Please Do Not Dumb Garbage in Dumbo

1.

I like the reassuring quality of this sign. "You'll be fine". Yes, you're right, it'll be fine.

2.

J--s C---t! It's gotten to this hasn't it. Can't write a simple fucking sentence correctly. Immigration Reform- ya.

3.

This is precious. Very very precious....

4.

i'll be fine.

5.

Someone would have to be in or near the park all the time to be aware of regular deposits of personal/house trash in that receptical. I'd hazard to guess the writer is a city or park employee. Embrace Ebonics! NYC public schools have. Mustn't be judgemental!

6.

Oops! Well, I should know. I meant 'receptacle".

7.

Rupert Pupkin- that it so cute! :)

8.

I'll take a pleasant demeanor and altruistic intent over perfect spelling any day. At least the writer wasn't nasty and mean spirited, unlike, um, a large percentage of curbed commentators.

9.

clearly written by an english as a second language alum. Whats so ballsy is that said writer, knowing they mutilate the english language, wrote this thing and pasted it, unabashed as to the incoherency of the statement. I'm no immigrant basher, hell my grandparents all were immigrants (legal of course), but this flagrant affront on our native language sickens me to the core. If you cannot speak the language please do not leave nasty signage dictates on our municipal property.

10.

you people are soooooo lame and so god damned uptight! who cares!? does it bother you so much that someone doesn't know english that well or does it gratify your ego to go off on this person?
oh and #2? it's spelled "jesus christ" not "J--s C---t". you can spell his name out. it's okay.

11.

actually, sometimes it bothers me very much that people don't speak english. last time I got my haircut at a widely known hair salon chain, they gave me a new girl who did not know a word of english. she simply nodded at every one of my suggestions until luckily, before she put scissor to hair, I stopped her and asked her if she understood me. As a general matter, if you do not speak english, I could care less, although you;ll have a very limited life in this country. However, if you have a job interacting with the populace, goddamn right you should speak english and if you think there's something wrong with that suggestion then you probably have very little influence in this society.

12.

pretty sure the writer meant to say " You'll be fined" rather than anything particularly affirming.

13.

nice job figuring that out, #12.

14.

fine, it's okay to get upset over someone who gave you a bad haircut because they didn't speak english. that's justified. but getting steamed over that little cardboard sign? please.
so everyone in every single situation has to master the english language? are we robots?

15.

I was making an effort to be polite and non-offensive drape. Anyway, I blew it with the f-word so there you go. I'll be fine.

16.

I'm with you #9- my grandparents were immigrants, and were far from proficient in English- but they made the effort. I actually remember my grandfather asking me to help him write a business document correctly. Imagine that!!! I'm totally sick and tired of people not being able to speak English in this city. I'm not expecting anyone to recite Hamlet for God's Sake, but it's really gotten absurd. This city is NOT BILINGUAL, and until English ceases to be the official language here, learn it or shutup and leave.

17.

ohhhh me so unintelligible. me confuse you long time. me no reave house garbage in pubric cans. me sucky sucky. 10 dollar. me do everyting. me take over you country and screw all you white guys. ohhhh.

18.

#16 - English isn't the official language. It is the commonly used language, but not the official language. The city isn't bilingual, it's polylingual.

Plus, how do you know the sign writer isn't making an effort? Do you know anything about the person that wrote the sign? Do you even know if English is their second language? Do you consider a sign left on a garbage can the equivalent of your grandfather's business document?

19.

18-- over 80% of the country speaks english first. over 30 states have english as its official language. why this issue confounds some perpelexes me. most if not all european countries hav an "official" language and libs so often base our practices on the godly europeans. well, here's an instance where they are right. though multilingulism is good, english should be the official language of our city and our nation. I fail to see the problem with that.

20.

So do please tell us #18, what is the official language of the USA? I do believe NYC is located within the US.

21.

20--The USA has no official language. And i'm #19.

22.

Thanks for trying to Roadside me #18- but it didn't work- nice try though. The absurdity to pluck out my words, out of context no less, to suit your own lefty hogwash theory about English not being the Official Language is really something special.

I doubt there are many of us living here that aren't aware of the polylingual city we live in- but guess what? The US Consitution is not a polylingual docuemnt- does that help? I don't care if people speak in Pentecostal Tongues, as long as they know English. Your comment about me comparing a not on a garbage can, to a business document is really a major stretch. Just for the record, if this person was really making an effort, he would have taken the time to find out how to write his message, or asked someone to help him.

Now run along and go try to manipulate another situation to bring it inline with what you perceive to be reality.

23.

All you f*cking grammar police are ignoring the real issue, dumping private trash in a public receptacle. And you know what, the ESL sign writer is correct, you do get fined if the city finds personal trash in a public bin. My neighbor tossed a bag of his trash in the can on our corner. Weeks later, he recieved a letter in the mail from the city, with a nice little fine.

If you're gonna toss your junk, make sure you don't have your address on anything in it. Then "you'll be fine."

24.

I see a couple of possibilities here.

1. That the writer is a park attendant warning people that he is onto them!
2. That the writer is helpfully alerting people to the dangers of dumping household trash there. Maybe after she/he was caught and fined?

The tone of the letter suggests the latter to me. Too bad that some of you people cannot give the writer the benefit of the doubt and assume s/he was trying to help people avoid a fine and ease up on your nastiness.

