BeatNick
“Our bikinis are exciting. They are simply the tops.”
Get it? It’s what’s known as a double meaning, or, to those in the know, a lexical ambiguity. Offer one up in a linguistics class and you’ll get all the giggling and snorting you’d expect from a roomful of nerds.
But lexical ambiguities aren’t so funny when they deal with guns, kids, and Philadelphia. That’s why I wasn’t laughing when I read this sign at the corner of 40th and Chestnut streets:
“The gun you buy for a criminal could kill a child.”
There are two very different interpretations of that message. The first, in which “for” means “on behalf of,” is the more intuitive of the two. Just like you shouldn’t buy liquor for minors, maybe the sign is discouraging you from buying guns for criminals.
But who the fuck buys guns for criminals? And what kind of morality can we expect from these kinds of people? Is anyone really going to be deterred because the gun they’re exchanging for crack might discharge in some schoolgirl’s face?
These kinds of questions lead us to think maybe the other interpretation is the intended one. In this second reading, “for” means “to protect against,” in the same way you might buy mouse traps for mice. That would mean the message is targeted towards a law-abiding civilian who buys a gun to protect his family, only to have his adorable daughter accidentally blow her brains out. That theme is a familiar one–I’ve seen PSAs expressing the same idea.
The sign wouldn’t be so disturbing if it were confined to one spot. But apparently it’s everywhere - at bus stops, on the backs of SEPTA buses, even on billboards right off the freeway. Something has to be done.
Fortunately, there’s hope. Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett, District Attorney Lynne Abraham, and Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson have proudly affixed their names to the sign. Time to make some phone calls. I won’t stop until I know whose idea the sign was, and what the hell it’s trying to say. Stay tuned for part 2 of this investigation.
BeatNick appears every Monday and Thursday.
Editor’s note: Since posting, two of the ads have been taken down - perhaps they heard about this blog?
An RSS feed of The Spin is available
September 24th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
I liked your use of the word “fuck” in this post. I wasn’t sure I agreed with the point you were trying to make until I noticed it. Your use of obscenity added greatly to your argument!