often posted.
And sometimes public language is simply fun. As in the case of the suggestion we saw in a store window, somewhere or other, during the recent holiday shopping season. The firm sold electronic equipment and related accessories. And the pre-Christmas advice to potential customers?
``TECH THE HALLS'' MEMO: Mr. Hebert, a former editor, lives in Norfolk.