Your Message is Toast If It's Not Enjambed

(Feel free to vote on the most groan-worthy post title.)

In honor of this windy Boston day, here's an old note from the management:

PLEASE CLOSE YOUR SWING
OUT WINDOWS WHEN WIND IS BLOWING
HARD TO AVOID BROKEN WINDOWS
THANKS HOUSING

That was a safety notice posted in the dorms by our handyman at the U of O two years ago at the start of windy season.  I saved it for its poetic wit.  As far as I can remember, the line breaks (and the capital letters, á la Owen Meany) were just like that on the advisory.

Now, if I had first read those four little beauties as enjambed lines (that is, lines that contain thoughts that logically continue into the following lines), instead of end-stopped lines (lines that contain complete thoughts and can stand on their own), I might have understood what he was trying to tell us.

But I didn't get it.  I got it after about three reads, and only when assisted by other people.  Of course, a few things were implied there, like punctuation to form separate clauses, but how would I have known that on my first attempt?

All I saw was a command to close our swings (whatever that meant), then another to exit through the windows when the wind was blowing, followed by a lament over broken windows being such a common occurrence, concluded with a statement of gratitude toward the housing management personnel.

Go ahead, read the original note again and you'll see what I mean.  I'll wait...

...I KNOW, RIGHT?  Now, I believe that correct grammar and punctuation help one to communicate an idea more effectively than shoddy grammar and punctuation, but I'm also a believer in creative license.  You can use your imagination to deduce that he was trying to say something like this...

"Please close your swing-

out windows when the wind is blowing hard;

otherwise, it is hard to avoid broken windows 

(due to the wind).

Thanks,

Housing"

...but by God, how boring would that have been?  Maybe I didn't understand right away that I should have closed my windows when the wind was blowing (not that I wasn't doing that anyway), but I sure did some brainwork trying to figure out why the housing staff wanted me to jump out of a fourth-floor window.

Probably because they knew there was asbestos in the stairwells.