The earliest signs were often not painted but consisted, for example, of paraphernalia connected with the brewing process such as bunches of hops or brewing implements, which were suspended above the door of the pub.

Local events were also often commemorated in pub signs.

Simple natural or religious symbols such as ' The Sun ', ' The Star ' and ' The Cross ' were also incorporated into pub signs, sometimes being adapted to incorporate elements of the heraldry ( e. g. the coat of arms ) of the local lords who owned the lands upon which the pub stood.

Some pub signs are in the form of a pictorial pun or rebus.

Most British pubs still have decorated signs hanging over their doors, and these retain their original function of enabling the identification of the pub.

Today's pub signs almost always bear the name of the pub, both in words and in pictorial representation.

Stanley Chew's Pub Signs: a celebration of the art and heritage of British pub signs.

He Allowed customers to smoke inside his pub, and has either taken down non-smoking signs or written over them with ' Smoking Allowed '.

He bought The Plough pub in the nearby village of Shenstone, which shows signs of conversion work to allow him to drive his bikes or cars right behind the bar.

Workers at the pub and taxi drivers are also on the look-out for potential victims, and there are posted signs with the telephone number of Samaritans urging potential jumpers to call them.

Disputes can occur with many pub signs.

There are three ways to handle signs with plural nouns such as " The Coach and Horses ": ( 1 ) agree that any ill-defined plural noun counts as two of that object ( so two horses, for eight points ); ( 2 ) count the horses on the picture outside the pub ( e. g. four horses get 16 points ); or ( 3 ) agree in advance that ill-defined groups such as " The Coach and Horses " or " The Cavaliers " count a certain number of runs ( e. g. six or ten ).

Of commonly occurring pub signs, amongst the best are " The Seven Swans " ( 14 points ) and " Fox and Hounds " ( 12 points ).

The original core village of the district, along Walton Rd and Broughton Rd, has retained its " Milton Keynes " road signs and has an attractive collection of rural village houses and a thatched pub.

A pub crawl of various bars, called the Ruta de las tapas ( Tapas Route ) is noteworthy ; it is marked with blue and white signs, and even appears in the seal of the city.

Other pubs, The Bear and The Antelope, both designed by Holland W. Hobbiss, have sculpted pub signs by William Bloye.

Before painted inn signs became commonplace publicans would identify their establishment by hanging or standing a distinctive object outside the pub.

Many coats of arms appear as pub signs, usually honouring a local landowner.

Some pub signs will show the green man as he appears in English traditional sword dances ( in green hats ).

Often, these corruptions evoke a visual image which comes to signify the pub ; these images had particular importance for identifying a pub on signs and other media before literacy became widespread.

The sporting events might include the racing or fighting of dogs, bulls, cocks or pheasants, or the hunting of foxes, with or without hounds-thus giving rise to further pub signs.

Modern names are sometimes a marketing ploy or attempt to create " brand awareness ", frequently using a comic theme thought to be memorable, Slug and Lettuce for a pub chain being an example.

Private dances of a more raunchy nature are sometimes available in a separate area of the pub.

As file sharing has sometimes spread computer viruses, it has been stated that “ illicit SEX can transmit viral diseases to your computer .” The involvement of FTP servers ' / pub directories in this process has led to the name being explained as a contraction of ' pubic '.

Although the pair sometimes venture out ( the most common location being the local pub, the Lamb and Flag ), many of the episodes are set simply within the confines of the pair's squalid flat.

As a pub dish, it is often accompanied by sauerkraut or potato salad and sometimes served with dark, crusty country bread made predominantly from rye flour, less commonly with a Brezel.

A pub crawl ( sometimes called a bar tour, bar crawl or bar-hopping ) is the act of one or more people drinking in multiple pubs or bars in a single night, normally walking or busing to each one between drinking.

On Tom Bawcock's Eve it is served in The Ship Inn, the only pub in Mousehole, sometimes after a re-enactment of the legend.

Chicken Parmigiana is often served as a pub meal, accompanied by chips or salad and sometimes bacon.

Hughes ' pub hosts traditional music sessions where famous musicians sometimes play.

Private dances of a more raunchy nature are sometimes available in a separate area of the pub.

" He describes a pub regular called Bernard who " has a small stomach and has difficulty in polishing off a bag of crisps at one go ", Love, Berry suggests, " is also often held in silence and sometimes you don't know its been there till it's gone.

Modern names are sometimes a marketing ploy or attempt to create " brand awareness ", frequently using a comic theme thought to be memorable, Slug and Lettuce for a pub chain being an example.

Colour appears in a number of pub names, sometimes associated with an object which may have been used to identify the pub, such as Blue Post or Blue Door, or as a symbol, such as blue for hope, which could be combined with another symbol, such as an anchor, to create the popular Blue Anchor name.

Alternatively, the brewery may appoint a salaried manager to run the pub it owns, and this form of tie can sometimes be termed a managed house.

However, this sometimes could victimize consumers, as when a regional brewer tied nearly every pub in an area so that it became very hard to drink anything but its beer.

Performing electronic music live was a difficult feat given the preference in Australian live venues for guitar-driven pub rock and they would sometimes be jeered by members of the crowd.

As in British English, the colourless, slightly lemon-flavoured, carbonated drink known in North America and elsewhere under brand names such as Sprite and 7 Up is called lemonade, while the more strongly flavoured drink known as lemonade in North America that is typically made of lemon juice and sugar is sometimes referred to as lemon squash, pub squash, traditional lemonade or club lemon, particularly in carbonated form.

* Hotel, a term used in Australia to sometimes refer to a public house, or pub, that may or may not provide paid lodging on a short-term basis

The pub crawl in the area is sometimes called the " Duval crawl.

The pub descriptions themselves have grown from a single line to sometimes quite lengthy little essays that include history and legend.

There is one pub restaurant The Huff Cap, formerly the Mother Huff Cap Inn, the name deriving from the days when most pubs brewed their own beer, Huff Cap being a 16th century term for a strong ale which would " huf ones cap " or make the head swell, not for the froth on the top of the beer as is sometimes stated.