-SATIRE-
By Isaac Bickerstaff ESQ.
If you happened to be driving down Pine Hollow Road in Kennedy Township during the early morning hours of Sept. 28, you may have noticed a peculiar word sprawled on the left turn lane near the intersection with McCoy Road and Kenmawr Plaza.
The bright white word “OLNY” was painted in large blockish letters on the freshly paved roadway. At first, this may seem like just a small blunder; perhaps the plight of the overworked road crew rearing its ugly head, but if you take a deeper look, it's more complicated than you would think.
Billed as an inclusivity and diversity move, a Freedonian road crew was hired to take on this latest project on a county road in Kennedy Township. This Freedonian team, esteemed for their work ethic, got right to work less than a month after arriving in the country. All began well, but when they were painting stripes, dashes and arrows on the road, something got lost in translation.
Turns out, “olny” means “left turn only” in Freedonian. This word is special in the fact that it has no direct English translation. This was inscribed in the road instead of “ONLY,” a gaffe that immediately led to a flurry of online discussion after a police officer caught the error and snapped a photo. The image, of course, made its way to social media, gathering comments like, “Olny in the 15136!” before the error was quickly repaired.
The county department charged with hiring the Freedonian road crew denied Gazette 2.0 an interview with the project manager, stating, “he is not in right now, he took a wrong left turn and said he would be in late today.”
Editor’s note: Just in case you are confusing this for news, it’s not, it's just satire.