Chevron

A chain of gas stations whose logo is (jeopardy music) a chevron.

like all gas stations, chevron claims their gas is the best because instead of adding more alcohol, they add techron ™. perhaps the most interesting dent chevron ever made in pop culture was the use of nick park (of wallace and grommit fame) as the artist behind an ad campaign and collectors' craze that may or may not have rivaled beanie babies for some time, named simply 'the chevron cars.' also supports various kinds of convenience stores.

fun facts about chevron:

• corporate owned stations must keep the price of their gas within three cents of the cheapest gas station in their vicinity.
• non-corporate owned stations are essentially sharecropping.
• corporate policy requires pumps, stores, and restrooms to be cleaned three times every day.
• no one should be disallowed to use the restrooms at chevron, customer or not. they pride themselves on catering to all travelers, even those on foot.
• someone had the brilliant idea that gas station employees should wear shorts in summer. right.. let's clean up potential chemical spills with as much skin exposed as possible.
• they have employees in new stores attend a full week of paid training, eight hours a day, meals included.
• drug testing is a required part of the interview process.
• they are very hip to the idea of non-discrimination. my former boss, for example, was a transsexual.

"One of the nine honorable ordinaries, consisting of two broad bands of the width of the bar, issuing, respectively from the dexter and sinister bases of the field and conjoined at its center." -- Webster 1913

Thank you, Webster, perhaps you could go clean the toilets and I could have a go explaining chevrons.

From the French for 'rafter', it is the familiar invented V. When placed on a shield it points upward, without touching the top, and leaves a triangular bite below it.

In theory it contains a third of the area of the shield; in practice it never does. Even alone on a shield it wouldn't, but is often met with between three other objects, perhaps roses or lozenges (diamonds), or two stars above and a lion's head below, and these and the chevron are drawn to give the best fit. A shield divided into two parts by a single V-shaped line is described as per chevron.

A diminutive chevron is called a chevronel, normally met with in groups, one on top of another as in military stripes, with a chevronel-shaped space between them through which the original colour of the field is visible.

A peculiar device in which several chevrons occur horizontally and interlinked is described as chevronels braced.

As with a fess, a chevron described as embattled has the battlement decoration only on the upper side.

It is very rare in heraldry to have a chevron reversed, that is hanging down from the top of the field like an upright V, though this design is very familiar outside heraldry, as in clothing.

Chevron's original name was the Standard Oil Company (California). They changed their name around the 1940s and 1950s (Of course, they still have the rights to Standard Oil). They had a "victory wings" sign on the V from World War II until the 1960s. If you have the money, and time...see if you can find the 1 "Standard" gas station that's in every state Chevron sells in. They do this so people won't steal their name.

Chev"ron (?), n. [F., rafter, chevron, from ch'evre goat, OF. chevre, fr. L. capra she-goat. See Cheveril.]

1. Her.

One of the nine honorable ordinaries, consisting of two broad bands of the width of the bar, issuing, respectively from the dexter and sinister bases of the field and conjoined at its center.

2. Mil.

A distinguishing mark, above the elow, on the sleeve of a noncommisioned officer's coat.

3. Arch.

A zigzag molding, or group of moldings, common in Norman architecture.

Chevron bones Anat., The V-shaped subvertebral arches which inclose the caudal blood vessels in some animals.

 

© Webster 1913.