Doesn’t anyone care?

November 20, 2014 • 12:09 pm

Every time I take the bus, as I did today returning from the Rugby Scrum, I’m forced to see this:

Bus label

Doesn’t anyone care that this policy gives priority only to customers with two characteristics: they have a disability and are with a senior? Don’t they see that they could easily fix it by simply changing the wording to say “seniors and customers with disabilities”?  “Priority seating is for customers who are seniors or have disabilities.” (I knew I’d screw this up!)

WWPD?*

I’m sure I’ve posted this exact sign before, but I’m too lazy to look it up.

_______
What Would Pinker Do?

 

144 thoughts on “Doesn’t anyone care?”

  2. I agree, that sign bothers me too, but, having been a newspaper editor/headline writer in an earlier life, I have a theory about why they did it that way.

    If they wrote the more grammatically correct:

    “is for seniors and
    customers with disabilities”

    the top line gets shorter while the bottom line gets too long for the space.

    Headline writers, the unsung heroes of journalism, solve problems like this every day without fracturing the English language. The person who created this sign was, most likely, not a headline writer.

  3. Doesn’t the “and” make the sign apply only to customers who have both multiple disabilities and multiple seniors with them?

  4. Assuming you’re not making a joke, I’d write the sign as:

    Priority seating is for customers who are seniors or have disabilities. Thank you.

    (I always like the “thank you” and it evens out the line.)

      1. I’m 25 or 30 years into my senior state, depending upon when that particular status begins and I certainly do not consider it a disability!

          1. Most annoying thing about looking geriatric is that no sooner have I scored a nice spot standing by the doors on the train where I can listen to the diesel blasting away just ahead through the small gap in the doors (did I mention I never grew up?), than someone – almost always female in their 20s or 30s, interestingly – stands up and offers me their seat. I usually try to decline gracefully because they are being polite, after all.

            Oh, and maybe secretly I’m dreading the time when I’m so decrepit I have to sit down…

      2. By boolean logic your revised version would bar anyone who is both a senior citizen AND has a disability.

        Sorry, I’m a retired computer programmer, we don’t live in the real world.

          3. You never heard the song, “Allow Me to Execute Two Processes At The Same Time, Baby”? 😀

          6. LOL! I was actually going for boring to try to go for the laugh by making it absurdly juxtaposing dry process language with rock lyrics.

    2. Priority seating is for customers who are seniors or have disabilities. Thank you.

      Priority seating is for customers who are elderly or disabled. Thank you.

      1. I find this one elegant. It treats the two properties (seniority and disability) equally. The nominalisation “Priority seating ” is still clunky to my non-native english speaking mind.

        How about:

        Please offer a seat to customers who are elderly or disabled.

        or

        Please allow customers who are elderly or disabled to sit first. Thank you.

        and maybe we can leave away customers…

        Please allow seniors and disabled persons to sit first. You’re awesome.

        et cetera

        1. Grammatically and logically correct are essential, but you point out something that is also very important with these signs: variety. Variety makes it easier for the sign to not-fade into the scenery, and variety also makes possible signs like yours which point out the desirability of giving seniors/disabled (and probably parents with young children) seating preference even if it is not in a ‘reserved’ area.

          1. In San Francisco, the signs cite a Federal law that REQUIRES people to give up these seats to seniors or disabled people when asked to.

            The sign you posted makes it sound like a courtesy, implying that you don’t have to do it if you don’t feel like it. I was accustomed to seeing these signs in New York and never realized that there was a law.

            Why? Why give people the impression that it’s a courtesy when it’s required by law?

            I keep telling my 92-year-old mother to sit down even if it means making someone get up. She doesn’t feel right doing it – even though at her age if she were to fall down she might never get up again.

          2. That’s a law? If so, it’s the best kept secret in government.

            When your Mom was younger, public manners were much better. I remember witnessing a lot of bus kindnesses even when I was young.

