^{This page is part of © FOTW Flags Of The World website}

You May Be a Vexillologist

Fun with Vexillological Non-Terminology

See also:

A humorous look at the people who study flags by the people who study flags (with apologies to Jeff Foxworthy).

If you snicker and tell your Czech neighbor that she is flying the flag of Sarawak upside down, R. Nathan Bliss
If you spend the first half of your daughter's High School Orchestra Concert wondering if you can quietly slip the flag over to the correct side of the stage during intermission, R. Nathan Bliss
If your son's Juniorr High play about reporters in the 1920s is ruined for you because the US flag in the set has 2 too many stars, R. Nathan Bliss
If a math assignment requires calculation of the number of tricolors that can be created using 6 colors, R. Nathan Bliss
If your social studies class spends more time on flags than it does on GNP, R. Nathan Bliss
If your house has more flags than windows, R. Nathan Bliss
If your neighbors can tell the day of the year by the flag you're flying, R. Nathan Bliss
If you are against flag burning, because you would like to add the item to your collection, R. Nathan Bliss
If you call the local news station to update them on the flag of a country in the news, R. Nathan Bliss
If you ever called a government agency to tell them the state flag is upside down, R. Nathan Bliss
If you go into antique stores to find National Geographic magazines from 1917 and 1934 and you know what months I'm talking about, R. Nathan Bliss
If you have already thought of 3 more of these to share with the rest of us, R. Nathan Bliss
If you spend more time reading flag-related mail than working, Jorge Candeias
If your best imaginable gift is a flag-related item, Jorge Candeias
If you know and can spell the word "vexillologist", Jorge Candeias
If you identify the neighborhood used-car dealer as "the Dutch representative" because of the R-W-B tricolors flying out in front, William E. Dunning
If you drop in at a developer's model home with bright green flags flying in front and ask for the Libyan ambassador, William E. Dunning
If you have neck pain from constantly craning to look at flags as you drive past, Andrew Rogers
If you wonder what flag to fly in honor of a guest who's coming to dinner, Andrew Rogers
If you know how to tell when a Union Jack is flying upside-down ... and point it out to people when it is, Andrew Rogers
If you watch TV weather reports in order to see whether the next day will be a good one for putting out a flag (always a concern in Seattle), Andrew Rogers
If you go on vacation and discover upon your return the only photos you took are of the flags you saw, Andrew Rogers
If you tell people when they're flying the Japanese Flag upside-down, Timothy Boronczyk
If you watch the Olympic games to check for new flags, Filip Van Laenen
If you are more interested in what flags the public is waving than on what's going on in the actual soccer game, Filip Van Laenen
If you recognize embassies by their flags and not their name plate, Filip Van Laenen
If you watch historic movies to check whether they got the flags correct, Filip Van Laenen
If you have 'flag' in your standard greeting or .sig-file, Ole Andersen
If you stop your lesson, tell your class to line up outside, march them to the front of the school, pull down the US flag, adjust the clip, and return the flag to the top (just because you noticed it looked funny when you looked out the window during the discussion of Scandinavian culture), Edward Mooney
If you stare at the chest of an attractive young lady wearing a flag t-shirt and your wife still slaps you but understands that you could have been attracted by the flag, Nick Artimovich
If you visit old flag stores and have to wash your hands three or four times to remove ancient dust picked up from old flag boxes, Nick Artimovich
If the majority of the books in your personal library have the word "flags" somewhere in the title, Nick Artimovich
If you end up in the basement maintenance office of a city hall / organization / government agency looking for the guy who might have one of their old, worn out flags on a shelf, Nick Artimovich
If you have ever met Whitney Smith, William Crampton, or Ottfried Neubecker, Nick Artimovich
If you consistently refer to the Betsy Ross story as a "fairy tale", Nick Artimovich
If a fellow employee stops by your desk and asks "where can I get a flag flown over the Capitol", Nick Artimovich
If you count the number of days until you get your next issue of any vexillological newsletter, Phillip L. Nelson
If you've begun filling your wife's and children's computers with flag gifs because yours own computer is now full, Phillip L. Nelson
If responding to the question "If you were stranded on a desert island, what would you take with you?" and you chose a vexillological item (book, flag) before choosing your wife or significant other, Phillip L. Nelson
If you are attracted to any shop displaying a flag, regardless of what it sells, Phillip L. Nelson
If you grit your teeth when a Girl Scout honor guard displays the flags incorrectly, Phillip L. Nelson
If you are designing HTML E-mail stationary with a flag motif, Phillip L. Nelson
If every year, you rush to a bookstore and look at the flag pages of the yearly editions of the Larousse dictionary and Quid fact book, Luc-Vartan Baronian
If you get upset every time you see a flag ripped up by the bad weather, Luc-Vartan Baronian
If you buy outdated editions of the World Almanac so you can tear out the colored flag plates, carefully dating and filing them so you can track changes in flag designs from year to year, William E. Dunning
If you accompany your wife to fabric stores just to look at printed material with flag-related designs, William E. Dunning
If you accompany your wife to fabric stores just to look at materials you can use to make flags ... or maybe talk her into making them, William E. Dunning
If you go by yourself to fabric stores for either of the above or even for both, William E. Dunning
If you cringe at the quality of flags produced in third world countries, Dean Thomas
If you call the flag store you brought a flag from to complain that the proportions aren't exact to six decimal places, Dean Thomas
If you end up with a bent car radio antenna from all the pennants you place on it, Dean Thomas
If you're making a kite which is basically a flag (Greece), David Cohen
If you've been questioned by police while hanging around a port photographing flags, David Cohen
If money is no object in adding to your vex. collection (like a horrendously-overpriced tie produced by the Sydney Olympic Games Organising Committee featuring a few national flags plus their crappy logo), David Cohen
If you remark that Ronaldo is waving an older version of the Brazilian flag at last nights' final of the European UEFA Cup (which he won with Inter Milan), Herman De Wael
If you ever nearly had a car accident because you where trying to identify a strange flag you spotted across the street, Jorge Candeias
If you spent at least four hours a week at office or at home in the last four years reading messages about flags, looking and renaming flags' images, packing them by subject, sending the packs to some guys like you around the world, uploading flags' files into some hosts in nation you have never visited with your body, answering dozens of messages coming from people who want you to prenote exotic hotels or contact IRA ... well, Giuseppe Bottasini
If your wife volunteers you to give an illustrated talk to 40 church ladies, Rob Raeside
If you get an army leave of 4 hours and you spend it reading FOTW mail, Željko Heimer
If you go to the highest-ranking officer on duty in barracks to tell him that the flag is not properly hoisted, Željko Heimer
If you watch 4 hours Eurosong contest/Folk parade/documentary on fishermen in Mali/add more... only to see possibly 4 seconds of some unknown flag, Željko Heimer
If an neighbor asks you to fly a certain flag because he's having a guest for dinner, Andrew Rogers
If you dream, vividly and colourfully, and of all things that you might remember from the dream afterwards one of the few you actually do is a flag. Jorge Candeias
If you visit your capital city only for searching for the flags at the embassies, M. Schmöger
If you do a U-turn in the highway and backtrack 1/4 of a mile (1/2 kilometer) because you saw a flag that you didn't recognize flying from a pole, Edward Mooney