Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred

When rocks speak! A bit of Zippy silliness to start off the weekend:

Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred (or Bewildered) are three bat brothers from the Pogo cartoons. Three-part expressions (with primary accent on the third element) are all over the place: Signed, Sealed, and Delivered; liberty, equality, fraternity; Meshach, Shadrach, and Abednego; Abraham, Martin, and John; ready, start, go; and endless others. (No, I’m not collecting these, just giving some diverse examples.)

This entry was posted on July 18, 2009 at 8:05 am and is filed under Linguistics in the comics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred”

mpg Says:
July 18, 2009 at 6:05 pm | Reply
I can think of a few quadruplets — Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John; Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines; North, South, East, and West. Are there any quints?

-mpg

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mollymooly Says:
July 31, 2009 at 11:23 pm | Reply
@mpg:
Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich

Re “ready start go”: start!? Surely “steady” or “set”? You don’t start until you go!

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