What? More dog signs you say? Well of course! In today's post we have a another example of a sign with an interesting difference in the linguistical aspects.
The sign was situated on the outer door of an office building, forbidding dogs. The visual side is quite standard of a (large) dog silhouette having the slashed circle "NO" sign on top of it. What caught me eye was the textual content that states:
Ei koiria sisälle!
No dogs allowed!
Here the Finnish version translates literally to "No dogs inside!", which is in a slight contrast to the English version. With the clear visual sign above, there is very little chance of confusion, I think, since the marginal case where the difference would matter would be if someone wanted to park their dog just outside the door. But I feel that the visual component would be enough to stop someone from doing that.
Is there an aspect of politeness involved here? The sign has a silhouette of a clearly big dog. And the "no dogs inside" version would in my eyes be of more explanatory nature: "big dogs might cause logistical issues in our indoor spaces with limited room", while the "no dogs allowed" version might carry more of a "big dogs are a threat and we don't want them at all" vibe.
Again, we note that the sign vessel itself seems to be a simple printed A4 paper in a note holder. Meaning that there probably wasn't a lot of planning involved in creating this sign. But nevertheless I think there is information about the zeitgeist being conveyed about the nervous decisions and choice of language of a summer intern tasked to put up some quick signs.