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What’s your family motto? June 16, 2014

Posted by ourfriendben in wit and wisdom.
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In the TV series “Game of Thrones” and the books it was based on, George RR Martin’s series A Song of Ice and Fire, the great noble Houses of Westeros all have mottos. House Stark’s motto is “Winter Is Coming.” House Lannister has an official motto, “Hear Me Roar,” and an unofficial but equally well-known one, “A Lannister Always Pays His Debts.” House Greyjoy’s ferocious raiding (Viking*) nature is expressed in its official motto, “We Do Not Sow,” and its suitably bleak unofficial motto is “What Is Dead May Never Die.” House Tully’s motto is more noble: “Family, Duty, Honor,” and the allied House Arryn has a similar motto, referencing their keep, The Eyrie’s, high perch, “As High as Honor.” The motto of House Martell of Dorne is “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken;” that of House Targaryen is “Fire and Blood.” And the motto of the royal house, House Baratheon, is “Ours Is the Fury.”

This practice is based in mediaeval history, when the royal and noble houses of Europe all had mottos. The most famous of all is probably King Edward III’s motto for the Order of the Garter, which he founded in 1348: “Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense.” (I learned this as “Evil to him who evil thinks of it,” but the preferred translation from the Middle French is “Shame on him who thinks evil of it.”)

Why a French motto for an English chivalric order? England’s nobility may have actually managed to learn some English after nearly 300 years of English rule since William the Conqueror of Normandy cleaned the battlefield of Hastings with poor Anglo-Saxon King Harold Godwinson’s blood. But the official language of the court was still French, and the English monarchs still laid claim to the French throne, and continued to do so through the infamous and tumultuous reign of Henry VIII. (For all our friend Ben knows, they may have continued to lay claim to the throne of France until the Hanoverians, the German family from which Queen Elizabeth II descends, assumed the throne, but a little thing called the Spanish Armada sort of shifted their focus from France to Spain.)

Think about it: Wouldn’t you like a motto for your “house” (aka family, lineage)? Unless you’re descended from nobility, chances are that you’ll have to create your own. Like the great Houses in Westeros, you’ll want it to either express the traits that characterize your family and its situation or the aspirations it has to honor and glory. Many of the Westerosi Houses base their mottos on their House sigil, typically but not always an animal (the lion of House Lannister, for example, or the dragons of House Targaryen), their location (House Stark were once kings of the North, and House Arryn’s keep, The Eyrie, is indeed perched on a treacherously high peak), or their history (Dorne was the only kingdom in Westeros that was able to resist the Targaryen invasion, thus, “Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken”).

So, how to proceed? You need something catchy, short, and memorable. “Mine Is the Endless Slog at the Corporation While My Brilliance Is Unrecognized and My Idiot Boss Humiliates Me and Takes Credit for My Ideas” might be worthy of Dilbert (and many of us), but it’s just not going to make it as a family motto. By contrast, “Follow Me” might be appropriate for Elon Musk of Tesla and SpaceX fame. The Knights Templar’s motto was “Do Your Duty, Come What May,” probably not too popular in today’s “One for All and All for Me” world. I’d suggest thinking about what matters to you and your family, then write it down, then condense it to something catchy and memorable.

The catchphrase of the Red Priestess Melisandre in “Game of Thrones” is “The night is dark and full of terrors.” I think, for our friend Ben and Silence Dogood here at Hawk’s Haven, our motto might be “The world is wide and full of wonders.” And our sigil would be a huge black German shepherd (our beloved Shiloh) with a red-tailed hawk (our totem) soaring above her.

What would you choose?

* Ironically, in the growing season, the Vikings were all farmers. They only took to raiding once the crops were harvested, unlike the Ironborn of “Game of Thrones,” who fished from their stony island and raided for every other item that sustained life.

Don’t spray it in your eye. February 18, 2011

Posted by ourfriendben in Uncategorized, wit and wisdom.
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Our friend Ben stopped at our tiny local bank this afternoon to return a survey about how the bank’s customers felt it was doing. In return for handing back the completed survey, we were promised “a small gift.” I was hoping for a dog biscuit for our black German shepherd, Shiloh, a treat the tellers often hand out when we bring her by. (Yes, the bank encourages people to bring in their dogs, and the tellers know them all by name.)

