dogs must be carried on the escalator что это значит
Текст песни
Here in Britain, we have been celebrating a birthday. Not the birthday of a person, however, but the birthday of a railway. One hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, the first underground railway in the world carried its first passengers. It ran for 6 kilometres from Paddington in London to a place close to the City, which is the name we call London’s main business district.
The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people. The men building the railway dug up the streets and knocked down houses and other buildings. They dug a deep trench and put the railway track at the bottom. Then they covered over the new railway and remade the surface of the street. Not surprisingly, the construction work caused chaos in London for many months.
Steam engines pulled the first underground trains. Although the tunnels had vents in the roof to let the smoke escape, they were still full of soot and steam. The railway company bravely said that the atmosphere was invigorating and particularly good for people with asthma. I think that it must have been very unpleasant. Nonetheless, from the very first day the railway was popular with people who needed to travel to their work in London. About 26,000 people used the railway every day in its first six months of operation.
More underground railway lines opened in the following years. The railway companies found new ways to build and operate them. Instead of digging huge trenches in the streets, they bored holes deep under the city. People called these deep underground lines “tubes” because the tunnels had a circular shape like tubes. Nowadays, we say “the Tube” to mean all of the London underground system. It was of course impossible to use steam engines on the deep Tube lines; they had electric trains instead. By the beginning of the 20th century, electricity had replaced steam on all the underground lines.
To celebrate the 150th birthday of the London Underground, one of the old steam engines came out of its retirement home in a museum to pull a special Underground train. The Post Office issued some new stamps to mark the anniversary. And Prince Charles, who is old but not quite as old as the London Underground, joined the celebrations by taking a trip on an Underground train earlier this week. This was apparently the first time in 27 years that he had travelled on the Tube. Our royal family live very different lives from ordinary people!
To finish this podcast, here is some Underground vocabulary for you to learn.
When you go into an Underground station, you will see signs that say things like “Bakerloo Line southbound”. “Southbound” means “traveling south” – and “northbound” means traveling north, and I am sure you can work out what “eastbound” and “westbound” mean.
After you have followed the signs and found the right platform, and the train has arrived, you will often hear an announcement telling passengers to “mind the gap”. To “mind” something means to be careful – the announcement means “be careful. There is a gap between the edge of the platform and the doors of the train. Take care not to fall down.”
When you arrive at your destination, you will probably step onto an escalator to carry you up to the surface. You will see signs saying “please stand on the right”. This is very important! It means “if you want to stand and let the escalator do the work, you must stand on the right hand side of the escalator. Then people who are in a hurry can walk or run up the left hand side of the escalator.” You may think that this makes no sense – these crazy British people drive on the left hand side of the road, but they want people to stand on the right hand side of the escalator? However, Londoners who are late for work get annoyed by tourists who stand on the left-hand side of escalators. So, don’t be a tourist, stand on the right like us natives!
Finally, you will probably see a sign which says “Dogs must be carried on the escalator.” This will finally convince you that the British are mad. Do you really have to take a dog with you on the Underground so that you can carry it on the escalator? If you don’t have a dog, do you have to walk up the stairs instead? I will leave you to work out what the sign really means!
Here in Britain, we have been celebrating a birthday. Not the birthday of a person, however, but the birthday of a railway. One hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, the first underground railway in the world carried its first passengers. It ran for 6 kilometres from Paddington in London to a place close to the City, which is the name we call London’s main business district.
The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people. The men building the railway dug up the streets and knocked down houses and other buildings. They dug a deep trench and put the railway track at the bottom. Then they covered over the new railway and remade the surface of the street. Not surprisingly, the construction work caused chaos in London for many months.
Steam engines pulled the first underground trains. Although the tunnels had vents in the roof to let the smoke escape, they were still full of soot and steam. The railway company bravely said that the atmosphere was invigorating and particularly good for people with asthma. I think that it must have been very unpleasant. Nonetheless, from the very first day the railway was popular with people who needed to travel to their work in London. About 26,000 people used the railway every day in its first six months of operation.
