For literally years now these signs welcoming travelers to our community have annoyed my grammatical nerves. The word "would" is missing you see, and all this time I thought we must be making a hayseed impression on visitors who must think we can't put a decent sentence together.
So now I'm there at the Hi-Lo Cafe making conversation with our waitress over this important issue and suddenly taking note of the cocked head look she and Sally are giving me, a great burst of understanding flashes across my dim mind. "Weed like to welcome you" isn't missing a word at all, it's missing an apostrophe !
Both of these divine women took my faux pas in stride when ruder people would have broken out in hysterical and humiliating laughter being as the cafe is jammed with Sunday morning brunchers and all.
Spoken as "We'd like to welcome you", it finally dawned on me that instead of a sign painter's slip of hand, some great wit went into the phrase. And it took me, practically a native by now, almost three decades to pick up on it. Oh boy.
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