          3. Is it possible that your 92-year-old mother prefers not to show her age by demanding a seat? Obviously I don’t know her but she may feel being able to stand is a sign that she’s not completely decrepit yet…

            As for the courtesy thing, surely it’s better if people do it out of politeness rather than being reluctantly compelled to by some law (which most of them would break anyway). Just personally, the thought of looking like an a**hole if I don’t is far more likely to make me do something than yet another wretched law which I can probably ignore with impunity.

          4. No, I think she’d really rather sit down. She’s looks quite healthy and much younger than her age and she certainly likes hearing that, but her balance is not good and she’s well aware of the danger of falling if the bus lurches. And it’s hard for her to stand for very long.

            It’s just hard to ask someone to get up. I don’t know that I’ve ever actually seen anyone do it – not in this country, anyway. I did see it in Europe.

            Sure, it’s better if people do it out of politeness, and usually someone does but not always. I’m a senior myself and I will wait for a younger person to get up if I see a pregnant woman or a person with a cane, but sometimes no one does and so I have to.

            Sorry you feel that a very reasonable law is so wretched that it can be ignored with impunity, or that most people would do so. I like to think that most people are law-abiding, and that they would not consider it a huge infringement on their liberty to have to give their seat to someone who needs it.

          5. All these thousands of wretched laws and regulations doubtless seemed very reasonable at the time to whoever was making them, but the sum total is so overpowering that nobody can obey them all or even knows what they all are. En masse, they are all wretched. (And I’m not some extreme libertarian, by the way). The reason I said that law can be ignored with impunity is not because it’s wretched but because it IS ignored with impunity by people all the time.

            Having said that, I do stand up for people who need it, but not because some busybody law said so.

          6. It’s pretty sad that we need signs at all. It should just be something we do for people who look like they could use a seat.

        2. How about:
          ‘These seats are for people who need them more than you do so, if you see one, please be kind’

          1. I like that idea! I’d like to see a test run comparing a sign like that to an imperative sign. I would bet the appeal to people’s better natures would elicit more of the desired effect.

          2. Me too! I think if I see anyone sitting in the seats that are meant to give better access & I give up my seat for a guy that is wobbly on his feet, I’ll take him up to the seats he needs & ask everyone who is going to be nice enough to let this guy sit? 🙂

          3. Or, how about:
            ‘You’re welcome to give up any seat on this bus to someone who needs it but, even if you are a libertarian, you must do so with these seats’

            Speaking of euphemisms, the one that bothers me the most is ‘Libertarian’ ‘Selfish Prick’ is so much more accurate.
            I think that Hobbes started it with ‘Solitary, poor, nasty , brutish and short’ He may have been right about the other things but he couldn’t have been more wrong about ‘solitary’. We were never solitary yet Libertarians hold this up as an exemplar of the natural state.

      2. As a senior, I don’t mind being called a senior, but I wouldn’t like being referred to as elderly and I think most other seniors would agree with me.

    3. A far far simpler fix is to add a second “for” prior to “seniors” as in

      “for customers with disabilities and FOR seniors”

  8. I don’t think it’s wrong, just ambiguous. Arguably, common sense can deal with the ambiguity. It is a bit clumsy though.

  9. I find “senior” or “senior citizen” problematic. What exactly is that? Wiki says that it means that the person is elderly AND implies that they are retired. How am I supposed to know if the person is retired? Do they wear badges? If the person is 85 and still working, do I not give them my seat? Maybe the sign should read, “Disabled or decrepit”, which is what they really mean.

    1. In the UK we call them OAPs: old age pensioners. Which seems needlessly insulting, like calling them old three times.

      1. In NZ we call them superannuatants because we have universal superannuation for those aged 65 and over, whether or not they continue to work.

          1. Kaumatua (co-ma-too-ah)
            Which is both singular and plural and means both elder (as in respected elder) and elderly.