More underground railway lines opened in the following years. The railway companies found new ways to build and operate them. Instead of digging huge trenches in the streets, they bored holes deep under the city. People called these deep underground lines “tubes” because the tunnels had a circular shape like tubes. Nowadays, we say “the Tube” to mean all of the London underground system. It was of course impossible to use steam engines on the deep Tube lines; they had electric trains instead. By the beginning of the 20th century, electricity had replaced steam on all the underground lines.
To celebrate the 150th birthday of the London Underground, one of the old steam engines came out of its retirement home in a museum to pull a special Underground train. The Post Office issued some new stamps to mark the anniversary. And Prince Charles, who is old but not quite as old as the London Underground, joined the celebrations by taking a trip on an Underground train earlier this week. This was apparently the first time in 27 years that he had travelled on the Tube. Our royal family live very different lives from ordinary people!
To finish this podcast, here is some Underground vocabulary for you to learn.
When you go into an Underground station, you will see signs that say things like “Bakerloo Line southbound”. “Southbound” means “traveling south” – and “northbound” means traveling north, and I am sure you can work out what “eastbound” and “westbound” mean.
After you have followed the signs and found the right platform, and the train has arrived, you will often hear an announcement telling passengers to “mind the gap”. To “mind” something means to be careful – the announcement means “be careful. There is a gap between the edge of the platform and the doors of the train. Take care not to fall down.”
When you arrive at your destination, you will probably step onto an escalator to carry you up to the surface. You will see signs saying “please stand on the right”. This is very important! It means “if you want to stand and let the escalator do the work, you must stand on the right hand side of the escalator. Then people who are in a hurry can walk or run up the left hand side of the escalator.” You may think that this makes no sense – these crazy British people drive on the left hand side of the road, but they want people to stand on the right hand side of the escalator? However, Londoners who are late for work get annoyed by tourists who stand on the left-hand side of escalators. So, don’t be a tourist, stand on the right like us natives!
Finally, you will probably see a sign which says “Dogs must be carried on the escalator.” This will finally convince you that the British are mad. Do you really have to take a dog with you on the Underground so that you can carry it on the escalator? If you don’t have a dog, do you have to walk up the stairs instead? I will leave you to work out what the sign really means!
Вернуться к Списку подкастов
Лондонское метро (London Underground). Рассказы на английском про первую в мире подземную железную дорогу и первую в мире схему метро.
It ran for 6 kilometres from Paddington in London to a place close to the City.
The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people.
The men building the railway dug up the streets and knocked down houses and other buildings.
I think that it must have been very unpleasant.
Nonetheless, from the very first day the railway was popular with people who needed to travel to their work in London.
They had electric trains instead.
By the beginning of the 20th century, electricity had replaced steam on all the underground lines.
This was apparently the first time in 27 years that he had travelled on the Tube.
Then people who are in a hurry can walk or run up the left hand side of the escalator.
A few minutes later, I look for them – but they are gone.
Your luggage can go missing at the airport.
Despite this, Londoners loved their new underground trains.
They were a quick and convenient way to get to work.
The maps were crowded and difficult to read.
The map had to be very big to cover all the underground lines in the suburbs.
He made central London big, so that you could see all the lines and stations, and the suburbs small so that the map was a reasonable size.
People did not need to know the exact route of the railway line.
Obviously, over the years the map has changed.
The public outcry was so loud that Transport for London quickly decided to print a new map.
We like Harry Beck’s map the way it is.
Текст на английском с переводом и аудио «Dogs must be carried on the escalator»
Here in Britain, we have been celebrating a birthday. Not the birthday of a person, however, but the birthday of a railway. One hundred and fifty years ago, in January 1863, the first underground railway in the world carried its first passengers. It ran for 6 kilometres from Paddington in London to a place close to the City, which is the name we call London’s main business district.
The new railway was controversial and unpopular with many people. The men building the railway dug up the streets and knocked down houses and other buildings. They dug a deep trench and put the railway track at the bottom. Then they covered over the new railway and remade the surface of the street. Not surprisingly, the construction work caused chaos in London for many months.
