{"id":235,"date":"2008-05-17T12:00:43","date_gmt":"2008-05-17T18:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/blog\/2008\/05\/slow-children-at-play\/"},"modified":"2008-05-17T12:02:29","modified_gmt":"2008-05-17T18:02:29","slug":"slow-children-at-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/05\/slow-children-at-play\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This is a sign commonly seen around schools.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Problem:<\/strong><br \/>\nPunctuation is missing.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Explanation:<\/strong><br \/>\nWhoever first designed this sign did not convert the pause that he heard in his head into punctuation that would express this pause.<\/p>\n<p>This sign is shorthand for &#8220;Please slow down or continue to drive slowly because there are children playing in this area.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some traffic signs are in the form of an imperative but without the exclamation mark that imperatives traditionally require:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;STOP&#8221; &#8212; for &#8220;Stop!&#8221; or &#8220;Stop Your Car!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;YIELD&#8221; &#8212; for &#8220;Yield!&#8221; or &#8220;Yield to Other Drivers!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;CAUTION&#8221; &#8212; for &#8220;Caution!&#8221; or &#8220;Take Caution!&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The &#8220;SLOW&#8221; in &#8220;SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221; is short for &#8220;Slow Down!&#8221; or &#8220;Drive Slowly!&#8221; and absolutely requires punctuation before &#8220;CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221; unless the sign maker wanted to say that the children near where the sign was to be placed were slow.<\/p>\n<p>In other words, &#8220;SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221; was meant to carry two thoughts:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>&#8220;SLOW DOWN!&#8221; or &#8220;DRIVE SLOWLY!&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>&#8220;CHILDREN AT PLAY!&#8221;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>This gives us the solutions.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Solutions:<\/strong><br \/>\n&#8220;SLOW DOWN! CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221;<br \/>\nor<br \/>\n&#8220;DRIVE SLOWLY! CHILDREN AT PLAY&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This is a sign commonly seen around schools. Problem: Punctuation is missing. Explanation: Whoever first designed this sign did not convert the pause that he heard in his head into punctuation that would express this pause. This sign is shorthand for &#8220;Please slow down or continue to drive slowly because there are children playing in&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-common-english-blunders","category-imperatives"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.kirkmahoney.com\/wordpress\/blog\/2008\/05\/slow-children-at-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;SLOW CHILDREN AT PLAY&quot; - Kirk Mahoney . com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"This is a sign commonly seen around schools. 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