Not perhaps what Patrick Leigh Fermor would have said but he would have recognised the paradoxical saying of Epimenides the Cretan two and a half millenia before he was born. Reflecting on this road sign, I realised that it is the same paradox. The sign says "Sign not in use" which means that we cannot take the message on the sign to be true, in which case the sign is in use which means that we can use it, which means that "Sign not in use" is true which means...and so on. Who would have thought it, a Cretan in the Highways Department !
That reminds me of a user manual that had the following words on the verso side of a page: 'This page intentionally left blank.' It should, of course, have read: 'This page intentionally left blank except for the words "this page intentionally left blank except for the words '''this page intentionally left blank... ''' " '
ReplyDeleteI'm sure you can see the problem.