Date:  Sun, 23 Oct 1994 10:02:00 CDT

From:  Edward Callary <TB0EXC1[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]NIU.BITNET>

Subject: no combines on the blacktop



This morning I noticed the following sign on Lincoln

Highway, the main drag thru DeKalb, Il. I offer it to

the list not so much to ask but to share with other lovers

of the mysterious uses of the English language a

particularly beautiful example of something, though I'm

not quite sure what.

The sign reads:



CONSTRUCTION

TRANSPORTED

IMPLEMENTS OF

HUSBANDRY OVER 8FT 6IN

WIDE PROHIBITED



I'm not even sure what this means. My first reading is a quite

literal 'Farm Implements which are themselves over 8ft 6in wide

and are being transported, i.e., carried on flat bed trucks

or the like are prohibited.' And yet, this is a sight rarely

seen in this area. The 'Implements of Husbandry' are most

often driven or pulled from one job to the next. This would

make the reading something like: 'No farm implements over 8ft

6in wide permitted.'



The only I have would be speculative: do you think anyone

concerned would be able to correctly interpret the sign on

first reading?



Have you come across other examples of ponderous writing which

most probably in this case originated in the brain of a

Springfield bureaucrat rather than in that of a concerned farmer?



Yours for greater pomposity,



Edward Callary