            It’s one of those words everyone knows, so you can use it on your Kiwi rellies. 🙂

          3. Incidentally, I was just a couple days ago explaining how Maori is integrated into English in NZ. The examples I used were whanau & puku. Puku is said a lot in my family mostly to deride someone else for being out of shape or eating too much. 🙂

        3. Well on NZ road signs it used to say ‘senior citizens’, then when that euphemism got stale or everyone figured out what it meant, they changed it to – get this – “Aged persons”.
          Aaaargh! ‘Old folks’ they coulda got away with, but when you’re ‘aged’ – well, you’re really worn out and decrepit and ready for the scrap heap. Jeez. Aaaaaaged. So die already… 🙁

          1. Senior citizens is good I think & in Canada there is a defined age for that. It doesn’t have to mean decrepit because it just means you’ve gotten to an age where society has decided you’re senior. 🙂 It would be funny if they then designated people “junior citizens”, etc.

          2. I don’t mind ‘senior citizens’ though it sounds a bit bureaucratic. Not nearly as bad as ‘aged persons’.

          4. Oh, I think “junior citizens” is a great idea! And why stop there? Isn’t “baby citizens” darling?

      2. Almost the same here in DK. We just call it pensioners. Seniors is sometimes used to decsribe those close to retirement age and to those above retirement age who are still working.

  10. Well traveling with seniors can be rather stressful at times. I think those people deserve a special seat of their own for a while.

    1. Only if you’re taking transit with my parents & their friends. I had to round them all up once on the subway because they all scattered in different directions thinking they knew where they were going. Then, on the way home, my dad’s friend accidentally hit the alarm on the train so the security dude came back asking if everyone was alright. OMG & this was a while ago when they were much younger! LOL!

  12. Yes, you have posted a similar sign, but not the exact sign. I vaguely remembered the conversation.

    That sign is such a mess. Why don’t they just say “infirm passengers”. There are all kinds of reasons why someone should give up the seat. Maybe a guy has one leg and is wobbly, maybe some woman is preggers, maybe someone else is just horribly clumsy. And why should senior citizens be seen as infirm? Some people don’t even look old enough and are! My dad is in his 70s but people often think he is in his 50s.

    I just don’t like this sign at all.

    1. “And why should senior citizens be seen as infirm?”

      Really. In addition to looking for some mileage on the face, I wish people would take time to analyze how well the person looks otherwise . If they’re standing there comfortably, possibly smiling, maybe giving true fragile people a hand, please refrain from offering them your seat. It’s such a downer.

      I’m Jerry’s age, BTW–& also not ready for the somewhat insulting labels.

      1. I agree with that. I’m 68. A number of time it seems that I almost have to plea with people to convince them that I have sat too much an I am enjoying standing.

        George

  13. Task: 1- Create a sign that indicates the need to reserve front seating for those with disabilities (first priority — they need it most) and for seniors (second priority — they may need it, but then again may not). Word the sign in a way that expresses this need and this priority. 2- Don’t worry about the grammar-obsessed; make it so the average reasonably literate person will know what you mean. 3- Use as few words as possible. This is important.

    Result: “Priority seating is for customers with disabilities and seniors”.

    I see no problem with this. No one will mistake the intent. If anything, the ambiguity only makes the sign more interesting, as evidenced by the OP.

    1. I read your sign suggestion as, people with seniors get priority seating. Or, that customers have to have disabilities and have at least two seniors with them.

    2. If it’s ambiguous, then the intent isn’t clear. If “no one will mistake the intent,” then all that proves is that people are filling in gaps on their own — like when interpreting an optical illusion.

      I’d like to see several people walk on the bus with disabilities AND seniors to and ask those with seniors only to move. Then we’d know the cost and the consequences of the poor attention to grammar.

      Not to mention, what are you going to do one day in your old age when you walk into a store needing something and some kid 1/5 your age can’t interpret one word you’re saying, yet you’re speaking perfectly?

