# The "No" Sign **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [November 1, 1999, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563 "1999-11-01T23:33:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 1999, 2:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/21 "1999-11-06T02:42:00Z")
> [@](#): > > If you believe it stands for the N in no then you have to prove that it originated in an English-speaking country. Non. Nein. Nyet. Nessun. Nenhum. * * * Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99. ---
**Author:** ![Louie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c68b51/32.png) [@Louie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Louie)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 1999, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/22 "1999-11-06T05:17:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Incidentally, I’ve noticed quite frequently that people install “No smoking” signs upside down. They have a picture of a cigarette with the smoking going up, with the circle-slash across it. Yet some people don’t seem to “get” that smoke rises. Am I the only one to notice this? > [@](#): > > I don’t get it. If the smoke is going up, it is rising. Or are you saying that people are hanging the sign so that the smoke trails downward, beneath the cigarette? …or maybe the people who put up the signs upside down thought the smoke was actually ashes falling out of the cigarette. \z\ * * * Smile, it makes people wonder what you are thinking. [Fun with HTML (tutoral) : The True Sequal](http://www.straightdope.com/ubb/Archives/Archive-000001/HTML/19991103-2-000302.html) ---
**Author:** ![NanoByte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecc23a/32.png) [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 1999, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/23 "1999-11-06T06:08:00Z")
In CA-US, verbal (non-pictorial) signs have their text in red if prohibitory and in green if permissive (on a white background). E.g., all the conditions under which you can_ **not** _ park are lettered in red, while all those, on the same sign, for the same location(s), are lettered in green. Of course, here in the city of Be(ze)rkeley, although, as I recall, they met the color code, they took English beyond what any language could logically do: I have a Web page that takes this city to task: > [@](#): > > There is the matter of this city’s trying to live in infamy from parking fines: At least two years ago, I wrote of and mentioned to Traffic Engineering the fact that many of the parking limitation signs in Berkeley state what is logically incoherent, to wit: > > “2 HOUR PARKING 8 AM - 7 PM EXCEPT SWEEPING, SAT & SUN, HOLIDAYS & VEHICLES WITH AREA PERMIT” > > It is not linguistically acceptable in any language to contain, within the same clause/phrase of exception, items assigned values on opposite sides of the value excepted from–such as here, where the case for “SWEEPING” is 0 hours within the sweeping time, while that for the other exceptions is larger than the 2 hours. This is pure municipal entrapment where the signs are near the UCB stadium and visitors have often > asked me what the devil the signs mean. The Berkeley traffic engineer had agreed with me at the time I published this, some four years ago, that the signs did not read reasonably. I think by now they have all been changed. A couple years ago some never-named forces tore apart almost all of the parking meters in this town. Thereafter, the City spent a fortune on some new claimed-to-be untamperable ones, and later some of the Australian multiple-parking-slot meters. But I say: ‘The hell with Berkeley,’ and just shop in Albany or El Cerrito. BTW, diagrams or pictures on road signs, with or without circle-slashes, are often called ‘glyphs’ (except those of grafitti artists, which are known as ‘tags’). Ray ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 1999, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/24 "1999-11-06T06:20:00Z")
**Chef Troy** : > [@](#): > > The line is indeed supposed to go from upper left to lower right. In so doing, it echoes the infamous “bar sinister” from heraldry, which denotes illegitimate birth. Unfortunately, while the **bend, sinister** was used, once in a while–among several other devices, to indicate bastardy, the **bar, sinister** appears to be a corruption of the French term _une barre_, which meant the **bend, sinister**. I have just said several separate things which will absolutely be _not_ clear to the standard late 20th century North American reader, so I will bore you with the explanations. A bend is a diagonal stripe or band that includes 1/3 of the area of a shield. It is not a simple stripe. A fess is a horizontal band that encompasses 1/3 the height of the shield and a bar is a fess that has been reduced in size. (Therefore, there cannot be a “bar, sinister” unless a shield carried a hyphen or dash on the left side.) The diminutive of the bend is the baton, so a **bend, sinister** could be reduced in size to a **baton, sinister** , but the “bar, sinister” does not describe an actual element of heraldry. Note the phrase “once in a while” in my first paragraph. There are a great many symbols for bastardy. **Bend, sinister** (and even **baton, sinister** ) are simply two of many. There is no single, clear representation of bastardy in heraldry. I will not go so far as to say that there are arms carrying the **bend, sinister** that do not represent bastardy, but that is not the only sign used for that meaning. Note, also, that throughout I have used the word bastardy, not illegitimacy. Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance among the nobility and knights, the term bastard indicated the marital relationship that one’s parents had; it did not indicate opprobrium. While a bastard would have to stand behind all the non-bastard children to hope to gain titles at the death of his father, there was no shame associated with his birth. “Illegitimacy” indicated the fact that such a child stood outside the law (_lex_, _legis_==\> legitimate) for inheritance, but it did not indicate a shameful birth. (Would that others were as tolerant.) As to the OP: a **bend, sinister** , at 1/3 the size of the sign, would cover most of the image of the thing prohibited. A **baton, sinister** would not extend across the entire circle. A **bar, sinister** would show up as a small horizontal mark on the left side of the sign. * * * Tom~ ---
**Author:** ![Konrad](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/f475e1/32.png) [@Konrad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Konrad)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 1999, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/25 "1999-11-06T15:43:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Non. Nein. Nyet. Nessun. Nenhum. Right, except 1. It was specified as the N in the English No 2. Nyet is spelled HET, no N in there. 3. I’m sure this sign could have been used all over the world, not necessecarily first in Europe ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 1999, 6:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/26 "1999-11-07T06:40:00Z")
Great link strainger, found me another place to waste time!And mont that is a great name. Let me give you a take on it from an old time pen and ink graphic artist’s point of view. A circle with a relativly heavy HORIZONTAL bar has been used a long time for “DO NOT ENTER” ( why , when ? I dunno) somebody adapted that to mean “NO…” but the heavy horizontal covered the graphic, (the burning cig) so they slimmed it down and put it on a diagonal, I do see it from upper right to lower left more frequently, A suspicion is tht when drawing the line OVER the graphic I would have less chance of smearing or just smudging my graphic if I didn’t have to risk dragging my entire hand down and across the whole thing. as for that upside down NO Smoking, the first time i got a car that had pictograms on th knobs, the cig lighter had a tubular looking thing with two ‘snaky’ lines coming “up” as smoke, When i spun the knob 180 the lines went down, it looked like water pouring from a pipe. I told folks it was to dump hazardous waste from my car when i wanted to pollute more than the air. Tim maybe what you are seeing is the international " NO RAW SEWAGE" sign. * * * “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx ---
**Author:** ![Kat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/b19c9b/32.png) [@Kat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kat)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 1999, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/27 "1999-11-07T06:51:00Z")
> [@](#): > > 1. It was specified as the N in the English No Umm…where? Gaudere did say: “the universal ‘no’ sign.” but made no mention of an slash being an “N”. Beruang, the first person to call it an “N”, said “Slightly OT, but a pet peeve of mine – the slash should run from the upper left to the lower right. It is, after all, a stylized “N”. Running from the lower left to upper right, while undoubtedly just as effective, looks dorky to me.” and made no mention of what the “N” stood for. ## Arnold was the next person to refer to “N” when he said “The line is in the “N” shape to symbolize an interdiction.” but again made no mention of what the “N” stands for. Your Official Cat Goddess since 10/20/99. Semper Ubi Sub Ubi ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 1999, 7:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/28 "1999-11-07T07:46:00Z")
Does it bother anybody else when somebody makes up one of these signs, and the concept is so nonvisual that the sign ends up being a circle/slash on top of a word, like () **swearing** , or lamer yet, a circle/slash on top of an icon that is so obtuse that it requires a text explanation underneath it? * * * TT “Believe those who seek the truth. Doubt those who find it.” --Andre Gide ---
**Author:** ![NanoByte](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecc23a/32.png) [@NanoByte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NanoByte)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 1999, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/29 "1999-11-07T07:53:00Z")
\ [http://www.tsoft.net/~raych/NotNyet.gif](http://www.tsoft.net/~raych/NotNyet.gif) **\Is everybody happy yet?\ \Not nyet?\**\ Ray ---
**Author:** ![mr\_john](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8baadc/32.png) [@mr\_john](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mr_john)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 1999, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563/30 "1999-11-08T06:17:00Z")
## Good point, Thufferin, about thothe obtooth iconth .I live a short piece up the road from a rodeo arena, apparently the international symbol for rodeo is an overly detailed drawing of a stetsoned rider on a brahma, looks like a drawing of a thunderstorm when your driving. ( haven’t spotted the 'no rodeos" sign yet. The signs for a public libraries here look like a tombstone icon to when i zip by. ( course we do pronounce it LIEBURY here) The signs for the malls look just like the ones in airports for baggage claim. And railroaod crossings are now NO-NO’s. I often sit at the RR crossing watching the cattle cars roll by wondering , “Whatever happened to Simon Bar Sinister.?” “Pardon me while I have a strange interlude.”-Marx [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-no-sign/4563.md?page=1)