OK, so Your Humble Blogger was at a nice old amusement park, having just enough fun with my Perfect Non-Reader, and there were the signs. I took the trouble to write the text down, since I wasn’t sure I would remember it properly: “Height Restrictions: You must be 45” or taller to ride this ride or with an adult”
Now, I know what the sign means. But then, I knew what the sign meant before I read it. I knew that there was a certain height restriction, that applied to certain rides, that forbade smaller children from riding them without adult company. I had, at the time we bought the tickets, ascertained that my Perfect Non-Reader was too short to ride like a Big Kid, and all the sign needed to tell me was whether the Tilt-A-Whirl or the Spin-Out was a Big Kid ride or a little kid ride. I am not only a native speaker of English (and a native speaker of WTF grammar), but I have Been on These Things Before. So I was not confused. I didn’t think that the park insisted that only those children over 3’9” ride with adults. Nor did I think that there was really an exclusive choice between riding this ride or riding with an adult; in fact, the P N-R did both, as the sign-writer intended her to.
I did amuse myself for a while trying to rewrite the sign correctly. I’m sure it is correct in many places. No Child shorter than 45” may ride unaccompanied by an adult. No unaccompanied children under 45”. All children under 45” tall must ride with an adult. Part of the problem, of course, is deciding who to direct the sign to, that is, whether the sign is directed at three-footers or five-footers. Then it occurred to me that there was no need for text on the sign at all. At the ticket booth, measure the short ones, and stamp their hands with a Big Kid icon or a Little Kid icon. Then post that icon by the entrance to the ride. I’m thinking the icon would be a roundhead with a line either at ear-level or above the head, but it could well be a child roundhead holding hands with an adult roundhead (like the bizarrely awful “fleeing wetback” signs one sees in Lo-Cal). Or perhaps the park could hire some graphic designer to do something clever. The point is that the child should be measured once, at the gate, and not at each Big Kid ride, and that the information about what it means for a ride to be for Big Kids needs to be posted once, at the gate, and not at each Big Kid ride.
Does the Diz do that these days? I’ve been to, um, three amusement parks of the Tilt-a-Whirl variety as a parent, so I’m curious—(A) Is my idea good, and (2) is it old news?
chazak, chazak, v’nitchazek,
-Vardibidian.