Steam engines pulled the first underground trains. Although the tunnels had vents in the roof to let the smoke escape, they were still full of soot and steam. The railway company bravely said that the atmosphere was invigorating and particularly good for people with asthma. I think that it must have been very unpleasant. Nonetheless, from the very first day the railway was popular with people who needed to travel to their work in London. About 26,000 people used the railway every day in its first six months of operation.
More underground railway lines opened in the following years. The railway companies found new ways to build and operate them. Instead of digging huge trenches in the streets, they bored holes deep under the city. People called these deep underground lines “tubes” because the tunnels had a circular shape like tubes. Nowadays, we say “the Tube” to mean all of the London underground system. It was of course impossible to use steam engines on the deep Tube lines; they had electric trains instead. By the beginning of the 20th century, electricity had replaced steam on all the underground lines.
To celebrate the 150th birthday of the London Underground, one of the old steam engines came out of its retirement home in a museum to pull a special Underground train. The Post Office issued some new stamps to mark the anniversary. And Prince Charles, who is old but not quite as old as the London Underground, joined the celebrations by taking a trip on an Underground train earlier this week. This was apparently the first time in 27 years that he had travelled on the Tube. Our royal family live very different lives from ordinary people!
To finish this podcast, here is some Underground vocabulary for you to learn.
When you go into an Underground station, you will see signs that say things like “Bakerloo Line southbound”. “Southbound” means “traveling south” – and “northbound” means traveling north, and I am sure you can work out what “eastbound” and “westbound” mean.
After you have followed the signs and found the right platform, and the train has arrived, you will often hear an announcement telling passengers to “mind the gap”. To “mind” something means to be careful – the announcement means “be careful. There is a gap between the edge of the platform and the doors of the train. Take care not to fall down.”
When you arrive at your destination, you will probably step onto an escalator to carry you up to the surface. You will see signs saying “please stand on the right”. This is very important! It means “if you want to stand and let the escalator do the work, you must stand on the right hand side of the escalator. Then people who are in a hurry can walk or run up the left hand side of the escalator.” You may think that this makes no sense – these crazy British people drive on the left hand side of the road, but they want people to stand on the right hand side of the escalator? However, Londoners who are late for work get annoyed by tourists who stand on the left-hand side of escalators. So, don’t be a tourist, stand on the right like us natives!
Dogs must be carried on the escalator!
Finally, you will probably see a sign which says “Dogs must be carried on the escalator.” This will finally convince you that the British are mad. Do you really have to take a dog with you on the Underground so that you can carry it on the escalator? If you don’t have a dog, do you have to walk up the stairs instead? I will leave you to work out what the sign really means!
©ESL British Podcast
Собаки должны перевозиться на эскалаторе
Здесь, в Британии, мы отмечаем День рождения. Не день рождения человека, а день рождения железную дорогу. Сто пятьдесят лет назад, в январе 1863 года, первая в мире подземная железная дорога перевезла первых пассажиров. Она протянулась на 6 километров от Паддингтона в Лондоне до места, близкого к городу, которое мы называем главным деловым районом Лондона.
Новая железная дорога вызывала споры и была непопулярной среди многих людей. Строители железной дороги перекопали улицы, повалили дома и другие здания. Они вырыли глубокую траншею и проложили железнодорожную колею. Затем они перекрыли новую железную дорогу и переделали поверхность улицы. Неудивительно, что строительные работы вызывали хаос в Лондоне на протяжении многих месяцев.
Паровозы потянули первые поезда в метро. Хотя в туннелях были вентиляционные отверстия на крыше, чтобы дым выходил, они все еще были полны сажи и пара. В железнодорожной компании смело заявили, что атмосфера бодрит и особенно хороша для людей с астмой. Мне кажется, это было очень неприятно. Тем не менее, с самого первого дня железная дорога была популярна среди людей, которым нужно было ехать на работу в Лондон. За первые шесть месяцев работы железной дороги ежедневно ею пользовались около 26 тысяч человек.
