Punctuation And Drunk Drivers
For the Fourth of July weekend, the freeway signs have been lit up with the following message:
Report
Drunk Drivers
Call 911
Maybe because it's late at night when I see those signs and I'm tired, plus the ever-present blonde hair color issues, but I couldn't figure out why they thought that drunk drivers would call 911. Not that I drive drunk, but if I was drunk, the last thing I would do is call the cops.
I was reading it as "Report: Drunk drivers call 911." It makes much more sense when read as "Report drunk drivers, call 911." A little bit of punctuation can entirely change the meaning of a sentence.
Written by Melissa on 9:13 PM
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Melissa blogging from sunny Santa Clarita, Southern California, United States.
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3 Comments:
LOL!!
That reminds me of this joke:
A panda enters a cafe, orders and devours a sandwich, draws a pistol, fires a few shots and then heads for the door. "Why?" asks the bewildered waiter. The panda tosses him a badly punctuated wildlife manual and says: "I'm a panda. Look it up." The waiter reads the relevant entry: "Panda: Large black and white bear-like mammal, native to China. Eats, shoots and leaves."
This is one of many forms of this joke. I have also seen the call 911 signs on the freeways. My thought was, "great, we have a drunk driver on the freeway weaving around and someone trying to call 911 on their cell phone also possibly weaving around." I wonder which is worse!
Irene, that is a funny joke. I don't remember hearing it. What a good joke for a grammer class.
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