a notion that seems to placate/please everyone.....
a people pleasing notion
Hard to take a stand

la chèvre veux le chou -le loup veux la chèvre

I suggest this as perhaps a way to pose the positive and negative aspects of the "ego" that is consistent with the type opposition posed in the French expression.

English idiom - Something or someone which is not easily categorized; something or someone that does not rightly belong or fit well in a given group or situation.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/neither_fish_nor_fowl

I would say this fits the equivocal, ambiguous nature of the ego.

As per my discussion entry, I have tried to highlight some of the characteristics of the actual nouns being used.
My idea comes from:

The "sweetness" of the choux;
The "placidity" of the chevre;
The "fearfulness" or "fierceness" of the loup.

I see it as covering the different personalty characteristics which could be within us all. This would probably still stand if the riddle mentioned above is a factor, as such characteristics are maybe even highlighted by the riddle.

French term (edited): C'est une notion mi-choux, mi-chèvre, mi-loup

C''est une notion mi-choux, mi-chèvre, mi-loup
=
As a concept, it's half cabbage, half sheep, half wolf

it's a reference to a classical grain-teaser, a variation on the "river crossing puzzles"; as the author is assuming the reader is familiar with it, I don't see the need to put an explanation instead of the original imagery.

"...
4. Famous riddle: The wolf, the sheep and cabbage

The river-crossing brainteaser is a classic logic riddle. It’s very old and famous, but still tricky.
This riddle is so old that dates back to Charlemagne period. In fact the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire was a big fan of logic and math puzzles and commissioned one of the first puzzle book of the history.The book is called “Problems to Sharpen the Young” and was written with the intent of make math and logical thought more interesting for young people.

The river-crossing brainteaser was one of Charlemagne favourite riddle:

A farmer has to transport from one side of a river to the other a sheep, a wolf and a cabbage, but he has a boat with only two seats. He has to face a logic problem: if left alone together, the goat will eat the cabbage and the wolf will eat the goat.
How can the farmer bring to the other side of the river the sheep, the wolf and the cabbage?
[http://clevergames.wordpress.com/extreme-brain-teasers/]

The "explained version" would be something along the lines of:

As a concept, it's an amalgam / a mishmash of mutually incompatible components.





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Note added at 11 hrs (2014-01-12 07:58:08 GMT)
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sorry
.. a classical brain-teaser ..

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Note added at 13 hrs (2014-01-12 10:43:35 GMT)
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or, to stick to the same animals:

"As a concept, it's half cabbage, half goat, half wolf"

Hello,


I hope this helps.