As a child, it would aggravate me when an adult would give you a rule, and then not follow it.
It was 1986 or so. My third grade teacher, Mrs. Waterman, was teaching us the correct uses of punctation of places for letters. For example:
- Rd. = Road
- RI (all caps) = Rhode Island
- Apt. = Apartment
- Miss = Unmarried woman
Once learning this secret code, I would soon put the lesson to work, helping me decipher routes along the roads and highways in Lit
tle Rhody. About once a week, we would drive from Providence heading west on Route 6, through Johnston. Along the highway there was a sign for the “Hartford Ct” exit. I was just taught that “Ct” stands for “Court”. “Conn.” and “CT” stand for Connecticut. The confusion set in. I had never heard of Hartford Court. Was it a big street? Surely they can’t mean Hartford, CT (Connecticut). Nobody from Rhode Island ever drives there. More importantly: an adult wouldn’t make a mistake. If it was an exit for THE HARTFORD, CONNECTICUT, they would have labeled it correctly.
I was wrong. Someone either missed a comma and a period, or a comma and a capital T.
This sign annoyed me for 25 years. When they replaced it around 2015, they still got it wrong. Better, but wrong. They capitalized the “T” but missed the comma.
Just to be clear, there is no Hartford Ct. off of this exit.
A usability expert was born.