Traveling in India, you often see signs in fractured or archaic English (they use a lot of old British words like “rusticated”), but you can usually understand what they mean. This sign, however, next to a window in the passenger compartment of a bus (the one that took us from our broken plane to the hotel), defies understanding.
Does anyone know what it means?
More photos to come: people, noms, and other delights.
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
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I’m very interested in the “Fire Calendar”. I
If I had to guess, I’d say that in addition to a first aid kit (box,) there’s a fire alarm (“fire calendar hit”) and a fire extinguisher (“perfume umbrella.”)
I’m thinking a “perfume umbrella” is some kind of oxygen face mask.
Or something the Joker would carry.
Penguin.
Yes! You’re right. It felt wrong as I was typing it.
Maybe. Punctuation isn’t consistent on the sign, so it could simply be “perfume” and “umbrella”, though that’s still somewhat strange.
At least you had a guess. I had no clue.
My first guess was more like “fire check-list than alarm. but there’s a little mental demon expecting our classicists to remind me (us) of a faintly-remembered meaning of “calendar” more closely related to “alarm” or “alert”.
“Perfume Umbrella” – “smoke hood” or “smoke blanket”?
I think it means “Don’t smoke here”! 😉
Why didn’t you take a peek and find out?
“Fiddling with safety equipment” in a foreign language is an alternative spelling for “trouble (probably big).”
I do a lot of travelling in foreign languages. And a lot of “mouth shut, braincell doing 19-to-the-dozen.” But that is after doing “walk into [room | building] ; immediately look for escape route”. I’ve only had a couple of occasions when the fire alarm has gone off in an unfamiliar place, but I’ve then had to be guiding my fellow travellers to a way out of the building (often, it must be said, with the assistance of other offshore workers/ fellow travellers ; you recognise each other).
A lot of effort goes into Writing The Friendly Manual (this being a very short manual), and it is only polite to give TFM at least enough consideration to be confident that you have grokked the meaning of the person who W(rote)TFM.
Anyone want to insert the golden fingers?
Seems to be a listing of the contents of the cabinet to the right of the sign. “Hit” is a brand of household insect repellent in India. I am not sure what a “fire calendar” is. What a weird bunch of things to keep together though. Why does a bus need perfume and umbrella?
I suspect someone’s shopping list fell into the sign making machine.
If I had to wager, I’d say it’s just missing commas. That cabinet contains:
1. First Aid Box
2. Fire Extinguisher (‘cylinder’ misspelt as calndar)
3. Insecticide (‘Hit’ is an Indian brand of insecticide aerosol spray used against cockroaches, which aren’t uncommon on buses)
4. Perfume (perfume sprays are used in buses, airplanes, etc. for obvious reasons)
5. Umbrella (presumably for the driver or conductor in case the bus breaks down and its raining, or whatever! An umbrella is generally a good thing to have anywhere, no?)
I find that pretty convincing! Best yet!
Ahhhh that all makes sense and glad you explained the fire calendar.
So, it’s not a rota for fire frills ARRGHH BETRAYED BY TYPO. “fire drills, DRILLS I tell you”
Calmly, I whet the short sword, untie my kimono, grasp the short sword …
That is pure brilliance!
Thanks…. I can sleep better, now that I know these things.
One suggestion – Perfume Umbrella is probably Air freshener (aerosol) in case someone overloaded the air. Or it could be air freshener AND an umbrella.
So what, a aerosol-parasol misremember?
This is quite the memory jogger, isn’t it?!
Wrt umbrella, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar….
We’re through the looking glass here people.
Optimist! I’m not even sure if we’re through the front skin of the mirror.
(Astronomers … yes I do know about front- and rear- surface mirrors.)
Perfume umbrella (no comma) is an umbrella shaped like a perfume bottle. I checked with an Indian friend. Don’t ask me why.
Excellent detective work. So it’s really a case study in the need for commas!
Who knew! Sarah Palin has a sign shop in India.
Not enough guns.
While I’m perfectly happy to blame lots of things on Michael’s extremely discordant relative (hmmm, idea!) I couldn’t blame this on her with less than Trump-ian levels of deliberate dishonesty.
Idea! Are there enough examples of people with concordance of “family” name and strong discordance of public politics to … be a useful tool?
