- By Jim Evans
- Entertainment
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SMART TALK by Dr. Laconia Crisp
NO PARKING ANY TIME: Word has reached us at the Institute for the Linguistically Impaired that the nearby village of Deer Crossing is erecting signs that advertise, well, linguistic impairment.
No Parking Any Time is no improvement over No Parking. After all, since when did No Parking mean you could park there at, say three in the morning? As the tee shirt says, What part of NO don't you understand?
To the linguistically impaired, No Parking Any Time has any redundancy's seductive attraction: twice the words. Like the pompous official who describes a car as traveling at a high rate of speed instead of going fast, the sign maker may hope to sound like a lawyer.
At the Institute, we show our patients that using bloated language impresses only those even more ignorant.
The prizewinner, however, is a real "Wet Paint" sign we saw with the helpful additional information, Applied With Paint Applicators.
Food for thought there.
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