Stewart.Clamen@CLAMEN.AVALON.CS.CMU.EDU (08/31/89)
From: "Stewart M. Clamen" <clamen@CS.CMU.EDU> Actually, the reason why ARRET looks silly to me is because it is the wrong part of speech. Most of the other signs are in the imperative (Yield, Do Not Enter) and I've always assumed that the "Stop" on international STOP signs was an imperative verb, as opposed to the noun, which "Arret" implies. I have actually seen one ARRETEZ sign. If anyone is in Montreal and is interested, it is in Ville St. Pierre, on the 20 Service road, a block south of St. Jacques. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stewart M. Clamen School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 INTERNET: clamen@CS.CMU.EDU USENET: ...!uunet!"clamen@cs.cmu.edu"
giguere@aries5.uucp (Eric Giguere) (08/31/89)
In article <28782@watmath.waterloo.edu> Stewart.Clamen%CLAMEN.AVALON.CS.CMU.EDU@watmath.waterloo.edu writes: >Actually, the reason why ARRET looks silly to me is because it is the >wrong part of speech. Most of the other signs are in the imperative >(Yield, Do Not Enter) and I've always assumed that the "Stop" on >international STOP signs was an imperative verb, as opposed to the >noun, which "Arret" implies. While the imperative verb is definitely used more frequently, you see the occasional nouns. These are mostly in pictorial form, though, such as the sign indicating a railway crossing. "Arret" just denotes "un arret". The problem with "Arretez" is that it is longer than "Arret". They avoid this problem at the Universite de Sherbrooke by using a pictogram for the stop sign (the palm of a hand inside a red octagon). Eric Giguere 268 Phillip St #CL-46 For the curious: it's French ("jee-gair") Waterloo, Ontario N2L 6G9 Bitnet : GIGUERE at WATCSG (519) 746-6565 Internet: giguere@aries5.UWaterloo.ca "Nothing but urges from HELL!!"
Stewart.Clamen@CLAMEN.AVALON.CS.CMU.EDU (09/03/89)
From: "Stewart M. Clamen" <clamen@CS.CMU.EDU> In article <428@maytag.waterloo.edu> giguere@aries5.uucp (Eric Giguere) writes: In article <28782@watmath.waterloo.edu> Stewart.Clamen%CLAMEN.AVALON.CS.CMU.EDU@watmath.waterloo.edu writes: >Actually, the reason why ARRET looks silly to me is because it is the >wrong part of speech. Most of the other signs are in the imperative >(Yield, Do Not Enter) and I've always assumed that the "Stop" on >international STOP signs was an imperative verb, as opposed to the >noun, which "Arret" implies. While the imperative verb is definitely used more frequently, you see the occasional nouns. These are mostly in pictorial form, though, such as the sign indicating a railway crossing. "Arret" just denotes "un arret". The problem with "Arretez" is that it is longer than "Arret". They avoid this problem at the Universite de Sherbrooke by using a pictogram for the stop sign (the palm of a hand inside a red octagon). I've seen the white palm STOP signs in Israel and like them a lot. I think that the red octagon IS the international symbol for a STOP sign (so any text within is redundant), but I still like seeing pictograms in signs. Here's one of my favourites: (You can see it on the Laurentian Autoroute (Quebec 15) north of Montreal) ----------- | / | | | | | <--- looks like a can | |_| | | | | .--. | | | |==== | <--- judge's gavel | |__| | | | | $50 | | | ----------- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Stewart M. Clamen School of Computer Science, Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA 15213-3890 INTERNET: clamen@CS.CMU.EDU USENET: ...!uunet!"clamen@cs.cmu.edu"