Please push this door only

[jack]

Poll #11694 Please push this door only

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 23

View Respondents

If you see a pair of double doors with a laminated label on one saying "Please push this door only" does that mean:

View Answers

Don't pull this door
3 (13.0%)

Don't push the other door
11 (47.8%)

Both
9 (39.1%)

Something else
0 (0.0%)

  Edit: The double doors are big glass doors with handles on both sides that look like you can open them either way (and usually you can)

Comments

[ptc24]

Furthermore, when I read it, in my head I apply the following stress "Please push this door only" - really bringing out the sibilance in "this".

[jack]

Unfortunately, I still find that ambiguous: does that mean "please push THIS door only (it doesn't matter about the other one)" or "please push THIS door only (it doesn't matter about this one, but don't push the other one!)"

[simont]

I think what it's really trying to convey is that you shouldn't push the other door. However, in so doing it also hints that pushing rather than pulling is how to make those doors work in general, so sort of both, I suppose.

But I think the likely situation is really: if you pull either door then you just won't accomplish anything useful, but if you push the wrong door then something non-obvious and undesirable will happen. (E.g. at work we have a pair of double doors on the outside of our building of which one tends to blow back and damage its hinges if you open it in a high wind, so they put up a sign much like this.) So the more important thing is to tell you not to push the other door.

[jack]

For clarity, I should say the double doors are big glass doors with handles on both sides that look like you can open them either way (and usually you can). I forgot that might matter, I don't know if it changes people's answers?

[lnr]

The thing I find odd about the whole thing is that if there are two double doors I would normally expect both to behave the same way from the same side. So actually I've just convinced myself to change my reply. *Both* doors are probably push-only from this side and pull-only from the other side.

[lnr]

Clearly the *sign* had originally convinced me that this door was push-only and the other door should be pull-only though.

[gerald_duck]

It's appalling English usage. Much clearer would be "please push only this door", assuming they mean what I conjecture they mean.

But the negative is clearer still. Why not a sign saying "do not pull this door", or a sign on the other door saying "do not push this door"?

*sigh*

[jack]

I think to be completely unambiguous "only" needs to be next to only one of "this door" and push. What they meant was "Please only push this door", I think. I'm not sure if that's what you thought they meant?

[gerald_duck]

I think "please only push this door" is exactly as confusing as "please push this door only".

Either of them could mean "please do nothing to this door other than push it", "please push no door other than this one" or even "please do nothing at all other than push this door".

Which did you mean? (-8

[jack]

LOL. I'm not sure how it can mean the second one, and the third is hopefully unlikely. But yeah, apparently my sense of what's ambiguous is (unsurprisingly) on the blink :)

I meant the first, ie. "This door is broken. If you pull it, it breaks. If you do anything to this door, push it, don't pull it."

[gerald_duck]

If you think of the first case as "If you do anything to this door, push it", does it help to think of the second case as "If you push any door, push this one"?

[jack]

Not quite yet. I agree that those are possible meanings of the original sentence, but if "only" is next to "push" and not next to "door", I assumed that the things you were forbidden from doing were "pull" not "other doors". Does that make any sense?

[naath]

I'd assume it meant both "do not pull this door" and "do not push any other door". Assuming that pushing that door allowed me to get through the door I probably wouldn't think much further on it :)