So as I was wandering around a very cool old railroad complex and roundhouse in Evanston, Wyoming I came upon an old dining car that had these words on the side of it. "DO NOT HUMP UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES." I had a good laugh since I have a 5th grader's sense of humor and then had my husband explain the railroad lingo behind this funny sign. It seems that to "hump" a railroad car is to use a small hump in the tracks to get it to roll to where you want it. The car goes over the hump and then the hill causes it to roll further without having to push it or tow it there. I'm sure that's a simplistic and possibly not-quite-correct explanation of the term, but it will do.When we got home from our trip I posted the photo on flickr with the tag "sign" and it has become my most popular photo by far. None of my cool neon sign photos or funky art shots or architecture shots come close. I guess everyone appreciates a good chuckle.
The waymarker Team TGF saw it and said there should be a category for unintentionally funny signs. I know that someone brought up the idea a long time ago, but it never went anywhere. It would be a great category though, and if I don't remember to bring it up in the forums and get it going, someone else do it. It would be a great companion to the "odd business combos" group. I found one of those in Evanston too - a combo fireworks store and liquor store originally called "Porter's Fireworks and Firewater."
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3 comments:
Try posting your sign to the unusual signs category, like this one is:
http://www.waymarking.com/wm/details.aspx?f=1&guid=720a2221-e4b0-4c8d-862c-5e600c539b0c
The Unusual Sign category is incorrectly named. The category's description is for incorrect spelling and grammar in signage.
I think that we definitely need at least three more groups for funny sign's, Unintentionally, intentionally humorous sign's and humorously altered sign's. Maybe also a category for humorous situations too e.g. A Stop Sign right after a No stopping sign.
I'm up for helping out with a group if anyone is interested.
Yeah - I was disappointed with the "Unusual Signs" category. "Unusual" doesn't seem to be what they are looking for - "Sign Mistakes" seems like a better title. Then in the description it tacked on the funny sign bit on the end. I don't know about three groups, but I do think an unintentionally humorous sign category would be a great addition to Waymarking. I may take this on once I catch up on posting my backlogged waymarks from vacation.
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