The trouble with cargoes on escalators

Today's post was triggered by seeing large warning notices that the Electrical & Mechanical Services Department (EMSD) has recently begun placing on the entrance to public escalators all around town. This is what they say: 

This sign uses the word 'cargoes' incorrectly. In this blog post I will talk a little bit about why 'cargoes' is incorrect here, and what alternatives there are. 

This sign uses the word 'cargoes' incorrectly. In this blog post I will talk a little bit about why 'cargoes' is incorrect here, and what alternatives there are.

For safety reasons, the EMSD sign prohibits 'bulky objects' of any kind on escalators. The sentence goes on to give some typical examples of 'bulky objects', listing three: cargoes, trolleys, and bicycles. The odd one out in this list is 'cargoes'.

If you check these three words in a dictionary, you will notice that 'bicycle' and 'trolley' are listed as straightforward countable nouns (which, as all users know, can be pluralized when we want to refer to more than one of them). The word 'cargo', however, is not so simple. Here is the entry from the Oxford Online Dictionary: 

Notice that it is first given as a mass (i.e. uncountable) noun, and then as a count (i.e. countable) noun. 'Cargo' thus belongs to the class of words in English that can be both countable or uncountable, depending on the context. 

Clearly, the EMSD has decided to use 'cargo' as a countable noun in this sign, in line with 'trolleys' and 'bicycles'. But is this correct? The answer is no, for three reasons.

1) 'Cargo' as an uncountable noun is the normal and standard usage in English. We use this form to talk about any collection of goods or objects that is being transported in a ship, aircraft or motor vehicle. When 'cargo' is used as a countable noun, it is almost always used to specify the particular kind of goods being transported, or something specific about the cargo in question -- for example:

• a cargo of oil
• a cargo of wood
• cargoes of apples and bananas
• a dangerous cargo

Here, incidentally, is an example of 'a dangerous cargo'. You will notice that what makes 'cargo' a singular countable noun here is the fact that it all belongs to one single vehicle, even though the contents of the cargo are multiple. 

The EMSD sign does not say anything specific about the 'cargoes' it is referring to. Clearly, the sign intends to refer not to any specific cargoes, but to 'cargo' in general, i.e. any goods being transported in bulk. In that sense, standard English usage would always be the uncountable form.

2) However, there is a more basic reason why 'cargoes' is incorrect here. The Cambridge Online Dictionary defines 'cargo' in almost the same way as the Oxford Dictionary does, as 'the goods carried by a ship, aircraft, or other large vehicle'. In other words, the word 'cargo' does not refer to any specific object, but to a collection of goods that have been put together for transportation by vehicle or vessel. Put another way, 'cargo' is not an object but a group of objects (as you can clearly see in the picture above). Those objects may be very large (a cargo of elephants) or very small (a cargo of matchboxes). It is therefore incorrect to describe cargoes as examples of 'bulky objects', simply because cargo is not an object.  

3) The third reason why 'cargoes' is incorrect here can be found from the two sets of definitions we have already looked at. Both of them define cargo as 'goods carried on a ship, aeroplane or motor vehicle'. Regardless of whether the word is countable or uncountable, is 'cargo' really something that can be transported on an escalator? Whatever makes up the cargo -- whether it is bananas, or oil, or furniture, or books, it is by definition a very large amount, at least taking up the space of a large truck, an aeroplane or a ship. This is not something that can generally be carried on an escalator. Once again, look at the overloaded truck above and consider its cargo. The individual items that make up the cargo could probably just about be carried on an escalator, one by one, but then we would describe them as 'items from the cargo'. But the cargo as a whole could not be transported on any escalator -- it is too big!

What the EMSD wants to discourage is people carrying large boxes and bags on escalators. It would be normal in English to specify examples of these bulky items in the signs, for example by saying 'Do not transport bulky objects such as large boxes and bags, trolleys or bicycles on the escalator'.  
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