Someone had a bit of fun at work today. Being as it is April 1, it could have been anyone!
The target? Our recent health and safety rule to disallow using pallet trucks as skateboards in the warehouse. It is a bummer as skating around was so much fun! Oh well. We understand all the reasons why, and are being good about it.
Signs went up. I really want to know where the image came from!
Doesn’t the image make it look fun? (It is!)
But, um, it’s Ireland, and the word ride is used in…a unique way here. Suffice to say, you don’t offer someone a ride in your car. You offer them a lift. Otherwise the snickering drowns out the rest of your sentence.
Sex. It means having sex. Nearly always. I think you can still say ‘ride’ and not mean sex if you are talking about a vehicle with two wheels, like a push-bike, or a motorcycle, or a scooter (and didn’t I go all Irish there, with push-bike? It’s a damn bicycle).
In any case, a pallet truck technically has five or six wheels, so riding one puts it clearly into the giggle-zone. Maybe it’s because I’m a blow-in and was laughed at way too often in my first few years here; but after a decade here the new signs always give me a niggle of a giggle (a blow-in is someone from somewhere else, it might be the next county over, or the other side of the planet. It’s an affectionate term, but also reminds us blow-ins that we will never be local, ever).
So…back to the point and less of the Irish version of English: someone had fun with one of the signs. Can’t imagine who it was.
Now, the “artist” could have gone with a more suggestive drawing, but decided to be more subtle instead.
Happy April 1!
heretherebespiders 
Hilarious -just “helping” with the translations, people. (and you will never be local – ever. Just like small towns here….)
Ah, but we have a term for it! It’s both good and bad, isn’t it?
There are always, always unexpected ways to go wrong with two countries separated by a common language. On my very first visit to Australia, I was stunned by a sign on a shop door in Cairns, asking visitors to leave their thongs at the door… No, it’s not what any English female would think. They’re talking about flipflops, dammit.
Ha! Oh my, that would have meant quite the queue at the door during the 90’s, yes?
Not to mention the interesting process of removing and then retrieving…
People of a certain type would be lining up to watch that!
We called flipflops that when I was growing up – but whoa – don’t say that to the younger generation.
Actually, yes – in FL in the 70’s those big clunky flops were thongs!
You mean they’re not thongs now? (61 yr old but 630 pound leg press so nobody fuck wth me yo?)
Yes’m! Ain’t NOBODY going to fuck with you! You literally can kick a thong up into where the other kinda thong resides 🙂
I’m contemplating that visual and you know, I love it.
We used to buy them in the drugstore for pocket change, they were made of cheesy textured rubber, and they lasted about one summer before the thong popped out of the sole. Now they’re a fashion accessory and cost as much as a dinner out. Go figure.
It does look like fun…but the person drawn underneath makes all so much more clearer!
Linda
Yes! Thongs were flip-flops. Oooo, showing me age. And yes, I really enjoy the way the single language is beginning to evolve separately. A real hands-on lesson in etymology. Heck with a country as large of the US, English is spawning little baby dialects like mad with specialized vocabulary and pronunciation.
Anyway, humor in the workplace is necessary for sanity. So is occasional, surreptitious…..um…pallet surfing?
I would never admit to any sneaky horseplay!
I do have fun with language. I call it a pop, for instance- picked that up in Ohio. In Florida it was always a coke, then you had to say what kind. Mom always had great fun with pronunciation arguments, too. Caribbean. Coupon. But even as small as the Irish-speaking population is, pronunciation differs regionally. I’ll be proud to have a Mayo accent!