Thursday, May 19, 2011

Signs of Life, Part II

It's funny to be up in Canada, the place the blog was born. This post is also sort of a sequel to this.

Sometimes it's hard to find things:

Here is an odd case of emphasis:


I would understand if it read:

Don't invite BEARS to the cottage.

Or: DON'T INVITE Bears to the cottage.

But why: Don't invite bears to THE COTTAGE?

It makes it sound as if THE COTTAGE is the ominous part of the sentence, when, really, isn't it BEARS or DON'T INVITE?

THE COTTAGE isn't, in and of itself, particularly scary. I mean, you wouldn't say, Hope you have a nice time without bears at THE COTTAGE! Or, Be safe from bears while you're up at THE COTTAGE! I hope your time at THE COTTAGE is very relaxing with no bears.

3 comments:

MH said...

Perhaps it just meant that people should invite bears to other places, but not to the cottage? I'm not sure why that would be the rule, but that would make sense of the odd emphasis.

Jason Kallelis said...

Maybe the idea is that if you're going to invite bears anywhere, it should be somewhere nicer? Maybe bears have higher standards than we give them credit for.

Easy O said...

True, both of you -- I'm sure there are many other places that bears (of all kinds!) would rather be....