The previous post’s comments reminded me of an amusing photo I’d taken on Old Hope Road in Kingston.
It was the first time I had seen the expression sleeping policeman used in English, although I’d long been familiar with its French equivalent gendarme couché.
The funniest part, however, is that the sign is directly opposite the Jamaica Constabulary Headquarters.
Linguist with wanderlust,
From the hills of New Guinea to the halls of the Sorbonne,
From the beaches of Bassam to the fields of Friesland,
From the catacombs of Rome to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica.
Currently resident in Dakar, Senegal.
Stet means "Let it stand" and is used by editors to indicate that the original text should be left untouched.
...in Arcadia ego is a pun on a painting by Poussin.
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March 31st, 2006 at 11:59 am
funny how it only evokes mild amusement every once in a while in French, where I’m used to hearing it, while it’s downright hilarious in English…
:-)
April 5th, 2006 at 9:27 am
The first time I heard it was in Baghdad. A map drawn by a parent (how to find the birtday party in a city without proper streetnames and no city map available - state secret!) showed one as the spot to make a left turn. Now I had also frequently noticed sleeping policemen in that country, but that there were actually some so regular that you could use this as a mapmarker amazed me. Wonder where does the expression come from.
April 6th, 2006 at 8:17 pm
According to PJ nuff man have cyar and nuff man have gyal (but not him). By now dat deh policeman suppose fe ded, im nah sleep again.
April 8th, 2006 at 6:55 pm
I can remember referring to sleeping policemen as far back as my childhood in the 70s in south London. My parents now have one directly outside their house, though they’ve now taken to cutting them up and putting gaps in them so that motorcycles and bikes can get through them more easily, which I guess partly explains why these days they tend to be referred to as speed bumps rather than sleeping policemen - “dismembered policemen” doesn’t have quite the same ring about it.