Tuesday, August 03, 2010

Is it Morse Code for something?

I pass this sign about once a week.


If this makes sense to you, please comment and enlighten me. Because when I see an S followed by three dashes or symbols of some sort, a word I specifically do not think of is "site." But I don't know what else it could be intended to mean. And it isn't that some of the paint came off, because it says the exact same thing on the other side. And these people are not just stupid, because they planned ahead enough to use a lower-case d, having realized that a boxy uppercase D would have made the sign look like it read "CAMP S.-- WOOO," which would have been truly unintelligible. So. I feel I have exhausted all possibilities and I am stumped.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Curious.
Is that an "S" or a "5"? It is hard to tell, not that either one improves the interpretation.

Are there any other signs like this? Perhaps there are signs that read:
CAMP
6.--
PLANt

or
CAMP
S.--
FISh

If there was a pattern, perhaps we could discern the intent. Perhaps you could recruit a caravan of curious clue hunters to canvas the byways looking for other examples.

We could set up a big conference call so we could all be on our cell phones at the same time and rush to meet at the sighting of another sign. Just like on the TeeVee shows.

Keep looking and keep us informed.

Simon said...

AHA. FIVE DOLLARS. I thought it was an S because the rest of the letters were so boxy, but it would make much more sense if it were telling you how much the firewood cost. I would personally not have put the price in the middle, because people like me who are easily confused would be confused, but perhaps those people shouldn't be trusted with fire anyway.

I do wish it were slightly more interesting, and warranted a county-wide hunt for other such signs to see if they are being used to communicate with aliens and clear the way for an invasion... but I think this explains it. The internet is SO USEFUL.

Anonymous said...

Hi, Me again. So sorry that the county wide search for alien assistance signs has been postponed. Could have been fun, even though probably unproductive.

If we had seen any, I would have proposed that we turn them backwards or upside down. Really, if you were an alien, how could you possibly understand:
PMAC
--.5
dOOW

That would fix their wagon! Probably send them off to Padukah or somewhere.

I didn't see the possibilities of the middle actually representing $5.00. They were so boxy with all of the other characters why not the 0s? They got short shrift, if you ask me. In some karmic sense, though, perhaps it is fitting. They are zeros after all.

And what is with the "camp wood"? If the sign has said FIRE WOOd, the meaning would have been clearer - I think.

In addition, it never occurred to me that the tiny few logs under the sign were intended to be sold. I though their purpose was to keep the sign from blowing over, or something. If that is all we would get for our 5.--, then a dollar does not go far these days.

Katie said...

I must say that anonymous is much more useful than me. My first thought was an S and three non-letters was that they were masking profanity.
CAMP
SHIT
WOOD
But of course, that makes it almost more of a mystery than it started out as. And
CAMP
$5.00
Wood
makes so much more sense.

Pandora said...

I'm so glad you all figured this out because I am laughing too hard to be of any use whatsoever.

Simon said...

@Anonymous: What IS with the zeros? Karma aside, why not just spell it right out? Or leave the zeros off? And I agree, "fire" wood would have been much clearer than "camp" wood. Because then I never would have interpreted 5.-- as some kind of weird abbreviation for "site" and would have been forced to look for other meanings. Although I still probably wouldn't have gotten it for a good long time.

@KP: I'm glad I'm not the only one who got that meaning out of it. I just couldn't understand what sort of advertisement that was for the wood. Or the shit. Hard to tell!

@Pandora: It is a good thing you are amused by general confusion, because we have that in abundance on this blog.

It occurs to me that the use of a dollar sign could have saved us all a lot of trouble.

Katie said...

On the other hand, with their lack of coherent penmanship, their $ most likely would have also looked like an S, leaving you with SS.-- and wondering what the heck the Nazi's were doing sending secret messages regarding Camp Wood.

Simon said...

True! That could have become a very embarrassing misunderstanding.