THE

Something about the sign bothered her. Nothing wrong per se, no misspellings, no misplaced apostrophes indicating a possessive where there should have been none; but still, it stuck in a crevice of her brain, if such a thing as a brain crevice did even exist, of which she wasn’t sure because she hadn’t taken a science course in years, and which she would be sure to look up later in the dictionary, or at least on dictionary.com, which was her constant companion on such meandering, run-on forays into the things that irked her like this smallish sign on the inside of the bathroom stall door in Old Navy.

PLEASE DO NOT FLUSH
SANITARY NAPKINS,
PAPER TOWELS,
DIAPERS, OR TAMPONS
DOWN TOILET.

Sure, the sign Powers-That-Be had opted for the series comma, which wouldn’t have been her choice had she been at the editor’s desk. But the use of a period indicated that this was intended to be a complete sentence, uttered by an authority somewhere overhead, making requests of squatters in this most intimate of spaces. And as such, it was missing a definite article.

The missing ‘the’ piqued her curiosity as much as it irritated her. Logically, there was certainly room for it in that last line. Aesthetically, it would have improved the sign, lending a near-symmetry by adding letters to that last line, and creating a better, if still imperfect, balance to the text in the five-line poem of the sign. But someone decided not to banish all attempts at symmetry, and didn’t include it. She wondered who that person was, the editor at the sign factory, if such a thing existed, and whether he or she took his job seriously. Who had a grudge with a “the”? What kind of editor—nay, what kind of person—allowed a sentence to be printed, in white letters on a bright red sign, without a vital definite article?

She was there again, in the bad place. The one where she looped into a cycle of grammatical insanity. (Shame on you for using a sentence fragment for dramatic effect, she self-scolded.) She had to get a hold of herself, and with some difficulty, shook off the thought, flushing it away.

Comments

[Lyss]

I love dictionary.com

[John]

My friend Xta and her friends recently visited your lovely city and had a similar problem with missing "the's": http://flickr.com/photos/spacegrrl/226831697/

I think you have a new mission.

[Esther]

You know you guys are just encouraging my insanity, right?

This could be the beginning of a great novel. Like Joe Heller's "It was love at first sight" in Catch-22.

[Dr. Janice]

I think that your insanity just perpetuates itself, Esther. Didn't you write a post last year about a poorly written sign in a nail salon?

For some people, just getting the message across is more important than the grammar.

[VJ]

It's simply British. Cheers, 'VJ'

[Shaun Eli]

Since it was in all capital letters you can't be sure that it wasn't referring to a proper noun.

Perhaps the commode was NAMED Toilet. If it had been named John, the sentence would have read "Please do not flush... down John."

[William]

Cavemen do this all time ... Now you picky as me.

[Jessica Leigh]

Heh, heh, heh, yeah, you crazy like me. Spent an hour today trying to explain the grammatic fun of "Eats, shoots, leaves" to my six year-old. He finally rolled his eyes and said "I can't even write a little 'k', mom. Leave me alone."

[rabbi neil fleischmann]

The question is, do people who make signs have any contact with other human beings? Are they familiar with the language that they're writing the sign in?
Often in Israel (and probably other countries I'm not familiar with)the answer to both of these questions seems to be no.