Sunday, July 15, 2018
Sometimes...
(comments not mine. I found this list years ago, time to share it again)
Cooking instructions on a package of Bacon:
"Broil slices for 6-7 minutes on each side. No turning necessary"
(Do they turn themselves over?)
On packaging for a Rowenta iron:
"Do not iron clothes on body."
(But wouldn't this save even more time?)
On Boot's Children's Cough Medicine:
"Do not drive a car or operate machinery after taking this
medication."
(We could do a lot to reduce the rate of construction accidents if we
could just get those 5-year-olds with head-colds off those
forklifts.)
On Nytol Sleep Aid:
"Warning: May cause drowsiness."
(One would hope.)
On most brands of Christmas lights:
"For indoor or outdoor use only."
(As opposed to what?)
On a Japanese food processor:
"Not to be used for the other use."
(I gotta admit, I'm curious.)
On Sainsbury's peanuts:
"Warning: contains nuts."
(Talk about a news flash.)
On a child's Superman costume:
"Wearing of this garment does not enable you to fly."
(I don't blame the company. I blame parents for this one.)
On a Swedish chain saw:
"Do not attempt to stop chain with your hands or genitals."
(Was this happening somewhere? My God!)
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Duuuhh...
ReplyDeleteFun. I loved these.
ReplyDeleteI always check the warning labels now, sometimes they're worth the visuals...
Deleteyou have to wonder if these are actual things that happen to people (I mean, do women really try to curl their eyelashes with a curling iron??) or it comes from a committee of people brainstorming "what would happen if..."
English is apparently not a second language (or sometimes not even a close third) for many of these: My all time favorite is the huge danger sticker attached to my hair dryer that warns me not to use this in the bath, it may cause sparking. I'll just bet it will.
ReplyDeleteand at the bottom it explains that you need to explain to children about the dangers of electrocution. Oh, right. Preferably with colored slides and sound effects...
I like the fake firelogs I used to use now and then, with the caution: combustible. Well, I hope so.
ReplyDeleteSome of these labels are the Lawyer's Full Employment Act at work, and some sound like interns in a law office after happy hour.
Oh I'd forgotten about that stuff. My matchboxes all warn about being a fire hazard.
DeleteNow and then one of the boxes just gets tossed in, matches and all, because the fire hazard isn't working properly.
Or the match head breaks off and THEN ignites on the rug. Oh, good.
And let us not forget white on white instructions on twisty covers for things only the elderly need--magic 'press down and turn" or "line up the arrows..." WHERE ARE THE ARROWS
so you give it to the visiting six year old who pushes down and turns the cover, easy peasy.
Judging from the strange word construction, my guess is "made in Taiwan" also means he who can speak four words of English gets to write the copy.
in my undergrad days, i spent most summers working in the outdoor gardening program at the botanic garden. kids learned how to grow a garden from raising the beds all the way through to the autumn harvest... outdoors... where all the soil/dirt was.
ReplyDeletea parent filed a complaint with the president of the garden, who passed it along to the VP who was my boss. it seems that i had allowed her offspring to get dirt on a "very expensive" shirt, and it had left a stain that was not coming out. she noted that she "would hate to have to get the lawyers involved".
i went from very angry to laughing very much as my boss related all of this to me. we sent them an extra t-shirt (of the type all the young gardeners got with their "welcome" bag), and our legal people advised that we take steps to prevent a re-occurrence.
all future brochures for said program bore a note stating that this was an outdoors program where the young gardeners would be outdoors... where the dirt was... so they should wear clothes that they don't mind getting dirty.
you feel extremely silly when you're typing said words onto anything that has to be released to the public, but then you remember that the public includes people who have more lawyers than working brain cells.
That's funny and sad at the same time. And I keep thinking, what a snob that woman was, first for putting an 'expensive shirt' on a kid who was going to be gardening, and then complaining that it got dirty.
DeleteMakes me wonder how much she was willing to spend to bring lawyers into the mix.
It does sound, from her complaint, that you not only 'allowed' the shirt to get dirty, you downright encouraged it. tsk tsk.
Some folks really do inhabit a different world than the rest of us, don't they.