      1. It’s not ambiguous, or, at least, the context removes the ambiguity. In the real world (as opposed to on this web site) everybody who reads that sign will understand what the intent of it is.

        1. Yes, the context removes the ambiguity, but that really depends on the reader’s ability to interpret the language in that context.

          So it’s subjective, not objective.

          1. The sign is neither ungrammatical (as an earlier comment of yours seems to imply) nor ambiguous.

            Is the sign “No parking” ambiguous? On your logic, it is. It could be interpreted as a shorthand imperative: “Do not park here”. Or it could be interpreted as a shorthand indicative: “As a matter of fact, no-one is parking here”. In practice, everyone knows it is an imperative. Pragmatically, there is no ambiguity at all. (Google the relation between semantics and pragmatics. There is always a pragmatic component to meaning.)

            I park my car in a “No parking” area. The traffic warden comes along, points to the sign, and says: “No parking”. I reply: “Well, yes. It’s true that, before I arrived, there was no-one parking here. Now there is, so we need to change the sign.” Are you going to say: “You have a point. The sign is ambiguous. It’s subjective, not objective.”? I assume not. Does anyone go around complaining about the ambiguity of “No parking”?

            If you agree that “No parking” is unambiguous, then you understand the pragmatics of signs. For the same reason, there is no ambiguity about the “Priority seating” sign.

  14. In NYC, you belong to the group middle aged. I barely see anybody in their 60s consider themselves senior, often times, the seats are given to people in their 80s and women with kids. :))

  15. I do some tutoring in symbolic logic and I wouldn’t accept any student arguing that this sign was ambiguous. The most obvious correct symbolization is:

    ∀x[ Px → ( Dx ∨ Sx ) ]

    with Px = priority seating is for x
    Dx = x has a disability
    Sx = x is a senior

    Of course using different predicate letters would be OK as long as they mapped onto the same concepts.

    I use a similar sign common at parking areas of a local university to to illustrate one of the most important points of understanding symbolic logic: No word or phrase in English is an exact synonym for any symbol in logic.

      1. No, I don’t think it is ambiguous, that’s why I said that the most clear and correct symbolization would be similar to the formula in my comment. What the sign is asking of us is clear, so my formula is a correct representation of the sign as written, not a disambiguation of the sign’s message.

        And what would Pinker do? He would agree that the sign is clear and matches my symbolization. To say it is unclear is to fall into the error that English words and phrases are exact synonyms of of logical operators and quantifiers.

        1. You are assuming that the meaning of the sign is clear, and like others are pointing out, you’re relying on your interpretation of the sign in context in order to assume its meaning.

          What if there were two customers, one with two disabled children and one with a disabled child and a disabled senior??? Could the sign possibly be interpreted to assign higher seating priority to the latter customer?

          So the meaning may always be “clear,” given a context. But the meaning isn’t fixed. It can be one meaning one time, and another meaning another time. That’s what I mean when I say the sign is ambiguous.

          1. But we always rely on context and common sense to make meaning clear; that’s how language works. “Paul took a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his forehead.” Is that clear? Or is it ambiguous whose pocket it is? Or whose forehead? I mean, ‘his’ could refer to any male human or (at a push) animal, right? So we intuitively latch onto the most obvious meaning first, on the assumption that if the speaker (or writer) intends a less obvious interpretation, the onus is on him or her to spell that out. I think the same applies to the sign in Jerry’s post. It’s only ambiguous if you are (rather pointlessly) searching for ambiguity.

  17. The bit that goes me the most is “Please move when requested”. Do you have any idea how hard that is to do – asking someone to move so you can sit down, especially if you’re not a senior and don’t look disabled? When I drive into a disabled parking space with my permit showing I get fists shaken at me, nasty mumblings and filthy looks because they assume the permit isn’t mine because I’m not a “senior” and don’t use a wheelchair. I can’t even imagine trying to explain on a bus I need to sit down – it’s easier to suffer.

