Revisiting 39: penis fish on California beaches

December 13, 2019

A 12/12 story in the Guardian, “Thousands of ‘penis fish’ appear on California beach: Fat innkeeper worms typically burrow under the sand but recent storms have swept away layers, leaving them exposed” by Vivian Ho, beginning:


(#1) A beachgoer holds a fat inkeeper worm – otherwise known as a ‘penis fish’ – in Bodega Bay in June 2019 (photograph: Kate Montana / iNaturalist Creative Commons)

I’m not sure this is what the Weather Girls meant when they sang, “It’s raining men.”

Following a bout of winter storms in northern California, “thousands” of pink, throbbing, phallic creatures wound up pulsating along a beach about 50 miles north of San Francisco, Bay Nature reported.

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Posted in Language and animals, Language and food, Phallicity | Leave a Comment »

Two actor POP days

December 13, 2019

It’s Eva Marie Saint Lucy’s Day and, in today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro combo, a Kurt Russell terrier bounds in:


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s just one in this strip — see this Page.)

First, Kurt Russell and the Russell terrier. Then Eva Marie Saint and St. Lucy’s Day. In both cases, a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps (see the Page on this blog), with a name in a POP (a phrasal overlap portmanteau; see the Page on this blog).

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Posted in Actors, Holidays, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Shirtlessness, Understanding comics | 1 Comment »

The linguistics quilt

December 11, 2019

The third in a set of four; the university quilt, from yesterday, is its predecessor. As before, a 12-panel composition (roughly 6 x 3 ft) made of old t-shirts of mine, assembled into a quilt by Janet Salsman, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky and Kim Darnell (and photos by Kim).  This time, t-shirts for linguistics programs or linguistics events. Some of the shirts have small or subtle images on them, impossible to appreciate in a display like this one:


(#1) The pansy background is an especially nice touch, in a gift to me

So I’ll look at the 12 panels individually, close up, by row (R) and column (C).
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Posted in Academic life, My life | 1 Comment »

The university quilt

December 10, 2019

#2 in a set of 4, the first having been my 7/30/17 posting “The queer quilt”. To come: the linguistics quilt and the images quilt. Each one, a 12-panel composition (roughly 6 x 3 ft) made of old t-shirts of mine, assembled into a quilt by Janet Salsman, with the collaboration of Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky and Kim Darnell.

#1 re-used old queer t-shirts, some political, some playful, some artistic. #2 is university t-shirts (from roughly 20 to 40 years ago), from institutions where I’ve talked, either teaching a class there, speaking at a conference there, or giving an invited talk there.


(#1) names, abbreviated names, nicknames, logos, and seals: Northwestern Univ., Univ. of New Mexico, Brigham Young Univ.; Georgetown Univ., Univ. of Kentucky, American Univ.; Harvard Univ., banana slugs (the mascot of the Univ. of Calif. at Santa Cruz (UCSC)), Univ. of Pennsylvania; Univ. of Calif. at Davis, UCSC, Univ. of North Dakota

Still to come: a linguistics quilt, with lx-related t-shirts; and an image quilt, with amusing or arresting images of several kinds.
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Posted in Academic life, Logos, Memory, My life, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

A syncretic religious holiday

December 8, 2019

Recently posted on Facebook, this melding of the traditions of Judaism with the traditions of Jedi-ism for the holiday season, in French:


(#1) ‘May the light be with you’: the Jedi Master Yoda wields a lightsword menorah for Hanukkah (Fr. Hanoucca) — Happy Hanukkah! (Joyeuse fête de Hanoucca!)

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Posted in Arabic, French, Greetings, Hebrew, Holidays, Language and religion, Movies and tv, Pop culture, Rainbow | 2 Comments »

The signs of speechlessness

December 7, 2019

What do you say to convey that you can’t find any words to describe your state of mind? What’s the verbal equivalent of the speechlessness emoji 😶 ? (Which literally has no mouth, indicating an inability to speak.)

Some people have conventional expressions for this purpose. Here’s one of them, homina, in today’s Mother Goose and Grimm:

(#1)

As a cartoon bonus, we get the (metonymic) conversion of an expression evincing some state of mind — homina evincing bewilderment, surprise, or shock to the point of speechlessness —  to a measure noun denoting a degree of the evinced state of mind — homina as a unit of bewilderment etc. A special sort of nouning, generally available for interjections:

I give that experience three eeks / ughs / ewws / ouches / …

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Posted in Conversion, Emoji, Interjections, Linguistics in the comics, Metonymy, Movies and tv, Nouning, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

NO PENGUINS

December 4, 2019

A generic penguin ban sign (sold on Amazon, a CD Visionary no-penguins button):


(#1) What’s banned? Spheniscid birds. Why? Who knows. (They smell. They steal fish. They get underfoot. Whatever.)

and a ban — in a list of prohibitions against public vice or indecency — on the door of Loretta’s Authentic Pralines on N. Rampart St. in New Orleans (photo from the TripAdvisor South Africa site):


(#2) What’s banned? Who knows. Why? Because they’re a vice (like drinking or smoking) or are indecent (like profanity or nudity), presumably the latter.

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Posted in Clothing, Context, Language and food, Metaphor, Penguins, Race and ethnicity, Relevance, Semantics, Slang, Sociocultural conventions | 2 Comments »

Edward Winter

December 3, 2019

… the actor, who recently popped up twice on my vintage tv, first in a 1981 episode of The Greatest American Hero and then in a 1985 episode of Cagney & Lacey — where I instantly recognized him from his recurring character Colonel Flagg on M*A*S*H, from 1973-79. I was of course interested in him as a member of what I’ve called the Acting Corps (actors who get regular work and so pop up in movies or on tv, notably or inconspicuously, in various roles; also in him as a man with a conventionally good-looking face, a leading-man style of face (rather than a character-actor face); and also in him as someone with a strong and recognizable actorial persona, which runs through a number of his performances.

A standard p.r. head shot of Winter from the 1970s/80s:

(#1)

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Posted in Acting, Actors, Gay porn, Identities, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »

Three comic rabbits for December

December 1, 2019

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit on the first of the month. The Mother Goose and Grimm from 12/30, with a textbook attachment ambiguity. The Rhymes With Orange for today, with an updated version of a classic tongue twister. And the Bizarro for today, with a Mr. Potato Head  wielding a terrible slang pun.

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Posted in Ambiguity, Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Language and food, Language play, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Puns, Slang, Tongue twisters | 1 Comment »

Kind Hearts and Coronets

November 30, 2019

Or, Art and Artifice

In the most recent New Yorker (the 12/2/19 issue), a review by Anthony Lane of the 1949 film Kind Hearts and Coronets, in a new print, now showing in NYC. Lane’s last paragraph:

If you are unfamiliar with “Kind Hearts and Coronets,” the question is not whether making the trip to Film Forum [209 W. Houston St. in Greenwich Vilage, showings of KH&C 11/27 through 12/5] to see it is worth your while. The question is how stiff a penalty should be levied upon you by the City of New York should you fail to do so. My personal view is that a brief prison sentence would not be too harsh. There really is no excuse.

Anthony Lane has spoken; listen to the man. (Sadly, I have had to resign myself to watching a DVD of an earlier print.)

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Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Movies and tv, Music | 1 Comment »

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