Arnold Zwicky's Blog

I’m sending out some postcard versions (from Syracuse Cultural Workers, an excellent source of lefty-progressive materials) of this poster by Shepard Fairey:

The model expression here is the 1960s counterculture anti-Vietnam-War slogan “Make Love, Not War” (Wikipedia page here), which has been varied in a number of ways. Comedian George Carlin, for example, said  that his preferred variant was the plainspoken direct “Make Fuck, Not Kill”.

The ultimate model is, of course the straightforward “Make Peace, Not War”.

You can google up all sorts of variations: a t-shirt with the slogan “Make Levees Not War” in support of the reconstruction of New Orleans (as opposed to spending money in pursuit of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan); the suggestion, from several sources, that in Afghanistan American forces should “make tea, not war”; a slogan of the Muslim Students Association (of the U.S. and Canada), “Make Chai Not War”; a suggestion that young children should be taught to “make cookies, not war” (as a diversion from violent games); t-shirts for peace with “Make Fufu Not War” (fufu being the West/Central African starchy staple food) on them; other t-shirts for peace, from other culture zones, with “Make Samosas Not War” and “Make Falafel Not War” on them; away from the food theme and back to love and sex, jokey t-shirts with “Make awkward sexual advances, not war” on them; an ad for the UnderGarden video game with a contest slogan “Make Flowers, Not War” (referring to the violent content of so many video games); and on and on.

This isn’t a snowclone, just playful variations on a formula, like many other examples I’ve discussed here and on Language Log and even on my X blog (most recently, here).

This entry was posted on November 15, 2010 at 9:42 am and is filed under Formulaic language, Language play. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.