    However, getting on and off a bus is both difficult and painful, as is the driving movement, so I rarely do it anyway.

    Which I suppose makes this comment a bit pointless. However, determinism means I’m still likely to click submit, so don’t blame me for wasting your time – it’s not my fault. 🙂

    1. Au contraire, Heather, this is an excellent point! The cast of those with “hidden disabilities” is huge, including many with heart disease, rheumatoid arthritis, balance disorders, on & on. Everyone should have gotten that message by now. No one should have to carry a sling or a crutch around with them just to look disabled.

      Why are there so many idiots in the world?

      2. Funny story. I have messed feet. They look quite lovely but my ankles are shit & wobbly so thankfully, I can correct somewhat with orthotics. I get plantar fasciitis & my back & knees hurt. So, when I was pretty young still (in my late 20s), I was in Vancouver’s Stanley Park. There is a bus that shuttles you around. So I got on it but had to stand. That’s okay. I was grumpy because really in a lot of pain but happy to be on the bus. The bus was full of seniors and the people we stood beside got mad at us because we blocked their view. They were outwardly hostile. I think they thought they were on a tour bus and I was ruining their view. Also, I looked younger than I was & I know the older you get, the younger you tend to estimate young people’s ages. So, they probably thought I was some young teenager ruining their tour.

        I remember mumbling loudly on my way out where the f-word may have been uttered. 🙂

        But the point was – those grumps were probably more firm than I but since I appeared young & healthy I got the attitude.

        Another thing that annoys me is people who bring 3 or more kids to a waiting room and the kids all take up the seats, leaving sick people to stand. When I was a kid, we had to share seats since we had small bums or we had to sit on the floor. As a kid, that was no big deal – it was cool to sit on the floor.

        See, I’m becoming like those grumpy people I met on the bus all those years ago!

    2. I’ve read about people with those permits who have migraines. They can’t walk far without having a migraine triggered (it makes my now-down-to-around-6-migraines/month look like a vacation). They get the comments & the looks too.

      What is wrong with people? I think people just can’t give others the benefit of the doubt. Makes me want to slap sense into them. 🙂

  18. Bring dyslexic it took me about six reads of each statement to understand the ambiguity. I can only speak for myself on this matter, but I reached the appropriate meaning on the first ‘reading’ without actually parsing the words correctly. Further, I would have understood it better if they just had pictures.

  19. I knew a guy named requested once. He did move a lot I guess. Not many people are named requested, so they would have to literally change their names. That means it could be a very long wait before they would be able to move.

  20. I’m not sure the sign is wrong at all.

    “Priority seating is for {customers with disabilities} and {seniors}.”

    Looks fine to me.

    1. Agreed. It can be parsed two ways, and the obviously intended one is itself perfectly grammatical.

    2. Only after you add the braces — otherwise it’s a dangling modifier.

      But you’re right, they could borrow from math and eliminate ambiguity with the added cost of just a couple of characters.

      And another math substitution would pay for the braces: scrap the “with” for the intersection sign (upside-down U) and you pick up 3 characters right there.

  21. On some commuter trains in the New York area, there are stickers on the outside by the emergency exit windows that say “Emergency Entrance.”

    I have always wondered why you would want to jump into the train through a window during an emergency.

    Government at work.

    1. I would bet that’s to let emergency workers (police, firefighters, medics, etc.) know where they can gain access in the event of an emergency and the regular door isn’t operational.

      1. That is what it’s for, but everywhere else I’ve ever been, they’re labeled “emergency exit” on both the inside and the outside. It has always struck me as a very odd way to do things, so much so that I once took a picture of one of them.

        1. Yeah, I can see the humor in it.

          “Use the regular door. Unless you’re having an anaphylactic attack or going into labor. Then you’ll want to climb through the window.”

    1. Once in my technical phone support days (a job I am really not suited to), a guy called up & said that our software said he was an invalid. It turns out it was “invalid command”. I put him on mute to share that one with everyone in the room.

