Bend Sinister
One popular misconception is that a bend sinister is a dishonourable charge denoting illegitimacy. This erroneous belief may stem from the supposed use of a baton sinister (not a bend sinister) to denote illegitimacy among British Royal Arms (though this denotes bastardy without any suggestion of dishonour.)
Read more about this topic: Abatement (heraldry)
Famous quotes containing the words bend and/or sinister:
“Young, and so thin, and so straight.
So straight! as if nothing could ever bend her.
But poor men would bend her, and doing things with poor men,
Being much in bed, and babies would bend her over,
And the rest of things in life that were for poor women,
Coming to them grinning and pretty with intent to bend and to kill.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)
“To shoot a man because one disagrees with his interpretation of Darwin or Hegel is a sinister tribute to the supremacy of ideas in human affairs—but a tribute nevertheless.”
—George Steiner (b. 1929)