Sign Language
To The Editor:

My family often travels to the Poconos, Pennsylvania area, where I pass several mystifying signs once we cross the Delaware Water Gap on Interstate Route 80. The signs say,"Bridge may be slippery". First of all, there are no bridges. An elevated roadway, at least to me, is not a bridge. The Verrazano or Chesapeake Bay, now those are bridges! Also, what's the deal with "may be slippery"? Either it is or it isn't. I want to know. If I come to a Stop sign, I know it means to stop. It doesn't mean "maybe stop". Let's get real here.

Coming home south from a Vermont vacation last year (yes, it's worth the trip to Ben & Jerry's), I was traveling on the New York State Thruway. I passed a confusing sign that said, "Lake GeorgeVII (Lake George the 7th)". I assumed it was named after a King George the 7th. History was never my forte. When we stopped to get a bite in the Lake George vicinity, I asked my teenage daughter if she had ever heard of King George the 7th. She realized that I had misread the sign as Roman numerals. It wasn't "Lake George VII". It was "Lake George VILL.", the abbreviation for village. "Silly daddy," she said.

Anyway, we sat at a table having our snack near a young couple discussing fortune telling. The woman seemed quite knowledgable on that subject. She really piqued my interest and I asked her if she was familiar with tarot cards . She told me that you don't pronounce the "t". I said, "You mean they're called 'arot' cards?"

My daughter left the table before I could say anything else. Mark Lane Little Neck