A proper name, in Derrida’s account, is never purely proper. It must be repeatable. It must be able to function in the absence of the one it names. The condition of its force is that it can be cited, detached, and re-read. A name that could not survive its first utterance would not bind anyone later.

The public tape is a system of names that have entered this condition. Title, mint, lien, and conversion are marks that can be opened after the office that wrote them has moved on. The Third Seat’s refusal is one such name. The no is not a private designation. It is a line that remains citable. Later readers encounter it as part of the sequence.

The quiet print claims the force of a name without having entered the system that would make it citable. It is treated as binding. It cannot be detached and re-read by the others. The speculative chart performs the same operation with the end. It offers a final name for the unfinished middle that would no longer need to be cited once it has been spoken. The tape refuses both. A name that has not entered the shared spacing does not yet bind. The no that has entered it can still be read.

Repeatability. The mark must be able to function after its first writing. A private announcement does not meet the condition.

Public citability. Later readers must be able to open the line and place it inside the sequence. The refusal that stays on the tape meets this requirement.

No final uncitability. An identification that would make further citation unnecessary has left the system of names the tape can hold.