Use both lanes

Great new signs at the RC Church – the Immaculate Heart of Mary – in Great Missenden.

It reminded me of the ‘Use both lanes’ sign you see all over the place: a great example of communication for the sender not the recipient. ‘Use either lane’ would be much better – and would be what the highway department actually meant. There used to be a sign outside Gloucester ‘Use all three lanes’ – while one can straddle two lanes, using all three is quite a challenge.

I used to put a copy of this on my office wall as a reminder to people to think of the recipient when communicating – particularly when e-mailing. I remember working on a project at the Bank of Scotland [should I own up to that? It was a few years ago] I would get e-mails with the title ‘Bank of Scotland’ – probably meaningful to the sender but when I was getting 50-odd e-mails a day, it wasn’t very helpful. It’s even more important for CVs – sending a file called ‘CV’ might be meaningful to the sender but would get lost on the receiving PC.

These thoughts sent me looking for funny signs on the internet. There are lots: a few copied below.

We have fun with parking at St Peter & St Paul – any suggestions for signage that would compete with the one at the Immaculate Heart of Mary? A bottle for a really good one!