Shop windows do not accept pedants

Saw this in a shop window in East the other day. Feels like the language is wrong.

On the one hand it's just a sort of malapropism, where the PayPoint and British Gas should be swapped. But that doesn't work because they're not trying to explain British Gas's payment policies in 6 words. What they're trying to say is if you are a customer of British Gas you can't pay for that at the PayPoint till. But they're also trying to use as few words as possible so it can be a Big Red Sign.

If you tried to pay at the PayPoint til it would be rejected, so in that way PayPoint does not accept British Gas.

But it reads like a protest sign from a march where British Gas has done something terrible. Or maybe British Gas have lost an election to PayPoint and are refusing to leave office.

Or as Russell says in the much better, much longer blog post from 8 years ago in reference to this sign, "on one level it's just a stupid typo, on another it's a brilliant seed for a short story about a sentient restaurant that's trying to stay close to you, and the mystery of the inconvenience it caused. But - most interestingly - it's a story about the meaning created in collaboration, presumably between someone who didn't have English as a first language and Microsoft Word."

Picture taken by Russell, borrowed from his Flickr.

And either way, in both cases, it does not matter. Because you know exactly what they mean.

Haven't blogged for a while, so hello. 

Comments

[Phil Gyford]

Hello Ben.

[Ben]

Hi Phil. Thanks for commenting.