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#91105 01/06/03 02:06 AM
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A full-page spread in the real-estate section of our local paper features one of those impossibly expensive condo buildings, this one with "signature floor-through views." I haven't any idea what a floor-through view is (tho I'm rather glad the folks upstairs don't have one). Then there's this word signature. When did it become an adjective? My M-W defines it as a noun only. I've noticed it elsewhere and the meaning is fairly clear--similar to shtick, maybe, like a comedian's signature laugh--but how can looking out the window--or through the floor--be a signature anything?


#91106 01/06/03 04:44 AM
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slithy, it sounds like they're claiming this to be their trademark architectural style (can they claim that Jazzo, or are they just using marketing hyperbole like restaurants use "world famous cheesecake", etc.?). But I don't really see any problem with the adjectivizing of "signature" here.


#91107 01/06/03 05:24 AM
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Then there's this word signature. When did it become an adjective?

Stikes me as something to do with Art. Maybe, since the time artists starting branding their works with their signatures? Incidentally, the only sculpture that Michaelangelo ever signed on is the Pieta.


#91108 01/06/03 05:29 AM
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Have no idea either, slithy, as to what floor-through views mean; is it ceiling to floor glass(like the Hancock tower) enabling unrestricted views?

Edit: just struck me that that's the same thought for which you named the thread; talk about redundancy, eh?


#91109 01/06/03 11:51 AM
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"signature floor-through views"

My mental image of a "floor-through view" (as opposed to a "through-floor view") is to stand in a room with a window behind you, look across the width of the building and see out the other side through another window -- the ultimate in cross-ventilation, except that most windows in such buildings don't open.

"Signature" in this context I would dismiss as puffery: they are asserting that they are known for making their buildings like this routinely, and others don't.


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I think signature in this context means something a bit different, wofa. It means that when people in the know look at a particular style they bring to mind such and such an architectural firm. Others may do see-through buildings, but this firm is tops in that particular field.



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I remember reading a spoof article on that building in Miami which has a "hole" through the middle of it. The spoof ran along the lines of "we only let the investors see the building from the western perspective until they'd paid the last cheque. After that, who cared if they found out they were missing most of the top twenty floors?"

- Pfranz

#91112 01/07/03 01:30 AM
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It means that when people in the know look at a particular style they bring to mind such and such an architectural firm. Others may do see-through buildings, but this firm is tops in that particular field.

I think that's what they'd like to have - I'm just not sure I believe them. But then I don't know that much about large competing architectural firms these days, or their putative specialties.


#91113 01/11/03 06:25 PM
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fwiw, when I read "floor-through views" I thought perhaps some part of each unit had a glass floor - perhaps the balcony, if there is one? - though what the point to that would be for condo dwellers, I have no idea. Do know glass floors are somewhat in vogue for effect in certain circumstances (though I couldn't name any for you). Hey, like in Die Another Day (the latest Bond flick)! - so you can look down over your hothouse and watch for baddies sneaking through it....


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That's a glass ceiling, and it keeps women ... well, never mind about that



TEd
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