I saw the following notice in the London Borough of Hounslow:
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DANGER UNFENCED WATER CHILDREN SHOULD BE ACCOMPANIED |
I don’t know how it seems to you, but I think it would have been easier to say “All water children should be fenced”.
This borough also had a sign saying “DANGER: River”. Very true, but I looked in vain for a notices saying “DANGER: Road” or “DANGER: Junk food outlet” or …
But it is not only Hounslow. In the borough of Richmond, there is a puzzling sign saying, “This gate will be closed half an hour before closing time”.
Have you seen the blog Language Log?
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/
It’s full of this kind of observation about the use of language in the modern world. I think they call the kind of ambiguity you are describing a ‘crash blossom’:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1693
Colin
It seems that Greenwich follows a similar policy to Richmond: this once caused me to get locked in a park in Woolwich.