В последующие годы открылись новые линии метро. Железнодорожные компании нашли новые пути их строительства и эксплуатации. Вместо того, чтобы рыть огромные траншеи на улицах, они бурили ямы глубоко под городом. Люди называли эти глубокие подземные линии “трубами”, потому что туннели имели круглую форму труб. Сегодня мы используем слово «Труба» для обозначения всех лондонских метро. Конечно, паровозы на глубоких трубах использовать было невозможно, вместо них были электропоезда. К началу 20 века электричество заменило пар на всех линиях метро.
Чтобы отпраздновать 150-летие Лондонского метрополитена, один из старых паровозов покинул свой дом престарелых в музее, чтобы потянуть специальный подземный поезд. В честь юбилея почтовое отделение выпустило несколько новых марок. И Принц Чарльз, который стар, но не так стар, как Лондонский метрополитен, присоединился к празднованию, совершив поездку на подземном поезде в начале этой недели. По-видимому, это был первый раз за 27 лет, когда он путешествовал на метро. Наша королевская семья живет совсем другой жизнью, чем обычные люди!
В завершении этого подкаста вот несколько «подземных» слов, чтобы выучить их.
Когда вы входите в метро, вы видите знаки, которые сообщают такие вещи, как “линия Бейкерлоо на юг”. “На юг” означает “путешествие на юг” – и “на север” означает путешествие на север, и я уверен, что вы можете понять, что означают “на восток” и “на запад”.
Когда вы прибудете в пункт назначения, вы, вероятно, взойдете на эскалатор, чтобы подняться наружу. Вы увидите таблички с надписью “пожалуйста, встаньте справа”. Это очень важно! Это означает: “Если вы хотите пользоваться услугами эскалатора и позволить ему выполнять свою работу, вы должны стоять на правой стороне эскалатора. А люди, которые спешат, могут идти или бежать по левой стороне эскалатора.” Вы можете подумать, что это не имеет смысла – эти сумасшедшие британцы ездят по левой стороне, но они хотят, чтобы остальные люди стояли по правую сторону эскалатора? Однако опаздывающих на работу лондонцев раздражают туристы, стоящие по левую сторону эскалаторов. Так что не будьте туристами, стойте справа, как мы, местные!
Собаки должны перевозиться на эскалаторе!
Наконец, вы, вероятно, увидите знак, который сообщает: “собак нужно вести на эскалаторе.” Это, наконец, убедит вас, что британцы сумасшедшие. Вы действительно должны взять собаку с собой в метро, чтобы вы могли везти ее на эскалаторе? Если у вас нет собаки, вам нужно подниматься по лестнице? Я предоставлю вам самим разобраться, что на самом деле означает знак!
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Ambiguity of «Dogs must be carried on this escalator»
In the words of the old joke, I wanted to go up to the next floor of a department store, and I saw an escalator with a sign saying
Dogs must be carried on this escalator.
But I didn’t have a dog, so I had to use the stairs.
Nobody is in any doubt about what was meant, but would you say the sign was ambiguous or (technically) mistaken? And if the latter, how should it be reworded?
10 Answers 10
The sign is not ambiguous because — as you said — everyone knows exactly what it means. Ambiguity can creep into the most precise and lawyerish of writing. The sign shouldn’t be re-worded because it’s a good sign. Its job is to tell people what to do, in as few words as possible, and it accomplishes that.
«Dogs must be carried on this escalator» can be interpreted in a number of ways.
The most salient message is that the escalator is dangerous for dogs, but you can’t exactly write:
This escalator is also a dog skinner: hoist your pet when riding
Lift your dog or I will eat it, om nom nom — the escalator
Friends don’t let best friends ride escalators — designate a dog carrier
Standing on moving stairs may cause brain damage in dogs
I’d keep the sign as-is, but if I had to change it, I’d say:
Don’t put your dog on the escalator
This is a short unambiguous directive, and implies that people carry their dogs on escalators. I was thinking that perhaps «don’t put your dog down on this escalator» would be clearer, but that just leads to a joke about not calling your dog fat while it’s on the moving stairs.