Sadly, I can’t think of a single British comic who took on the name “Trump” without succumbing to the flatulent implications. but all hail “Johnny Fartpants” nonetheless.
“No can shout; don’t hear you.”
Still waiting for the electrician?
Or someone like him.
NO SMOKING!
If you smoke, you’ll need first aid, because we’ll set fire to your calendar and hit you with a perfume bottle and an umbrella.
You’re scripting fight scenes for the next James Bond movie?
Sub
It’s obvious, isn’t it?
One to hold the giraffe and the other to fill the bathtub with brightly colored machine tools.
The box doesn’t want you to smoke, contains first aid items like a handy dandy fire calendar which lets you know when the bus is next expected to catch fire, but you have to hit the box to pop open the access panel on which the fire calendar is printed. Part of the first aid gear includes perfume for its antiseptic properties and an umbrella in case the roof of the bus blows off an you need to keep an injured passenger dry. Simple. 🙂
Maybe the word “aid” is actually a verb. Then it all becomes clear (if you correct the punctuation):
First aid (the) box, (then) fire the calendar (and then) hit the perfume umbrella.
There. Mystery solved.
And the statement in red if obviously a note about proper clothing.
I got this reply from an Indian friend on FB.
“I think there must be an overhead box which holds a first aid kit, fire cylinder ( not calendar), Hit is an insect spray. By perfume I’m sure they mean room freshener, umbrella – well just an umbrella perhaps.”
Sounds good to me.
“Perfume” could be “for smoke” if Romance languages are in the mix.
I suspect the sign is for a first aid kit, fire extinguisher, and a smoke hood. I work for an aircraft manufacturer and deal with safety equipment and signage regularly.
Somehow I don’t feel reassured…. 😉
I mean, ffs the black boxes are now orange!
>>they use a lot of old British words like “rusticated”<<
Or in India, just plain normal English.
Rusticate is a very commonly used word, especially in schools and colleges
>>they use a lot of old British words like “rusticated”<<
As does the USA, words such as "gotten", considered obsolete in UK and most of the Commonwealth.
The “Hit” in question most likely refers to a brand of household insect-repellent sprays quite popular across India (popular enough that other insect-repellent brands are also referred to as “Hit”, somewhat like how Xerox has become a synonym for photocopying). So my guess would be that the box contains a first aid kit, a “fire calendar” [which is perhaps a checklist of some fire department requirements?], a bottle of insect repellent spray, a bottle of “perfume” (most likely an aerosol based air freshener), and an umbrella.
Also, if a word is popularly used in a country which lists English as an official language, and likely has more English speakers than any other country save the USA, then the word isn’t so “archaic”, is it? 🙂
On second thoughts, “Fire calendar” must just be a typo for “Fire cylinder”, i.e., a cylinder of a fire-extinguishing fluid.
A word is “archaic” or not based on its age not on the size of the population that uses it!
By that token, “is” is amongst the most archaic words around.
A word is “archaic” if it has fallen out of popular usage. Not if it existed very long time ago, but still continues to be used.
My dictionary defines “archaic” as “very old or old-fashioned”, not “unpopular”.
If low popularity determined whether a word was archaic then “astrobleme” would one. It is not in popular use, much less used it but, having been invented in the 1960s can’t be called “archaic”.
Indeed, it defines as it as “old-fashioned”, not “old”. Is something “old-fashioned” if continues to be in fashion and has not fallen out of usage?
In other words, is the word “is” old? Is it also “old-fashioned” and “archaic”?
OK, let’s call a truce. To be archaic word need to be out of fashion, but that isn’t enough. It must be very old or it cannot be archaic.
“Archaic” is used for many things other than words. Archaic humans are very old versions of humanity, predating anatomically modern humans. The Archaic Period in North America was period in prehistory from about 8000 to 3000 BC, more or less. The word is also used for other periods of antiquity (e.g. Greece). And always, great old age is critical, not so much “popularity”.
‘To be archaic word need to be out of fashion, but that isn’t enough. It must be very old or it cannot be archaic.”
That’s precisely what I have been trying to point out :): just being very old or just being out of fashion are not enough by themselves. Both conditions need to be satisfied. That’s why it is strange for me that a word popular with a significant fraction of the world’s English speaking population would be called “archaic”.