From Victor Steinbok, a link to a Columbia Independent School site on penguins, with this nice graphic:
The site has links to real penguin videos, from the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the California Academy of Sciences.
Archive for 2013
This week’s penguin links
December 9, 2013eglantine rose
December 9, 2013In my set of Art of Instruction cards, one on l’églantier, the eglantine rose:
Rosa rubiginosa (Sweet briar or Eglantine Rose; syn. R. eglanteria) is a species of rose native to Europe and western Asia.
It is a dense deciduous shrub 2–3 m high and across, with the stems bearing numerous hooked prickles. The foliage has a strong apple-like fragrance. (Wikipedia link)
Bare Essentials
December 8, 2013(Not about language.)
On AZBlogX, a posting with five Bare Essentials photos:
Each one depicts a naked man — a decent-looking but ordinary mature man (no extraordinary abs, no massive muscles), flaccid, posing with a prop. A variety of body types.
I find them charming and revelatory of character (in a surprising way)..
Strained Xmas portmanteau
December 8, 2013Today’s Bizarro:
A somewhat strained portmanteau of Frankenstein and Santa Claus — metrically similar two-part names. But an odd image.
Cod loins
December 7, 2013
Cartoon retirement
December 7, 2013
Mandela
December 6, 2013On the occasion of Nelson Mandela’s death (at 95), reported on in almost every medium, the forthcoming cover of the New Yorker:
Means of communication
December 6, 2013Yesterday’s Zits, on communicating messages:
An old-fashioned scheme, very public and long-lasting. Though often cryptic.
Zippy’s rhymes
December 6, 2013Yesterday’s Zippy:
Play with bits of of rhymes from various sources, including Lewis Carroll.
Classical Spoonerism
December 6, 2013Reported by Joel Berson on ADS-L on the 4th:
grewd loaseness: Uttered (and soon corrected) by a radio news broadcaster about what a man who appeared nude in public, beat his fists on his head, and claimed he was God was arrested for.
Victor Steinbok noted that “genuine Spoonerisms” are rare, meaning that inadvertent word-part transpositions are rare (though he cited an example from his own experience: tissy pookler for pussy tickler ‘mustache’, and I’ve posted on inadvertent Oback Barama). Intentional — playful — word-part transpositions are extremely common, and so are inadvertent whole-word transpositions, reported on here fairly often, for instance in the porn quote:
You wanna fuck your shooting load! You wanna shoot your fuckin’ load!