You could tweak the original sentence to say «Any dogs must be carried. «, meaning if you have a dog you must carry it. But if the real goal is to say «Dogs may not stand on the escalator», it would be clearer to say that:
Dogs are not permitted to stand on this escalator; carry them.
Why ambiguity is an indication of a healthy language
The truth is that the action of expressing something in any language has a cost. A cost in thinking how to put things into words and a cost in streaming these words out in oral speech or in writing.
So that just as everything else languages, tend to be simplified by their users. As Einstein would have put it, a language has to be «as simple as possible but not too simple».
The limit between the too simple and the just simple enough is precisely delineated by the proportion of ambiguity caused by every day simplifications.
The chicken example
Let’s look at the verb to cook. To cook is an action verb that can be either transitive or intransitive:
The second sense came as the result of a simplification in English. Most Romance languages instead have two distinct verbs: one for the cook, the other for the food.
4. Le poulet est en train de cuire.
But of course, nobody will imagine that there is a chicken in the kitchen with an apron tied around its waist and keeping itself busy with pots and pans. In this case English is less precise but more efficient.
The dog example
The same thing can arguably been said about the sign you mention. There are actually many possible far-fetched interpretations of the sign:
Dogs must be carried on this escalator!
For instance, nobody imagines that the poster addresses stray dogs and requests them to dutifully wait for some passing-by biped to pick them up instead of boldly venturing alone on the escalator. Nor indeed that people without dogs should opt for the stairs. That is precisely why the joke is intended to be funny.
It is instead a characteristic of signs that they need to comply with stricter concision in order to condense as much meaning as possible in as few words as possible when they fall under the casual gaze of by-passers; and since concision is borderline to oversimplification the risk of ambiguity is higher in sign talk than in everyday talk, let alone scientific literature.
So in my opinion the sign is not ambiguous at all. I’d argue that you really have to think about it to come up with non straightforward interpretations.
Another dog example
Here is another example where the ambiguity is much more conspicuous. In this case the ambiguity comes from the fact that in English the pronoun «it» of a second clause usually refers to the subject of the first clause (in this case the dog).
This sign might need to be rephrased. The following sentence for instance is shorter and not ambiguous.
Dog poo must be put in a litter bin.
The striking thing is that we’ve actually come up with the same construction as your sign; viz. «Dogs. must. «.
Others have explained that this kind of pseudo-ambiguity is quite normal. I will add some background on why it might be ambiguous and why readers will easily solve that ambiguity.
Of central importance is the distribution of topic and focus: some parts of a sentence contain information that is already known to the listener (topic), while other parts contain new, important, interesting information regarding the topic (focus/comment). This distinction is not always clear cut, but it is no less real. All pronouns have a certain topical aspect, because they refer to something that the listener will presumably be able to fill in: e.g. he knows who he is in a given context (if not, the pronoun is used incorrectly, which does happen).
Based on context, the reader has no problem determining that it is the word carried that has focus, not dogs or on this escalator.
Agrippina lives in Rome. Her palace is huge.
In the second sentence, the subject (her palace) is topical, the predicate (is huge) is focal. The sentence assumes that there is this palace that Agrippina lives in; but what it wants to tell me is that this palace is huge.
She craves power. But only men may be emperors.
In the second sentence, the predicate (may be emperors) is mostly topical: we were already talking about «power». The subject (only men) has focus, marked by the typically focal word only.
Dogs must be carried on this escalator.
Which words have focus here? We have no explicit context to compare to in order to find «double», topical information. Nor is there a clear marker like only. But we do have implicit context.
I imagine our processing the sentence as follows. We read it. We picture someone carrying a dog on the escalator. Immediately it strikes us as interesting that this person should be carrying the dog, instead of its standing on four paws. Then we know what must have focus.