  24. OK, as I post this, I understand that a large percentage of grammar specialists will definitely disagree with me. However, I understood exactly what that sign meant. Yes, I understand Pinker et. al.’s proposition that we should try to be as specific as possible in our use of language (I’m a huge Pinker fan). However, in this particular case, I think any reasonable person would have understood that it is considered only polite that you should give up your seat to any elderly or disabled person that needs it more.

    My fault in the sign isn’t that it uses words imperfectly, but why does it need to be posted at all? And why regarding only certain seats?

    Hell, if I had a nickle for every typo I ever made, I would have changed the world. But the fact that it takes a sign to get some people to give up a seat to others who need it more, I think that is the true error that requires correction.

    2. “And why regarding only certain seats?”
      Typically, those seats are near the entrance and have extra legroom or fold up to allow wheelchairs to be parked there.

  25. This got me thinking about what really bothers me. (I concluded that it mainly depends on my mood!)

    However, the fact that Jerry can re-word the sign to be unambiguous presumably means that common sense can tell you what the sign is meant to convey. I guess a more problematic ambiguity would be one where Jerry couldn’t re-write it because he simply didn’t know what was meant.

    I get bothered by gross grammatical errors, even if they are unambiguous (although I suppose one might argue that a grammatical error is necessarily ambiguous). The one that bothers me most is of the kind: “I could of done something”.

    1. Yeah, see, I don’t think your sentence is ambiguous at all. But how do you know you got YOUR interpretation right? What if the sign meant “and” to restrict seating to passengers with both qualities?

      1. Your suggested sign not only avoids the ambiguity but also uses one less word. Sadly, some people don’t take the time to communicate as clearly as they could.

        While your wording is better, the existing sign isn’t as bad as JC seems to imagine.

    2. I would personally rather be thought of as a person with disabilities than as a disabled person. A “disabled person” sounds more limited, more defined by his disability, than a “person with disabilities”. I may need to sit down, but I still have some pride, ya know?

      1. At least nobody so far has brought out that makes-me-want-to-scream horror, “Otherwise abled”. That is just so worng in every possible way.

  27. Well, “disabilities” is plural so if your only disability were a broken leg that wouldn’t include you. And, taking an earlier comment that the or would exclude people who are both seniors and have disabilities, I think the final version should read:

    Priority seating is for customers who are seniors and/or have one or more disabilities.

    1. The plural argument doesn’t make sense to me. It’s “people” – more than one, so if you make it singular “with a disability” then it must be more than one person who “share” one disability. And that makes less sense. If you make “people” into “a person” then only one person can sit there, in that whole section. “People with disabilities” may be a group of people, each with one disability.

    2. Priority seating is for customers who are seniors and/or have one or more disabilities.

      If you group then this way, after “with” then the “with” applies to both:

      “Priority seating is for customers with {disabilities and seniors}.”

      The literal interpretation would be that you’d have to be with disabilities and *with* seniors, not be a senior.

  28. At a Dunkin Donuts in Biddeford, ME: “The Management reserves
    the right to refuse service to anyone the management deems necessary”. The Manager was unable to give me the definition of a necessary person!

  29. I also notice a sign along one of the roads on campus saying “Do Not Pass”. And yet all of us, pedestrians and drivers, pass it.

    At SeaTac Airport there are several overpasses from the parking garage to the airport buildings. When you walk across one a recording directs you to “Please hold small children by the hand”. I violate this every time, as I cross the bridge without a small child accompanying me.

    1. There is something like this in the trailer to the upcoming Paddington Bear movie (probably known to Brits and not Americans). There is a sign at an escalator saying “Dogs must be carried”. Paddington looks confused, then disappears only to return with a dog tucked under his arm and happily jump on the escalator.

          1. Sadly, I suspect Canada won’t see the movie until the same time the US does, which is in the new year. It looks amazing though – I watched some of the trailers & read about how they did it. They used animatronics & animation combined & it looks really life like!

