Built site specific inducted
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Macaulay Curtis writes: "This one isn't a headline, but it is mightily hard to parse. From a construction site in Brisbane, Australia. I walked past it in confusion every day for a week before realising that the company is called 'Built'…"
Knowing the company name doesn't solve the problem for me. Instances of the pattern NOUN-specific are perfectly good modifiers, which can be used either predicatively or attributively:
Scale construction must be domain specific and contextualized
A host of gender specific factors are relevant here
And since "Built site" is a perfectly good nominal, there would be no problem with "These regulations are Built site specific" or whatever.
But "Built site specific inducted"? Either I've completely missed the intended structure, or the person who wrote this sign has a grammatical construction that I've missed out on.
Dick Margulis said,
November 24, 2014 @ 2:04 am
The construction company is responsible for worker safety and requires that anyone entering the worksite have gone through their safety training (not some other construction company's safety training) and be certified in writing as having done so. Why this particular company chose to use the word inducted rather than some other word I cannot say. But that's the gist of the sign.
Brett Reynolds said,
November 24, 2014 @ 2:06 am
When I came to the university of Edinburgh, we had an "induction" for each building. It was a new word for me. Basically, they showed us around, told us about safety features, explained the alarms, etc.
Hg said,
November 24, 2014 @ 2:51 am
I think it should be read as "Built site-specific inducted". That is to say:
You must have undergone a safety induction,
the induction must have been conducted by Built,
and the induction must have been specific to that particular site.
It is quite common in construction and engineering work to undergo a safety induction which covers the company's general policies and procedures, and then also need to undergo an additional site-specific induction which covers site-specific rules and details (such as the location of first aid resources, emergency muster points, who's in charge, etc) whenever you visit a new site.
Gregory Kusnick said,
November 24, 2014 @ 2:53 am
In other words, you must go through a Site Induction Ceremony.
Jason said,
November 24, 2014 @ 3:07 am
Simple nerdview. A "site-specific induction" is a term of art in Australian building industry regulations. All workers must undergo a "site-specific induction" prior to entering the site, after which they become "site-specific inducted." Because this is a "built site", this means becoming "built site-specific inducted."
Ralph said,
November 24, 2014 @ 3:36 am
The induction (safety training) must be site-specific (not general, since there are safety issues peculiar to this site), and carried out by Built.
Catsidhe said,
November 24, 2014 @ 3:37 am
I'll just leave this here: http://www.safeworkaustralia.gov.au/sites/swa/about/publications/Documents/244/InductionForConstructionWork_2007_PDF.pdf
mkvf said,
November 24, 2014 @ 4:00 am
I was going to say what others have said above. Being "site specific inducted" makes sense if you work in construction around the world. A better way to phrase it, without being in all caps, would be something like "You must have received site-specfic induction from Built to enter this area".
But, as it's been said before, I'll instead share this Australian qualification, which, as a Brit, makes me snigger like a school boy every time I think of it: http://www.citc.com.au/courses/course-schedule?course=1645 In Australia, a dogger follows—dogs—a crane. They are responsible for rigging the load, guiding operations, signalling, etc, but not operating the crane. In Britain, dogging is an entirely different practice.
mkvf said,
November 24, 2014 @ 4:04 am
I was going to say what others have said above. Being "site specific inducted" makes sense if you work in construction around the world. A better way to phrase it, without being in all caps, would be something like "You must have received site-specfic induction from Built to enter this area".
But, as it's been said before, I'll instead share this Australian qualification, which, as a Brit, makes me snigger like a school boy every time I think of it and involves language differences: http://www.citc.com.au/courses/course-schedule?course=1645 In Australia, a dogger follows—dogs—a crane. They are responsible for rigging the load, guiding operations, signalling, etc, but not operating the crane. In Britain, dogging is something else entirely.
Anthea Fleming said,
November 24, 2014 @ 4:28 am
Back in the days, I think up to the 1950s, the dogger was called a dog-man, probably because he communicated with the crane-driver with a whistle. He was something of a hero to my young eyes, because he rode up and down on the hook with the load, telling the crane-driver where to swing the load and when to stop. No safety-belt, though I think he did have a hard hat.
My father told me that as a young engineer working on a big city building, the crane had just delivered a load to the top when the hooter blew for lunch. "Save time!" said the dog-man."Ride down with me, never mind the ladder!" So Dad bravely stepped onto the wide hook, faced its upright part and held its flanges, not looking down, while the dog-man stood behind him also holding on. It was a rapid descent, rather giddy, and he bought the dog-man a beer at lunch.
Riding the hook has been forbidden for a long time.
Rahul said,
November 24, 2014 @ 4:53 am
It's certainly odd to treat "site-specific induction" as an atomic noun whose corresponding verb is "to site-specific induct", though. If you must verbify it, shouldn't you also adverbify the adjective to get, maybe, "to site-specifically induct"?
"You must be Built site-specifically inducted to enter this area"
Ralph Hickok said,
November 24, 2014 @ 8:08 am
It seems to me that people who are "site specific inducted" will understand this sign and those who aren't won't.
AB said,
November 24, 2014 @ 8:56 am
Isn't this an example of effective nerdview? If you don't know what it means, you won't enter.
Q. Pheevr said,
November 24, 2014 @ 10:52 am
The wording is obscure, but the upshot is clear: Only people who are authorized to be in this area are authorized to be in this area.
Baylink said,
November 24, 2014 @ 11:15 am
It may be jargon based, but the fundamental problem is as Hg suggests: compound adjectives are required to be written with a hyphen, at least in USAdian English. This is an altogether excellent example of why.
Eric P Smith said,
November 24, 2014 @ 1:06 pm
@ Q.Pheevr: I wasn't following Language Log in 2003 when "Those who are not authorized are not authorized" was posted, but I would resolve the paradox with a notice saying "Those who are not authorized to enter are not allowed to enter." 'Allow' is not synonymous with 'authorize': you can allow something to happen by standing back and doing nothing, whereas to authorize is always a positive act. The notice contrasts the area in question with a public area, which people are allowed to enter without needing to be authorized.
BZ said,
November 24, 2014 @ 1:07 pm
First of all, until reading the comments, I was sure the name of the company was "Built Site" despite the "Built" logo. After all, the logo doesn't necessarily spell out the company name. But more than that, regardless of the company name, you have an adjective phrase ("Site specific") modifying another adjective or past-tense verb ("Inducted"). That just doesn't work for me. Shouldn't jargon still follow the rules of the language?
Terry Hunt said,
November 24, 2014 @ 4:40 pm
@ BZ
"Shouldn't jargon still follow the rules of the language?"
Yes, it should, but they'll be holding the winter Olympics in Death Valley before it ever does.
As an erstwhile non-fiction editor who for the last 18 years has worked in jobs requiring me to summarise and/or extract data from Mechanics' and Riggers' Work reports, I've painfully learned that even quite-well-qualified blue-collar workers (if that term is still non-pejorative) are frequently oblivious to refinements like grammaticality and punctuation, or the misunderstandings their misuse can cause.
Engineering measurements have to be exact but, apparently, descriptive text is good enough if co-experts can guess what was meant nine times out of ten. "Co-experts" doesn't include the poor saps in the office who have to, say, cost the materials they've used.
I suppose this is only to be expected: after all, if they were alive to the very finest points of written language they would likely have gone into a different career to start with.
(Apologies if that sounds bitter: I'm sitting in the office at gone-9:30pm working on Riggers' Work reports :-) .)
Aaron said,
November 24, 2014 @ 5:41 pm
I suppose the sign is effective enough, at least in that it gives the distinct impression that if you don't understand its nonsensical jargon, you don't belong anywhere near the sign.
AB said,
November 24, 2014 @ 7:35 pm
Does the temptation toward quasi-redundancies of the "only people authorized etc" result from a desire to avoid the imperative?
"Keep out if you aren't authorized!" would work fine.
Jonathan Mayhew said,
November 24, 2014 @ 8:37 pm
How about "authorized personnel only."
Chris O'Regan said,
November 24, 2014 @ 10:51 pm
Hi, I'm from Brisbane and I don't work in construction, but I have some knowledge of Workplace Health and safety terminology. It seems clear to me that "site specific inducted" means "having undergone induction specific to this site" ie. inducted for the specific conditions at this site and not just any site. If it were me I would have written "site-specific inducted" to be clearer. The construction probably comes from the more frequent use of "a site-specific induction" – ie. with a noun "induction" in place of the verb.
Ran Ari-Gur said,
November 25, 2014 @ 1:41 am
So we have a bracketing paradox? "Site specific inducted" breaks down syntactically as "[site specific] inducted", but semantically as "[[site specific] induct(ion)]ed", with "site specific" modifying a noun "induction" that's not actually present, but that is activated by the adjective "inducted"?
Lynne said,
November 25, 2014 @ 1:52 am
Agreeing with many of the above comments – even from having worked in admin teams for large recruitment firms, this sign makes total sense to me.
Very early in my career, I had a painful 'What's a "dogboy"?' incident. Also in my favour… I can see a Built crane from my driveway (if I squint and tilt my head a little).
Ran Ari-Gur said,
November 25, 2014 @ 2:11 am
Wait, never mind, not a normal bracketing paradox, because it's not just that the syntax doesn't match the semantics, but also that the syntax is weird to begin with.
BlueLoom said,
November 25, 2014 @ 8:40 am
@mkvf
This "Murcan" had to hit Google/Wikipedia to find out what "dogging" would mean to a Brit. ::giggle, giggle::
Ran Ari-Gur said,
November 25, 2014 @ 11:14 am
O.K., new theory: backformation. Like {gay marri}age → gay marry → gay married, we have {site-specific induct}ion → site-specific induct → site-specific inducted.
David J. Littleboy said,
November 25, 2014 @ 8:18 pm
One of the jokes in the (scruffy end of the) AI world back in the mid-80s was that any sentence a linguist claimed was ungrammatical could be turned grammatical by providing adequate context. Toss in a proper name (Built), a previously unknown technical term (site specific inducted), and voila, the star goes away.
Guy said,
November 26, 2014 @ 12:13 am
@BZ
Isn't this an example of what CGEL calls the fused modifier-head construction? I might be mistaken, but my intuition says it's grammatical for these to take (additional) attributive modifiers as well as having dependants of the modifier itself. "The elite rich", for example, doesn't sound too off to me. I'm too lazy to check for actual examples, though.
Jerry Friedman said,
November 26, 2014 @ 10:29 am
Ran Ari-Gur: I like your new theory. Another example is "security cleared".