August 5, 2020
Yesterday’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, with songs you just can’t get out of your head:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
A wonderful collision of worlds, set off by the idiomatic (and colorfully metaphorical) N + N compound earworm: the world of DJs — the ear world (disc jockeys providing sonic pleasures for the ear) — and the world of caterpillars — the worm world (caterpillars being one type of worm in colloquial English).
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Posted in Abbreviation, Categorization and Labeling, Idioms, Initialisms, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Music, Names, Taxonomic vs. common | Leave a Comment »
August 4, 2020
(All I need to tell you is that this posting takes off from a line of Cumdump jockstraps offered by the Breedwell company in deliberately provocative ads, and you should see that it’s totally not for kids or the sexually modest.)
A Daily Jocks ad from 11/4/19 shows us the jock in red, with a model presented faux-naturalistically as a tough working-class guy in a blue-collar setting (a railyard, shipyard, or truckyard). Ad copy for the jock:
The new Breedwell Cumdump Jock [available in white, black, red, yellow, and blue] is a take on the classic, old-school woven jock.
Features a black centre patch with the Breedwell logo and signature “Dirty By Choice” motto. The back of the jock features ‘Breedwell’ across the entire back.
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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language of sex, Lexical semantics, Masculinity, Metaphor, Porn, Pornography, Portmanteaus, Scalarity, Semantics, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
August 4, 2020
The 9/20/19 Wayno/Piraro Bizarro collabo (resurrected from my posting queue):
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
A surrogate for the human hand in the canine sensual act of belly-rubbing..
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Posted in Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
August 3, 2020
A theme connecting two otherwise very disparate cartoons in my comics feed for today: in a Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, an absurdist strip about Claes Oldenburg in the (mythical) American Old West; and in a Zippy, musings by Bill Griffith on a mystery Z structure in his part of rural Connecticut.
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Posted in Art, Dialects, Linguistics in the comics, Variation | 3 Comments »
August 2, 2020
Today’s Bizarro turns on an ambiguity in the verb shave:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 8 in this strip — see this Page.)
On to the ambiguity…
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Posted in Ambiguity, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics | 4 Comments »
August 2, 2020
From the New York Times on 7/3 (in print), in an obit for for “Freddy Cole, 88, Bluesy Performer Who Emerged From Nat’s Shadow” by Giovanni Russonello: this modest and touching statement from Cole about his goals late in life:
“What I worry about is sounding good. I go and play music and do the best show I can do.”
I think this would be an excellent maxim for me: go and write my stuff and do the best show I can do.
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Posted in Death notices, Music | 1 Comment »
August 1, 2020
For we will sit together as happy as can be
For I’ll tickle Nancy, and Nancy’ll tickle me
— Uncle Dave Macon’s “I’ll Tickle Nancy” (apparently first recorded in 1935)
Yesterday’s (7/31) Wayno/Piraro Bizarro strip, in which Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy character takes up textual analysis (Wayno’s title:”Beating Around the Bushmiller”), explaining the intricacies of cartoon characters to her buddy Sluggo (and of course the three rocks):
(#1) On the Bushmiller rocks, see my 9/2/17 posting “Three rocks”, with a Zippy strip in which the rocks talk (and if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
Pretty much the purest form of cartoon self-reference: a cartoon character expounding on the nature of cartoon characters. (Also note Sluggo’s body language, with his hands in his pockets, often conveying disaffection or suspicion.)
What follows is about Nancys and, especially, nancies.
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Posted in Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics, Masculinity, Movies and tv, Music, Taboo language and slurs | 5 Comments »
August 1, 2020
Today, August 1st (rabbit rabbit rabbit), is Swiss National Day, which I will celebrate by observing that (female) prostitution has been legal — but of course regulated — in Switzerland since 1942, and male prostitution since 1992. I mention this not just because I observe and comment on sexual practices as social customs, but specifically because a few days ago (7/29), a new follower of mine on Twitter popped up: MenBodywork, a Swiss company offering sexual massage for men — and earnestly promoting sexualized gay male sociability. (Sign me up, Scotty.)
What follows is not at all suitable for kids or the sexually modest.
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Posted in Homosexuality, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »
July 31, 2020
From Ann Burlingham on Facebook yesterday, a heads-up:
I’ve been seeing this [Hanes Every Bod] ad, which it seems came out last year, and enjoyed the men singing about underwear in a way that women in ads usually sing about [here Ann extravagizes] birth control or antidepressants.
(#1) The end of the Every Bod ad: assorted body types (very heavy on variants of the young and fit) on the street, exulting in their underwear, every one of them displaying a notable pouch: Vouch for the Pouch! (see the sign)
Just to note that mass-market men’s underwear is rarely so pouch-conscious; that’s the province of premium brands, many of which are uncomplicatedly hawking homowear. More below.
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Posted in Language and the body, Language in advertising, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
July 31, 2020
Margalit Fox on Facebook on the 29th:
Time to get my hearing checked. This evening’s dialogue:
Husband: “Jacques Lacan is the thinker who merged post-Freudian psychoanalytic thought with Structuralism.”
Me: “Chaka Khan merged post-Freudian psychoanalytic thought with Structuralism?? …”
Jacques Lacan / Chaka Khan — some phonological similarity (same accentual pattern, shared medial /k/ and final /n/, initial /ǰ/ vs. /č/, differing only in voicing, vowels similar but not calculable here because of dialect differences in their quality), but then there’s /l/ vs. /k/), but largely the connection is through their being two relatively exotic proper names of cultural significance.
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Posted in Art, Language and food, Mishearings, Music, Philosophy, Psychology | 3 Comments »
