Verbosity

Wise words.

'Verboseness': an expressive style that uses excessive or empty words.

The very first time I visited England, back in the early 1990s, one of the same-but-different curiosities which struck me was the over-blown verbosity of the public signs. For example, I recall a sign that said something like:

“Please do not feed the pigeons that congregate here. Feeding them encourages them to congregate and unfortunately they cause a great deal of damage which is expensive to repair. Thank you.”

In any other country, such a sign would likely read merely:

“Do not feed the birds”

This turned out to be not an isolated example, and today I still chuckle at the copious amounts of text that the English prefer to use when communicating via signs. Part of it is the urge to politeness (at least in writing!) - the need to begin with “please” and end with “thank you”. But part of it just seems to be an innate love of chatting. Perhaps this is not inappropriate in the land where the English language itself originates.

I have collected a few examples for your delectation:

"No bicycles"

"Flush toilet paper only"

"Cross at your own risk"

"Closed"

Awww...someone cares.