Here in the US, whenever you see a warning sign in a public location, it either gives the warning in English only, or it uses an appropriate international pictogram.
That is … everything except wet floor warning signs. EVERY such sign and warning I’ve seen has either been bilingual, in English and Spanish, or in Spanish only. “¡CUIDADO! ¡PRECAUCION! !PELIGROSO! ¡PISO MOJADO!” I’ve even seen “¡PISO MOJADO!” warnings in Canada.
Why is it so important to give a “wet floor” warning in Spanish, and sometimes Spanish only, when other warnings use pictographs or are in English only? Are Mexican-Americans prone to more slip-and-fall accidents than Anglos?
Perhaps more puzzling is the inclusion of Spanish glossaries in the textbooks of various courses I take or have taken when everything else in the book is in English exclusively. If you’ve not read the book, I don’t see how a glossary is going to be of much use!
The signs are in Spanish most likely because there is a very high percentage of Spanish speakers working in maintenance and custodial work in the country and they are more likely to come across wet floors in their line of work.
Catalyst, I had a book like that… I think it is intended for courses in which many of the students (or the class) is not taught in English, even when the book is printed in English. Having the glossary may explain the terms and concepts to a non-native speaker of English better than the English definition.
Oh, and they help in homeworks when you don’t have to translate the definition from English to Spanish.
Catalyst, I had a book like that… I think it is intended for courses in which many of the students (or the class) is not taught in English, even when the book is printed in English. Having the glossary may explain the terms and concepts to a non-native speaker of English better than the English definition.
Oh, and they help in homeworks when you don’t have to translate the definition from English to Spanish.
I thought about that too … but there’s a few things that seem to counter such an argument.
The Spanish speaker might be the one who is placing the ¡PISO MOJADO! signs, but who’s going to be reading them? Granted, most English-speaking Americans know what the term means, since we encounter the signs on a daily basis, but still, why have Spanish-only ¡PISO MOJADO! signs far north of the border? Why are Spanish warnings limited to ¡PISO MOJADO!, and not other dangers?
A Spanish-speaking worker would probably see the international symbol for “mopping the floor” or “slipping on your butt,” and understand what the sign was to be used for, even if the text was in English. Also, I’ve seen ¡PISO MOJADO! on buckets. Would a Spanish-speaking worker get confused if their mop bucket read WET FLOOR! instead? I doubt it.
One of the very first things you are supposed to do in public places when there is a wet floor, is to put up a sign that says “Wet floor”. You should put the sign up before you start mopping.
So if you’ve got a bucket with the sign on it that you know the person using will be able to read, you get that problem out of the way.
Personally, I have never noticed a Spanish only wet floor warning sign, and I live in San Antonio. Most of the signs I see are bilingual with English and Spanish. I did a quick google of a few safety equipment websites and I could not find a single one that sold a Spanish only warning cone/sign. About half of the warning signs offered were English/Spanish. There were a few that were trilingual with French, but not many. There were a few with English/French and English/German. So even if I wanted a Spanish only sign, I don’t know where I could get it. I also noticed that the dominating companies in the exciting world of floor signs were Rubbermaid and the Allsafe company and they have chosen to put out a lot of bilingual products- it just might be that most buildings buy their stuff from these two big companies and their biggest sellers are the bilingual signs- so therefore that is why you see so many of them compared to English only signs. Maybe these companies don’t dominate the market in other warning signs- I don’t know. Anyway, it makes sense to buy signs that are English and Spanish. If you put those down you are going to be covering a larger percentage of the North American population than with any other combination- no matter if you live in Canada (except Quebec), US, or Mexico. In addition, the companies can sell their products From Alaska to Agentina with pretty much the same results.
I think it’s because many of the cleaning people are Hispanic. For example, at a job once, I put out a big pile of old papers to throw away, they were in an overflowing garbage pail, but the trash people didn’t take them for a couple of days. Then I put a sign “Basura” on top of it, and they took it away.
I think that’s part of it. Here in Chicago, where we have a large Polish-speaking population (many of whom work cleaning office buildings), I’ve seen signs in Polish, too. And we had the same issue with large boxs, etc. not being thrown away unless we put signs in Polish on them.