LOITERING OR TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN
Ok, but which one?
Sign Observed in a Parking Lot
12 responses to “Sign Observed in a Parking Lot”
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Yes, but if it said loitering AND trespassing forbidden, then loiterers could say, “But I was ONLY loitering.” The only way to cover all your bases would be to say something like: Loitering and trespassing are forbidden both jointly and severally.
AMDG -
Yeah…except that you couldn’t loiter unless you had first trespassed. So a loiterer couldn’t say “I was ONLY loitering.” But a trespasser could say, (while continuing to move along), “I’m only trespassing.” So maybe “no trespassing” would be sufficient.
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The real conundrum would be if it said, “LOITERING XOR TRESPASSING FORBIDDEN”.
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Nice!
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Oh, I see, it’s an inside computer geek joke.
AMDG -
Yep.
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I prefer to think of it as a logic joke, open to enjoyment by all rational creatures.
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As long as they know what “xor” means. I think those terms originate in symbolic logic or something, don’t they? At least I’ve always supposed so.
But…you know, the xor is possible here, but only in one variant: you can’t loiter, because you can’t loiter without trespassing, but you can trespass, because you can trespass without loitering. -
Funniest sign I ever saw (on an ice machine in Colorado)
PLEASE REPLACE SCOOP TO PREVENT BURIAL
and written in beneath:”Its or mine?” -
So does it make better sense of you say
trespassing xor loitering forbidden? -
If you mean switching the order, no. Well, xor is a problem either way, because it gives permission for one. Actually a strict application of the operators doesn’t work at all, because they assume simultaneity: i.e. and(loitering, trespassing) means they can’t both be true at the same time, but as Janet pointed out, in this actual situation one could do one (trespassing) without the other (loitering). Which the sign is intended to forbid. So you have to fall back on Janet’s formulation. And a bigger sign.
I guess “both trespassing and loitering are forbidden” would get the message across while still satisfying nit-pickers. or “Neither … nor … is permitted.” -
That’s funny, Beth, and I suppose in Colorado where one could potentially be swept away in an avalanche it might have extra force.
Light On Dark Water 
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