Three Calvin and Hobbes strips (by Bill Watterson), from Melissa Carvell, all on language-related topics (this from the man who gave us “Verbing weirds language”):
Calvin and his mother exhibit a command of a variety of English long gone:
A conversation gone down the garden path, as Hobbes takes “I can’t put it down” to be figurative, but it turns out that Calvin meant it literally:
And another ambiguity, turning on idiomatic vs. literal understandings:
This one has a vivid illustration of the literal understanding of wander, said of someone’s mind (and lose one’s mind).
August 3, 2012 at 7:04 am |
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