I am from England and my grandmother, a native but uneducated English speaker wrote phonetically as she understood the spelling of words to be similar to the way she said them. Maybe she deserves your nasty remarks for being poor and not managing to get a decent education? I don't want to hear your answers to that rhetorical question!

A penny's worth of help is woth a dollar of vitriol folks!

25.

Thanks for the lovely, and enlightening words #24. It looks to me like this has unleashed a small torrent of anger and resentment, that's really directed toward non-english speakers- whether of the legal or illegal type. Several people have chimed in with yet another topic- that being whether or not English is the Official Language of the USA. Technically it's on the books for some states, but it's nowhere to be found in the Consitution ( I could be wrong on that, please all of you feel free to correct me ). Everyday life tells us that it is the Common Language of our country- while living in NYC can lean you towards not believing that.

I would never "knock a guy for trying" as the saying goes- and we might assume that this poor soul was doing his best. Oh, and by the way, I would never dream of unleashing "vitriol" at a nice English Granny :). Rule Brittania!!

26.

##24 & 25--You sound like a couple of idiots. Besides mutiliation of their adopted language, there's defacement of public property at play here too. Would you want to live in an area where schmucks like this leave poorly worded cardboard signs appended to publicly paid for garbage cans? I'm sure you chop toothed redfaced englishmen don't care about these things which is why your country went to shit about 150 years ago. We on this side of the pond care about our country. And sociialist interlopers intent on destroying American institutions, such as our collective language, bother us. And they should. Go up to Canada and see what the socialists have done. We don';t want that shit here.

27.

Nice #26. I am interested in knowing whether you consider civility, compassion and respect for others to be values worth preserving in your country. As an outsider living here (and now a happy US citizen) I have always been impressed by those values in very many of the people I meet here.

28.

My pleasure #27. Yes, absolutely, I do consider those values to be worth preserving. I think it's pretty much the "norm" here; civility that is, unless you're in the LES on a Saturday night- then all notions of civility disappear. Seriously though, I'm glad to hear that you're impressed.

NYC has an over-blown reputation for rudeness, when in fact I think it's got more to do with lack of space, and the sheer chaos at times of squeezing 8 million people on a fairly small island!

29.

I should probably not be responding to your commments #26, but I think they're worth correcting.

Firstly, you don't seem to be in the position to be calling anyone an idiot, you've done a pretty good job of sounding like one all by yourself- your words are embarrassing.

Secondly, placing a hand written note to alert others to the possiblity of an impending fine, is not defacement of public property for two reasons-it's not an indelible, and it's removeable. I would prefer not to see notes taped to public trash receptacles, but it's clear that this person was trying to help. If you want to see defacement of public property, take a trip up to Washington Heights, or Inwood- the amount of Grafiti, and trash on the streets is the very definition of defacement.

Thirdly, the "chopped tooth, redfaced englishmen" you so poetically refer to, are responsible for the language that you speak ( however crudely in your case, it's still english ), so get your facts in order.

Last but not least, no one here suggested anything close to socialism, but you certainly gave us a brilliant idea for a new book "Fascism for Dummies". I seriously doubt that Britons have any interest in destroying our Institutions, they have their own issues to deal with at the moment.

Care to add anything Monte?

30.

#29. It is not worth getting dragged into a slanging match. I value the diversity in NYC and would rather focus on issues of quality behaviour than the way people express themselves. Hate speech is hateful even if grammatical and properly spelled. I would like to see everyone speak great English but everyone is on their path so why condemn people for not being perfect?

Learning a new language as an adult is hard. Some of the posters here would have a hard time if the situation was reversed and they had to live in any non-english speaking country to make a living or get on in life. A little tolerance and compassion goes a long way.

Interestingly English is a totally hybrid and impure language (much less pure than Spanish) and was influenced by successive waves of invasion and immigration. American English likewise has been influenced by waves of immigration, often accompanied by racism. Even now standard English is probably declining in influence globally in comparison to various hybridizations as more and more non-native speakers use it. While becoming a global language the structure is becoming simplified and the orthography less restrictive after a relatively short period of standardization.
In this case I would rather applaud the intent than judge the expression. After all, helping others is better in my book than snobbery and racism.

31.

I think a far greater annoyance are knee-jerk political responses to a harmless curbed post. I can live with people who don't speak English well, but if they shipped out New Yorkers who lack insight (or at least humor) I'd be happy.

32.

Not nearly as annoying as you Bing.

33.

#29--- "Thirdly, the 'chop[ped] tooth[ed], redfaced englishmen' you so poetically refer to, are responsible for the language that you speak ( however crudely in your case, it's still english ), so get your facts in order."

Fourthly, you have no idea what you are talking about. Please get your facts in order. English is not a language devised by Britons. Fifthly, appending notes to municipal property is most certainly defacement. I am an attorney. You clearly are not.

34.

#30-- There's perfect English and then there's unintelligible English. And English is in no way on the "decline" as you put it. In fact, globally, it is the most sought after language skill, even AHEAD of Chinese dialects.

35.

What you are that I am not, is an asshole. Attorney - Asshole... not a big stretch. You should also checkout that cognitive disorder you have going on - maybe then you'll be able to read what people actually write, instead of interpreting it to suit your own distorted sense of reality.

36.

#34. Please learn to read. what I said was the opposite of English being on the decline. I said that as it becomes a global language (that is more predomominant) the purity of it and the fixed rules become less consistent as it breaks down into numerous dialects...often recognizable as English but certainly not standard English.