The posting of signs along the belt parkway and other popular exit points from Brooklyn to Queens and Staten Island reading, “Leaving Brooklyn…Fugheddaboudit,” strikes us as nothing if not ill-conceived. For one thing, it seems unclear what exactly we’re supposed to be fughedding about. Are we supposed to fugheddaboud Brooklyn? And for another, why are only those traveling to Queens and Staten Island being asked to fughedd? Is this an acknowledgment of borough envy?

In August of last year, these columns called attention to another case of government celebrating the abandonment of grammar. The New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene unleashed an ad campaign targeting “sexually active women of color between the ages of 16 and 30,” in the words of the health commissioner, Thomas Frieden. The city’s pitch: “He calls you baby / And sweet sugar plum./ If he won’t wear a ______ / He ain’t getting none.” The pitch, with its improper English, was offensive to minorities in the opinion of a number of civil rights leaders, and it certainly didn’t send the right message in a city that is trying to turn its education system around.

Similarly, an ad campaign based on “Brooklynese” strikes us as a step in the wrong direction. According to scores released by the state Department of Education in May, only 32.6% of city eighth-graders passed the state reading exams this year. According to the Daily News, some of the worst test-passing rates were found at schools in the county of Kings, such as P.S. 28, P.S. 67, and I.S. 33. A couple of road signs won’t lower test scores, but there’s no reason to paint the noble borough with a brush of ignorance. If the president of Brooklyn, Martin Markowitz, thinks that such a ploy will increase Brooklyn pride, we have not one word for him, but three: Forget about it.