More Secret Language of Cars

Rob Donoghue has just posted about the Secret Language of Cars, too. (here's me on the same topic, in case you missed it)

Rob adds the following symbols to the lexicon:

Go Play (roleplayers)	Diver Down (Scuba)	Watch my Car (Crime Prevention)

And poses questions about these two:






Anyone know what those mean?

Addendum: Davey figured out the one with the arrows.

The Secret Language of Cars

I have a fascination with symbols and cryptolects that manifests itself in derivative interests in Heraldry, Vexillology, Labanotation, Hobo Signs, and other related fields where graphic design and linguistics combine. I suppose the umbrella term Semiotics is probably best. I don't have any formal training - its just one of those things I like to notice in the world around me and think about. So, when I see a symbol conveyed, I want to know what it means, why its there, and how it was selected. For the longest time several years ago, I didn't know what this meant when I saw it on other people's cars:




Now I know that its the symbol of the Human Rights Campaign, which is "working to achieve gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender equality." So, it doesn't mean the person driving the car is any of those things, but if your noticeably effeminate male colleague has such a sticker on his car, I'd call that confirmation. Ok, case solved. But then I started seeing this one:




No idea what it meant. Months ago, maybe more than a year now, somebody was talking about stickers on an internet forum I read and they said this one allegedly meant a preference for BDSM (if you don't know what that means, just let me say its best not to look it up at work), and that it was to help people in that subculture identify eachother. Yikes! So for months and months scenes like the following would occur: I'd be in a parking lot, and notice a middle-aged woman with her kids loading groceries into her car, and see the sticker. "Really!? Her?!" I'd think. Or I'd be driving, and some random old guy would pass me and I'd see the sticker - "WOW, that's just... weird!" Or maybe worse, some reasonably attractive young woman would have the sticker on her car and I'm left thinking - "Kinky!" It's all very funny in retrospect, but I really had nothing else to go on but one internet poster's suppositions.

So finally I started seeing variations on it - one was a bow shape like you see yellow ribbons, only with the black and blue, and it said "Heroes live forever" in it - that didn't seem to fit the former profile. In the course of this research, I found a few news stories about its impact and use, and they led me back to the wikipedia article on The Thin Blue Line. Go read it, I'll wait.


...


So, thank goodness all those people I was seeing were cops or family of cops, and not the other thing, or at least not advertising the other thing. It's pretty weird that a symbol that is so simple has loads of sites selling stickers that seem to require you to prove that you're law enforcement. Of course the police that were interviewed for news stories say it has no effect - what do you expect anyone to say? I was talking with my friend Rob about it last night and he thinks its totally corrupt - I think it's an acceptable level of nepotism. What do you think?

There are other secret car stickers - there's one I still haven't figured out or found a picture of on the internet. It's a green-ish square with what looks like a foxhunting cap and some kind of fox depiction. I don't know if I've ever seen it outside VA, and I couldn't find any reference to it in any of the Virginia fox-hunting pages I trawled. I could be totally wrong about what it depicts - I wish I had a picture but you'll just have to keep your eyes open for it.

I'm not talking about little three-letter black on white ovals that mock the country codes of Europe, and I don't even think the Ichthys and its Darwin/FSM/Cthulhu parodies count. But I'm sure there are some more.

What other secret signs have you seen on cars?

What is this Lighter-than-air vehicle, part 2

Couldn't find a shot of it in the air I liked, but here's the ship from Stardust (which I haven't seen yet but probably will soon). But since we've just had a decision tree on this, I thought I'd invite you to tell me what terms you think are OK to use on the vessel in question.

Decision Tree: Lighter than Air Vehicles

First, a word about how my decision trees work. They reflect how I use these words, and that's not always the same as the way dictionaries define them. Often a dictionary will say two words mean the same thing - if I've made a distinction, I'm not disagreeing with the dictionary, I'm just saying that's how I've decided to use the words in question. Language being a living thing and all of that. I mention this because whenever I do one of these, someone (usually my very clever mother) will comment about how I'm incorrect. Please feel free to post about things I ought to've included or how your personal decision tree would be a little different, but understand I'm not trying to map English usage, I'm only mapping my own twisted subdialect of it. End Public Service Announcement.

On with the tree:


So, yes, I know every piece of available information says that a Dirigible is any steerable lighter-than-air vehicle and that it's identical with Airship, but I'll only ever apply the term to Zeppelins and Blimps, never to those damnable thermal airships.