The Baboon Congress

On Motto Pilot

77 Comments

Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.

Pop Quiz

What do the following have in common?
Futurum aquilonem
Wisdom, justice, and moderation
Ua mau ke ea o ka ʻāina i ka pono
Ad astra per aspera
Oro y plata
It grows as it goes

These will make it easier.
Liberty and union, now and forever, one and inseparable
Under God the people rule
Our liberties we prize and our rights we will maintain
Forward

And then, the obvious:
L’étoile du Nord

State mottos, of course.
First group includes Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Kansas, Montana, and New Mexico. (“It grows as it goes.” What?)
Second group includes North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, and Wisconsin.

For the sake of those in Sudbury, here is Ontario’s: “As she began loyal, thus she remains”.

About 25 years ago the Sunday Minneapolis paper sponsored a contest to write a new Minnesota state motto because L’étoile du Nord is just dull and old-fashioned. I mean very few people have spoken French here for 200-300 years.

The paper got about 2000 entries, 400 or so of which they printed. It was a clever idea which got many clever responses. The answers came in several obvious groups, especially about the weather. As a matter of fact, what I think was the winner came from that group: “Minnesota: Have You Jump-Started Your Kids Today?” And there was “Minnesota: Land of Ten Thousand Potholes”.

Many were geographical/political, such as “Minnesota: Here to Keep Iowa Away from Canada.” The governors of Minnesota and South Dakota were in a petty feud at the time, which provoked many such as “Minnesota: Where South Dakota Is Afraid It’s Happening.”

I wish I could remember more. But isn’t it obvious 1) that Minnesota needs a new state motto and 2) who better to write it than Babooners.

So using any language you wish, English, French, Latin, Spanish, or tim,
Write a new Minnesota state motto.
Or maybe for a neighboring state because theirs are no better.

77 thoughts on “On Motto Pilot”

    1. Dude, nobody else anywhere has their own language designation-most are only dialects (recently read of Palinese-Webster preserve us!)-you should be proud.

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  4. inspire
    what i like is the transaltion to spansh latin french german are all recognizable and close enough to be recognizable and something you can relate to , russian sounds inspired. try google translate it will even read it out loud to you on your choice of language. hindi and chinese are the best in the ear , here try it

    http://translate.google.com/

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    1. Sometimes you learn things on Google you wish you hadn’t read. I just read that Tiny Tim died in Minneapolis as a result of a heart attack suffered while singing “Tiptoe Through the Tulips.” I might never see Minneapolis the same way.

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  13. I propose Land of the Loon because we are proud of having Loons in our state. Of course being loony is another Minnesota characteristic. Nothing could be loonier than electing Jesse Ventura as govenor and electing Michelle Bachmann to congress?

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  16. Morning all. Fun reading the last couple of days – been super busy at work with a 2-day client presentation. But the heat has broken and the clients are not safely home. Phew!

    I like all of the above mottos, although I have to say I’m particularly fond of Steve’s “keeps the riffraff out” and Clyde’s “mosquito mouthful”!

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  18. 1) Whatever.
    2) Minnesota: It’s a heck of a deal!
    3) Minnesota: Wanna go with?
    4) You’re not from around here, are you?
    5) People of the land; Cold, morose, and distant.
    6) Minnesota: Flakes, loons, and other crazy people.
    7) Where mosquitos, ticks, and leeches aren’t the only greedy bloodsuckers.
    8) Minnesota: Always ready to snap completely.
    9) Where a two-hundred degree swing in temperature isn’t just a science project.
    10) Minnesota: So…

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    4. I’d like to know how popular that phrase is in other parts of the nation: “You’re not from around here, are you?” I can imagine it being used in the deep South, but I don’t know.

      I once had some scripts in my head that could be presented on Prairie Home Companion. The promotional line would be: “You’re not from around here, are you? In other states, that’s a question; here it is an insult!”

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      1. Here’s what you do, put on a suit or a shirt/tie, drive down to SW Minnesota (pick any town), stop and ask for directions. Anywhere from a gas station to the local Chamber of Commerce. You will be treated as suspicious.

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  19. Greetings! I can’t think of anything better than what’s been put forth so far …. soooo ….

    OT – Jacque, is the recipe for the wonderful salad you served at BBC in Kitchen Congress? If not, can you write it down for us here? Thank you.

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  21. Ontario sounds like a downtrodden long-suffering wife.

    I haven’t made it all the way through yet — too much laffin’.

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  25. OT (or post-topic from yesterday-sort of)
    Linda-I’m not seeing the newspaper search on the Ramsey County Historical Society website, but you can perhaps get some of what you are looking for by searching birth, death and census records at the MHS Library site:

    http://www.mnhs.org/genealogy/index.htm

    I’ve mined out quite a bit this way, especially death records. I can do this on-line, saving precious MHS library time for fiddling with the microfilm machines.

    Once I’ve got a death date and place, I look in the paper (they seem to have them all on film in the same room as the death records-also on microfilm) for the following week to get the obit. which usually is pretty informative.

    Should you decide to pursue this, I wish you happy hunting, but be warned, it is addictive.

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    1. Comedian, Richard Jeni, once wondered how the city of Chicago was founded. He said, “New Yorkers must have said to themselves, ‘Gee, I’m enjoying the crime and the poverty but it just isn’t cold enough, let’s go west…'”

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  27. Somehow this idea was came to me when some people wanted me to help them write a mission statement. I felt like a fraud getting paid to help people write them, so I turned them down. So I debated between this topic and suggesting this group needs a mission staqtement. But we would defintely need Spin to be our leader.

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    2. leaving aside how fun a project the latter would be for this group, I just have to say: Mission Statement-AAAAAHHHHHHHHH! (right up there with things that are “actionable”)

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  28. Completely OT here but I knew this group would appreciate this more than any of my other friends:

    I bought a Jicama today. I’ve had it before I just never knew it was spelled that way or where to find it in the supermarket.

    And we watched ‘The Veggi Tales Movie, ‘Silly Songs’… I’ve forgotten how much fun that one is.

    …back to your regular scheduled programming.

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      1. 1 Primary characters

        1.1 Bob the Tomato
        1.2 Larry the Cucumber
        1.3 Junior Asparagus

        2 Supporting characters

        2.1 Archibald Asparagus
        2.2 Mr. Lunt
        2.3 Jimmy and Jerry Gourd
        2.4 Madame Blueberry
        2.5 Petunia Rhubarb
        2.6 Pa Grape
        2.7 Mr. Nezzer
        2.8 The French Peas
        2.9 Qwerty

        3 Recurring characters

        3.1 The Scallions
        3.2 Scallion #1
        3.3 Dad and Mom Asparagus
        3.4 Scooter
        3.5 The Carrots
        3.6 Mabel and Penelope
        3.7 Frankencelery
        3.8 The Green Onions
        3.9 Miss Achmetha
        3.10 Kahlil
        3.11 Archibald’s Wife

        4 Minor Characters

        4.1 Tom Grape
        4.2 Ellen
        4.3 The Peach
        4.4 Don Gourdon
        4.5 Henry
        4.6 Art Bigotti
        4.7 Goliath
        4.8 The Ducks
        4.9 Buzz-Saw Louie
        4.10 Nicky
        4.11 Esther

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    2. I love jicamas — and usually have to inform the cashier what it is and how to spell it so they can look it up on their system. Looks like Clyde has some time on his hands …

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