Wales has a lot of laws to try and preserve the Welsh language. Wales has two official languages and, for example all street signs have t obe in both English and Welsh.
I am not sure whether it is a requirement for all emails to be in both languages, but even if it is not it would make sense for someone in a duel language country to have an email auto reply in both languages.
I put this on the person who emails the request for the translation and got an email autoreplay which said in English that they were not in the office and also contained a sentence in Welsh, they should be able to work out that any welsh in the auto reply is not going to be the requested translation because the person who would provide the translation is not in the office!
As for those oddball speed limit numbers they shall be in multiples of 5 mph:
11th Edition, page 84
Standard:
13 The Speed Limit (R2-1) sign (see Figure 2B-3) shall display the limit established by law, ordinance, regulation, or as adopted by the authorized agency based on an engineering study. The speed limits displayed shall be in multiples of 5 mph.
14 Speed Limit (R2-1) signs, indicating speed limits for which posting is required by law, shall be located at the points of change from one speed limit to another.
15 At the downstream end of the section to which a particular speed limit applies, a Speed Limit sign showing the next speed limit shall be installed.
16 Speed Limit signs indicating the statutory speed limits shall be installed at entrances to the State and, where appropriate, at jurisdictional boundaries in urban areas.
I’ve told this story before.
When I lived out near the edge of suburbia in the Midwest there was a Waffle House alongside the freeway a couple exits from our exit. With the usual block letters sign on the tall pole so folks roaring down the freeway could see it early enough to pull off.
WAFFLE
HOUSE
Except the W was burned out so it read
AFFLE
HOUSE
Which doesn’t look so bad, but pronounce it in your head and it seems pretty apt.
On the grounds of my late aged MIL’s old farts’ home they had a regulation-looking speed limit sign for 12.5 mph. So half of 25mph. Not a public road, so they can do what they want. But it was funny.
Hey, them’s fightin’ words!
In Oak Park, the suburb of Chicago where we lived when we first got married, there was a funeral home just north of the commuter train line; I’d go back and forth past that funeral home twice a day. They had their name on the back wall of the building, facing the train tracks, which I imagine they did as a form of advertising.
At one point, the “E” in “FUNERAL” fell off that sign, leaving it saying:
[NAME]
FUN RAL
HOME
My inappropriate sense of humor immediately came up with the slogan “we put the fun back in funerals!”
Say what you will about the Welsh road sign blunder, but at least they included the text!
On Hwy 6 up in the Bruce Peninsula (not too far from my cousins’ place), a crossroads name sign:
← Spry Rd
——————-
Cemetery Rd →
I know which direction I want to go in!
…and nearby on the road from Hwy 6 in to the town of Lion’s Head is a marker announcing the 45th Parallel!
Heck, in Lethbridge, Alberta, you can find signs directing you to “Jail Road”. Not surprisingly, it goes past the local jail. Not someplace you want to be. As a lawyer, I’ve been in there a number of times; it is not pleasant.
There’s a historic estate a little west of where Iive where the sign says 19.5.
And here is that sign in the wild (as it were) by the village pond in Outwood, Surrey.
/j
This one I photographed a few weeks ago at Wembley Arena, London. Click to see the full sign.
It’s for real - they really do recycle gum.
j
I am not enamored with people who puree and eat babies. If that’s your thing then cool, I guess.
Please tell me they make it into ABC brand!
Already Been Chewed
There’s a school near where I grew up named after local politician Joseph M. Gallagher. Except for the longest time, one of the letters was missing, making it JOSE H M GALLAGHER MIDDLE SCHOOL. Probably karma for naming a place after someone still living, and there were a lot more Hispanic students there than Irish.
Doesn’t it lose its flavor on the bedpost overnight?
Where I live we have a number of roads named after lakes they go past. We also have an Airport Road, a Hospital Road, and a Hatchery Road. The surveyor or whoever was responsible for naming things back in the day did not have a very creative mind.
We also have a lake a little north of us just called 'Lake Sixteen". I imagine a bored surveyor back in the day going “ok, this lake is long and narrow-- I’ll call it ‘Long Lake’. That lake is sort of circular. I’ll call it ‘Round Lake’. Next…ahhh, it’s late and I’m so tired. This is the sixteenth lake I’ve had to name today. Let’s call it, ummm…”
There’s a lake in the woods that drains into an adjacent area, creating a marsh. Many years ago I called the lake “The Leaky Pond” because of the marsh.
The name stuck. My gf called it that when talking with a friend, who called it that when talking to others about wood ducks she saw on the water.
Fast forward many years, the guy at the feedstore asked if we lived near The Leaky Pond.