Arnold Zwicky's Blog

In the latest New Yorker, a Paul Noth cartoon alluding to Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin:

(#1)

Then came a string of misogynist profanity from Weiner’s aide Barbara Morgan.

The Noth cartoon will lead us to the actual Weiner-Humedin nuptials, then via Noth to Where’s Waldo?, cheating spouse cartoons, and accent prejudice. Then: Morgan’s outburst included the unusual insult slutbag, and that’s attracted interest from linguabloggers.

Weiner and Humedin wed. You might suspect that (aside from the minister’s question) #1 is not an entirely accurate representation of the ceremony; that’s pretty clearly a Christian church, not a likely spot for someone who is conspicuously proud of his Jewishness to marry a practicing Muslim. But the clothing is in the ballpark:

(#2)

(Photo from the NY Daily News story.)

That was July 10th, 2010, at the Oheka Castle in Huntington, Long Island. The ceremony was officiated by former President Bill Clinton — a delicious fact.

Paul Noth. From his website:

Paul Noth is a writer and artist whose cartoons appear regularly in the New Yorker and occasionally in other publications, including the Wall Street Journal.

He was a regular guest writer for “Late Night with Conan O’Brien,” for which he created the cartoon “Pale Force.” He has also written for CBS’s “The Late Late Show” and other television programs.

A sampling of Noth cartoons. First, two on Where’s Waldo?:

(#3)

(#4)

Then one on accent prejudice:

(#5)

Where’s Waldo? From Wikipedia:

Where’s Wally? (known in the United States and Canada as Where’s Waldo?) is a series of children’s books created by British illustrator Martin Handford. The books consist of a series of detailed double-page spread illustrations depicting dozens or more people doing a variety of amusing things at a given location. Readers are challenged to find a character named Wally hidden in the group. Wally’s distinctive red-and-white-striped shirt, bobble hat, and glasses make him slightly easier to recognise, but many illustrations contain “red herrings” involving deceptive use of red-and-white striped objects.

Our hero, standing alone and lost in a crowd:

(#6)

(#7)

Cheating spouse cartoons. #4 is not only a Where’s Waldo? cartoon, it’s also a cheating spouse cartoon, in which one spouse  arrives to find the other in bed with someone else, or (as in #4) to find evidence that the other spouse has been sleeping with someone else.  One of the themes, or tropes, of gag cartoons, like the desert island cartoon or the dog-in-a-bar cartoon.

The Barbara Morgan obscenities. Back to Weinerworld. From John Voorhees on Slate on July 31st:

The Weiner Campaign Meltdown Continues: The “Slutbag” Edition

At this point, one would guess that Anthony Weiner’s campaign had run out of new ways to surprise us. (It seems to have perfected the old ways, after all.) But Tuesday night [the 30th], the disgraced-congressman-turned-disgrace-mayoral-candidate’s team managed to do it again when the Democrat’s communication director, Barbara Morgan, unleashed a string of obscenities when talking to a reporter about a former intern [Olivia Nuzzi] who had written a pair of unflattering articles about the campaign after her departure. Morgan’s choice of words included such gems as “cunt” and “twat,” and the less-used “slutbag.” [also that old standard, “bitch”]

Informed discussion of slutbag (and some related insults) appeared immediately (on the 31st):

Ben Zimmer on Language Log: The “-bag” of “slutbag”

Katy Steinmetz on TIME’s Swampland Blog: A History Of “Sl#tb*g,” the Latest Unflattering Word Associated With Anthony Weiner

Forrest Wickman on Slate: On the Origins of “Slutbag”

This entry was posted on August 3, 2013 at 9:49 am and is filed under Insults, Linguistics in the comics, Taboo language and slurs. 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.