Subject: Stick-figure family window decals (SFFWDs) appear in automobile rear windows all over Losanjealous. Fig. 1 (below) provides an archetypal illustration. SFFWDs invariably depict a series of stick figures arrayed from left to right in descending order of size. They bear identifying features and names that indicate either their family role (e.g., “Dad”, “Mom”); their actual name (e.g., “Roxy”); or some affectionately demeaning sobriquet (e.g., “Boogers”, “Alecheetos”). Some bear the legend “Our Family” over the stick figures in case the relationship between the figures was not obvious. A few include pets such as dogs in the grouping. Single-parent family variants are either nonexistent or so vanishingly rare that DF has yet to espy one.

Background: The back of the car is a popular situs of self-expression, as the longstanding ubiquity of the bumper sticker attests. Bumper stickers achieve expression through language’s denotative function. If you want to tell the wide world what you brake for, or how members of your profession “do it” (viz., fornicate), or about your antipathy for fat chicks, the bumper sticker provides a means of expressing these views with unparalleled parsimony.

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