Monday, December 29, 2008

Seeing Stairs

There used to be a sign in Merrill that said "Elevator and Stars" -- effaced I -- that I thought was unintentionally very pretty. The Economist has another, also vaguely appealing, example of this typo:

Inspector Clouseau's falling down a flight of stars

I wonder if replacing "stars" with "stairs" almost invariably produces something sensible and either accidentally pretty or wonderfully deflating. E.g.:

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stairs
I summon to the ancient winding star

Looking up at the stairs I know quite well
That for all they care I can go to hell

Though admittedly there isn't much one can do with twinkle twinkle little stair.

No comments: