Unauthorized persons are not allowed?

April 24, 2015 10:55 AM

What was that story I read once, in which someone comments to their (military?) supervisor that the sign "Unauthorized personnel are not allowed beyond this point" is redundant, because "unauthorized" means "not allowed"? Challenged to rewrite the message, the storyteller goes through a number of increasingly awkward attempts and finally ends up with "Unauthorized personnel are not allowed beyond this point" as the best phrasing.
posted by moonmilk to Writing & Language (7 answers total)

Best answer: Authorized Personnel Only
posted by Oyéah at 10:57 AM on April 24, 2015 [4 favorites]

Best answer: Is it this one?
posted by crocomancer at 11:01 AM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, Oyéah - that was the google juice I needed!

Those who are not authorized are not authorized on metafilter favorite Language Log.
posted by moonmilk at 11:01 AM on April 24, 2015

Response by poster: crocomancer too! 2 or 6 minutes to answer - I'd like to say that might be a record, but it's probably not.
posted by moonmilk at 11:02 AM on April 24, 2015

Can't see why he didn't land on "Entrance Requires Authorization" or similar.
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:17 PM on April 24, 2015 [1 favorite]

Authorized Personnel Only Within Hangar
Authorized Personnel Only Beyond this Point
Only Authorized Personnel Allowed Inside Hangar

I mean it's not really that hard?
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:28 PM on April 25, 2015

Whoops I did used allowed once there. So maybe it's tricker than I thought.
posted by RustyBrooks at 1:34 PM on April 25, 2015