But this time, it was a tiny package of hand sanitizer that appeared to be an atomizer. “Don’t spray it in your eye,” the teller said as I left.

“Don’t spray it in your eye.” This struck our friend Ben as one of those seemingly innocuous but actually profound comments on the human condition: words to live by. I immediately imagined it as a family motto, emblazened on a shield or crest much like those other chivalric mottos, “In truth, justice,” “Let us be viewed by our actions,” “Rather by skill than by force,” “Fail not the king,” and “Honi soit qui mal y pense” (“Shame be to him who evil thinks of it”), the motto of England’s Order of the Garter.

Picture it: Our friend Ben bravely taking the field against the likes of Wilfred of Ivanhoe, my banner defiantly flapping in the wind as I lower my visor, spur my horse into the lists, and begin to aim my lance. Ivanhoe’s motto, “Death before defeat,” wavers a bit as he takes in my own motto. “Don’t spray what in your eye?!” he shouts, bemused, above the roars of the crowd. “This, varlet!” our friend Ben bellows, tumbling Ivanhoe off his horse and into the dust with a skilled lance-thrust, which sprays dust in his mouth and nose as well as his eyes.

Centuries pass. Our friend Ben finds myself in the court of Francois I of France, arch-rival of the arch-pig Henry VIII of England and patron of that greatest of all masters of art, Leonardo Da Vinci. “Lord Ben, I find myself wondering about the meaning of your unusual motto,” the king murmurs over a banquet of lark’s tongues in aspic. “Don’t spray what in your eye?” “Why, paint, of course, Majesty,” I reply. “Look what happened to Leonardo just last week! He still can’t see well enough to finish ‘The Virgin of the Rocks’.”

More centuries fly by, and before you know it, there’s our hero and blog mentor, the great Benjamin Franklin, at his printing press. Strolling into his shop, a Tory grandee drawls, “I say, Franklin! What is the meaning of that sign you have on the wall yonder? Don’t spray what in your eye, pray?” “Printer’s ink, milord,” Ben replies blandly, at the same time discreetly tripping a passing apprentice so an entire bucket of ink flies into the eyes and douses the face and clothing of the unfortunate gentleman. “Dear, dear, see what I mean? Well, I suppose you can’t see, at least, at the moment. But look on the bright side, at least it’s not tar and feathers. They’re so much harder to get off!”

Eventually, the Victorian era rolls around. Our friend Ben is surprised when the door of his London eatery bangs open, letting in a blast of frigid air, a bellow of “Bah! Humbug!!!” and the cold, crabby figure of one Ebenezer Scrooge. “What’ve ye got to eat, and what will it cost me?” Scrooge demands, piercing me with an icy stare. “And what’s that sign hanging over the bar, there? Don’t spray what in your eye?!” “The milk of human kindness, in your case, Mr. Scrooge,” I answer. “You might find that it causes hallucinations, even ghostly apparitions, interrupting your sleep and causing profound behavioral abnormalities.” “What’s that ye say? Bah, humbug! Keep your apparitions to yourself, I’ll head home and have some gruel instead.” The icy blast that follows Scrooge on his way seems to warm the taproom as the fire leaps up.

Finally, we reach the present day. Our friend Ben is trying to explain to Silence Dogood why I’ve ordered a custom-designed T-shirt emblazoned with the logo “Don’t spray it in your eye.” “Ben, are you insane?!” Silence demands, and not for the first time. “Don’t spray what in your eye, contact lens solution?” “It’s my family motto,” I mutter, defiant.

“I think I’ll go out and run a few errands,” Silence finally says, still eyeing me warily. “When I come back, either that pathetic motto will be gone or you will be.” Oh.

“What do you think of some alternatives?” I ask, brightening. “How about ‘Don’t eat that! I’m saving it for supper!’ Or maybe ‘Don’t touch that or you’ll break it’?” “What do you think of this as a motto: ‘Shut up or I’ll kill you!'” Silence snaps, heading out the door. “I’m not kidding, Ben…” follows her out into the night.

Hmmm. Maybe I’ll order a pair of his’n’her T-shirts. Mine will say “Don’t spray it in your eye.” And Silence’s will bear her own motto, “I’m not kidding, Ben!” Of course, maybe that would go over better if I wrote it up in Latin…