In 2014, while out for a walk with my mother-in-law in Ontario, we came upon the sign above. I was so flabbergasted, I returned to take a photograph. A couple of years ago I went by again to see if it was still there, and it was.
It has haunted me ever since. This sign has survived at least seven years. Not only that, but in May 2019, the same municipality put up more of them! Ms. Fluffster is gobsmacked.
Googling “Bylaw #122-87” yields 2002 and 2020 results that claim this particular bylaw has been repealed. I can’t seem to find a copy of said bylaw, but that makes sense if it was repealed twice! Of course, that begs the question of whether it even has legal teeth.
It has, deservedly, earned an American Centre for Plain Language WTF award. I’m not sure if those awarding it knew the sign was Canadian, but that doesn’t matter. It makes their case with a vengeance.
Where to begin? Will your average dog-walker read it and say to themselves, “oh, shoot, I forgot Fido’s poop bags?” Or will they instead (assuming they understand it) muse on how to “remove all excrement” from a living, breathing, eating, pooping creature? Incidentally, a picture of this sign has been posted to Flickr, where commenters are busy speculating on the mechanics of how to do this. If you’re interested.
I suspect that most people will get to “excrement” and stop reading.
Let’s just parse the language. The word “Persons” drives me crazy. In my worldview, the plural of person is people. Those who know language (like Grammarly.com) mostly agree with me, but they make an exception for legal writing and distinct ethnic groups. While I agree with the latter, I’ve spent years showing writers how to eliminate it from the former.
“Persons shall”: Well, that either means it’s going to happen in future, or the writer strongly believes it will. But not you absolutely have to do this, for which “Persons must” would be required.
“Persons shall remove all excrement”: Whoa, hang on there! All excrement? Everywhere? And how on earth does one “remove” it? (For more, see Flickr note, above.)
“Persons shall remove all excrement from pets”: Ok, remove from pets. Clear enough. Presumably this also applies to pet cats, budgies, monkeys, tigers, or boa constrictors, not just dogs.
“Persons shall remove all excrement from pets pursuant”: Here, my brain explodes. Pursuant to what? The missing “to” between “pursuant” and “Bylaw” on the next line suggests that this is actually the archaic usage of the word pursuant (since the sign creators are keen on such usage, after all) and really means “following.”
If that’s the case, are these “pets pursuant” chasing me? If so, and they’re really big pets, forget about me stopping to “remove all excrement,” thank you very much. I’d rather cough up the $2,000.
There are alternatives to this kind of bafflegab, and not all municipalities are as misguided as Vaughan. Some places have signs that everyone can understand. For example, someone at the District of North Vancouver Municipal Hall revealed a healthy sense of humour when this sign was created. It even comes with its own doggie bag dispenser.
I fled academia in my youth to escape impenetrable language and pretentious people, and then spent another 30 years successfully (mostly) convincing legal professionals that, to be effective, communication must avoid convoluted sentences and jargon that folks don’t understand. There’s no advantage to writing laws (or bylaws) that nobody can follow. It doesn’t make compliance more likely (the reverse, in fact).
So if you want that s*** picked up, it’s time to put up a sign that says so.
Created by Nikita Kozin from Noun Project; Created by Luis Prado from Noun Project; Dog Poop by corpus delicti from the Noun Project
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