Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Midget Faded Rattlesnake ·
Dec 15, 2010 at 4:28pm
(Disclaimer: I don't actually speak French.)
I suppose we all have some vague cultural memory of the following spot of art:
Magritte had a point. It's not a pipe: you can't put anything into it and smoke it. It's just a picture of a pipe. So there is no contradiction.
However, if you were to make a label (like, say, a bumper sticker) and write on it, "This is not a label," that would be a contradiction.
According to my handy-dandy online English-to-French dictionary, the word for label in French is étiquette. I therefore nominate "Ceci n'est pas une étiquette" as an appropriate bumper-sticker slogan for the No-Labels movement.
What bumper sticker would you choose for them?
(Also, please correct my French if it is wrong.)
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Comments :
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
The funniest headline--and the most trenchant piece of writing--that I've seen today.
May '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Mrs. Umpire notes the following:
French is known for the double entendre. A poster is un affiche and I believe that there is an expression in French that “…on ne peut pas s’afficher notre patriotism sur l’affiche…” What that roughly translates to is that you can’t display patriotism with bumper stickers. Let me check it out. I don’t know that I have ever heard etiquette to be used in any other way in French other than to refer to someone’s knowledge of how to act.
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
We don't know who we are, either
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Ottoman Umpire: Mrs. Umpire notes the following:
French is known for the double entendre. A poster is un affiche and I believe that there is an expression in French that “…on ne peut pas s’afficher notre patriotism sur l’affiche…” What that roughly translates to is that you can’t display patriotism with bumper stickers. Let me check it out.
Oh, please do! French is the perfect language for the No-Labels crowd, non?
Ottoman Umpire:
I don’t know that I have ever heard etiquette to be used in any other way in French other than to refer to someone’s knowledge of how to act.
Yes, that puzzled me, too.
But the dictionary I used said that étiquette is the right French word for label on a shirt or jar of jam, for example (perhaps the accented e distinguishes?).
I figured a jar of jam was enough like a car that I just went with it...
Edited on Dec 15, 2010 at 3:45pmSep '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
I can’t think of anything clever to say.
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
As autocollant is the French word for sticker, the bumper sticker could also say:
"Ceci n'est pas un autocollant."
Alas, there's already someone selling a bumper sticker that says, "Ceci n'est pas un Bumpère Stiquère." I have no idea whether Bumpère Stiquère qualifies as good French (wouldn't it violate their language purity protocol?), but it probably kills my market.
Sigh. Why are the good ideas already taken?
Dec '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
It qualifies as good Franglais. Like "le weekend" and "le shopping".
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Betcha didn't know rattlesnakes could blush, didja?
I feel honored.
May '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
How about "I'm a liberal. My thoughts fit here."
Dec '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Having gone to school in France and lived there for 25 years, let me confirm “une étiquette” is a label in the sense of a price sticker placed on produce found “au supermarché.”
I suggest it is indeed fitting to deride the leftists disguising under the no labels label to just use Magritte’s slogan: “une pipe” also has the same double-entendre meaning in French as does in English a “Lewinsky.”
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Is it also "a label" in the sense that I am using it, or is there a better word?
Sep '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Wouldn't a No Labels bumper sticker say something like this," "?
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Eh, I think not. Because No-Labels is a label. If they wanted their bumper sticker to say " ", they would have to call themselves the " " party.
Possibly they could go with "This sticker left intentionally blank", though.
Dec '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
“Une étiquette politique” does refer to a label placed on political leanings.
Your use is appropriate in the sense that leftists disguising as non-leftists hope to obfuscate their own leftism with the illusion they are “sans étiquette.”
See Byron York’s article about this:
http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs/beltway-confidential/2010/12/seven-signs-no-labels-leans-left
BTW: I believe Magritte’s “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” means not that the painting is only a painting, but rather, “une pipe” gave him more pleasure than tobacco from a pipe.
Sep '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Eh, I think not. Because No-Labels is a label. If they wanted their bumper sticker to say " ", they would have to call themselves the " " party.
Possibly they could go with "This sticker left intentionally blank", though. · Dec 15 at 5:41pm
Do you think they will try to try to register the No Label label?
May '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
My understanding was that it was extension of dadaism, which was all about the absurd. Kind of a gateway to the surrealism associated with Magritte.
Dec '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Ottoman Umpire (6:22pm):
I’m not an art historian. It just makes more sense to me that the reason Magritte’s painting of an image of a pipe and saying it was not “une pipe,” was because what he didn’t paint was the double-entendre meaning of “une pipe” which is a pe**s getting a b*** j**.
May '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Great idea, Midge! This new design will look perfect on top of all the No Labelists' Obama '08 bumper stickers (which, for a time, looked great on top of their Kerry / Edwards bumper stickers).
Where are we at on adopting "No Labelist" as the official Ricochet descriptor for someone involved in the No Labels movement? Surely it's been noted by now that I have precious few good ideas.
Dec '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
doubleplusunlabel
Aug '10
Re: Ceci N'est Pas Une Étiquette: Bumper Stickers for the No-Labels Movement
Vance Richards
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Eh, I think not. Because No-Labels is a label. If they wanted their bumper sticker to say " ", they would have to call themselves the " " party.
Possibly they could go with "This sticker left intentionally blank", though. · Dec 15 at 5:41pm
Do you think they will try to try to register the No Label label? · Dec 15 at 6:12pm
They'd be fools not to. Oh, wait, they're already...