      2. “(probably known to Brits and not Americans).)

        My USian kids & self LOVE Paddington Bear! Who else is from darkest Peru?

  31. They could be going with times, how about the social justice warrior version:

    What the actual fuck! Surrender your seat you able-bodied, youth-privileged shitlords!

    😀

  32. London version:

    However, there are certain re-imaginings of the warning:

    and it can all get a bit weird:

  33. The sign is correct as printed. The preposition “for” has two clear objects: “customers with disabilities” is the first object of the preposition and “seniors” is the second. It’s no different from saying something like this:
    “Priority seating is for evolutionary biologists with glasses and cats.” Thus, you would be allowed to sit there and so would your feline friend.

  35. While we’re madly splitting hairs, I notice it doesn’t specify the disability involved. So presumably deaf people, or people with dyslexia, or a speech defect, could legitimately claim those seats…

    In that respect, ‘disabled’ is probably more accurate than ‘people with disabilities’ since the two don’t mean quite the same thing – ‘disabled’ tends to imply people whose mobility is impaired rather than some random non-mobility-related disability. I think, anyway.

    1. And while I’m at it, what’s this ‘customers’ BS? PASSENGERS, dammit. They’re travelling somewhere, not buying stuff. Has someone determined that ‘passengers’ is politically incorrect, or what? [/rant]

  36. ‘Seniors’ is pretty ambiguous I would agree. Senior whats?! As it is, disability is a word loaded with negative meaning that one should eschew where possible… sometimes it is hard to know what word IS acceptable…

    1. At the movie theater where I work, a lot of people will order “Senior” tickets by saying “Two old farts.” I would prefer “senior.

      I have heard “differently abled” used as a euphemism for “disabled,” but that is too vague–a person with an unusual talent could claim to be “differently abled.” While “disability” may be “loaded with negative meaning,” the truth is that disabilities ARE negative. You can’t do something that most other people can, which is why you need the seat. It isn’t always possible to put a positive spin on everything. “Deafness isn’t a disability–it’s a DIFFERENCE.” No, my father was deaf. It’s definitely a disability.

      1. I absolutely agree on ‘differently abled’. It’s so obviously a euphemism, so obviously false (exactly what ability does the sufferer have that everybody else hasn’t got?), so hideously clumsy, and above all a screaming offense against grammar – “able” IS NOT A VERB. You cannot be ‘abled’, differently or otherwise.

        As for euphemisms about age, I’m waiting for someone to come up with ‘chronologically enhanced’. I do empathise with the old folks who order tickets for ‘two old farts’ – they know they’re old, everybody else knows it too, good on them if they can make a wry joke about it.

  37. The two atoms on either side of the conjunction are obviously “customers with disabilities” and “seniors” to any halfway competent English speaker.

    It is not ambiguous. Language doesn’t work that way.

  38. I travel on the tube daily. I need a walking stick after breaking my spine 10 years ago. The number of people sat in priority seating who instantly fall asleep or are suddenly engrossed in their newspaper is amazing. It’s usually someone in a regular seat that gives theirs up. I seem to be in a constant flux of contempt and love of humanity.

  39. Sorry, folks, cant get xcited bout this one. Grammar is merely an ever changing convention. Fashion, really. As long as there is enuf contxt and redundancy in the code and the message gets across…WGAF?
    Most folks grok that this is not exclusive of non-disabled seniors or disabled youth…regardless of the missing comma, or lack of “or”. Do most understand it? I think so. WWPD? Well, I don’t know him like Jerry does but I’m reminded of Pinker’s story about the old guys in France dedicated to preserving “proper” French in spite of inevitable language evolution. Remember, the Victorians would think all of us to be hopelessly vulgar and ungrammatical in our horrific modern misuse, abuse of the English language. Jerry should as Prof Pinker to weigh in!

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