Lost in translation

In 2008, when Asda built a new supermarket on Clase Road in the Swansea suburb of Morriston, the city council decided to erect a warning sign to keep large lorries out of Pant-y-Blawd Road, a narrow residential road alongside the new development. 

According to the council website, only one-ninth of the city’s population speaks Welsh. Nevertheless, official road signs throughout Wales have to be bilingual, and so the council’s in-house translation service was asked for a Welsh rendering of “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only”. Back came the prompt reply, “Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu.”

These words were duly added to the sign, underneath the English words. Unfortunately, the council signwriters were clearly not members of the city’s small Welsh-speaking minority, because what those words actually mean is, “I am not in the office at the moment. Send any work to be translated.” 

After the few local Welsh-speakers had finished laughing, the council replaced the sign with one bearing more appropriate Welsh words. (“Dim mynediad i gerbydau trwm. Safle preswyl yn unig,” if you must know.) 

Serious yet silly

This placard promoting the 3 April 2014 issue of the Plymouth Herald managed to combine the weighty with the wacky.

Bup stop?

I am only aware of "bup" as an abbreviation for "backup". So is this bus stop in Bristol intended for buses travelling in reverse?  

So! Fisticated?

This image was tweeted by @hughlaurie , no less. It must be the sort of restaurant where they sit you on comphy sophas, pipe sopht music and pheed you phried feasant with phennel. And you can phinish your pheast with a decaph cophee. 

Caution: warning sign ahead

This cautionary notice, seen in Peterborough, was apparently there to warn cyclists about an obstruction further ahead — helpful information perhaps for anyone who manages to avoid crashing into the warning sign. 

Boneless bananas

This notice is truly bananas. Of course, there may well be a few lines of small print somewhere pointing out that, although every effort has been made to fillet the bananas, some small bones may remain.  

"Not envious"

OK, so this isn't exactly a sign, since it's just a correction in a Scottish local newspaper (with a lovely name). But it's still silly enough for me to want to share it.