Today’s Zippy, mostly about the Ten Pin Louisville, but with a point of linguistic interest:
(#1)
This is of course a real place; Griffith doesn’t make such things up.
Archive for January, 2014
Fun Is Bowling
January 28, 2014Flag food
January 28, 2014(Not really about language, though certainly about signs and symbols. And food.)
From Andy Rogers, a link to this site on “National flags made from each country’s traditional foods”. Many of these are brilliant. Here’s a simple one: the Italian flag, made from basil, pasta, and tomatoes:
In my Columbus OH household, we often cooked and ate “Italian flag food” — with green, white, and red ingredients, though not necessarily these three.
But this version certainly is pretty.
Average
January 28, 2014Yesterday’s Dilbert, on average:
The cartoon uses average as a technical term — mean or median — and also as an ordinary language term, meaning ‘mediocre’, invidiously.
Postings on comics
January 28, 2014Linguistics in the comics postings – December 2013
(postings on obscenicons are in a separate file)
These are postings about comics; asterisked items are those especially relevant to early parts of the Stanford freshman seminar on linguistics in the comics this winter quarter (2014).
*http://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/12/05/but-is-it-art/
what is a cartoon? Dinosaur Comics, xkcd
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2010/12/30/speech-balloons/
on speech balloons
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2011/11/16/x-is-the-real-y/
A Softer World: comic?
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/01/28/wordless-cartoons-words-only-cartoons/
wordless cartoons, words-only cartoons
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/02/05/sonneteer/
“comicteer” or “dialoguenaut” for “cartoonist” (Dinosaur Comics)
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/02/12/hot-comics/
division of labor in the comics: writer vs. artist, drawing vs. inking, story vs. realization, etc. (Zippy)
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/03/08/summer-in-the-comics/
summer in the comics? – proposal
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/04/15/cartoon-matters/
cartoon matters – gag cartoons
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/05/10/alison-bechdel/
Alison Bechdel – graphic novel
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/05/27/comics-books/
bibliography – graphic novel
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/05/29/raymond-briggs/
Raymond Briggs – graphic novel
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/06/03/balloons/
speech and thought balloons
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/06/17/cartoon-conventions/
Bizarro on visual conventions
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/06/18/more-cartoon-conventions/
more Bizarro on visual conventions
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/06/23/meta-zippy/
Zippy: cartoon characters ageing
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/07/01/the-cartoon-characters-assisted-living-facility/
Zippy: cartoon characters ageing
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/07/06/the-passage-of-time-in-the-comics-world/
Zippy: cartoon characters ageing
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/07/10/cartoon-fingers/
Bizarro on visual conventions: three fingers rather than four
*http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/07/13/in-the-comics/
comic-book genres, comics vs. cartoons
*http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/08/07/comic-machines/
art, cartoons, illustration, etc.
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/08/14/zippys-movie-career/
the comics world and the real world; Zippy’s lg.
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/08/28/best-word-ever/
McCagg diagrams: cartoons?
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/09/11/wally-wood/
“Panels That Always Work” by Wally Wood
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/09/28/course-preparation/
Carvell slides on preparing the freshman seminar; Dubinsky & Holcomb
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/10/15/ink-on-paper-vs-paint-on-canvas/
comics vs. graphic novels
*http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/10/29/on-cartoons/
comics vs. other forms; creation of comics; allusions to other comics
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/11/07/bubbles/
bubbles under water
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2012/12/22/triumph-of-the-nerds/
the rise of webcomics
BZ, 2/7/13: The cyberpragmatics of bounding asterisks:
http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=4466
typographical conventions
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/04/07/garfield-minus-garfield/
subtractive cartooning
http://arnoldzwicky.org/2013/08/13/manga-matters/
manga instruction books; Haida manga
Orthographic pun
January 27, 2014Monday’s Bizarro:
IV ‘the 4th’ vs. IV ‘intravenous’. I am tremendously tickled by this.
Homophonophobia
January 27, 2014This lovely coinage appeared recently on the Magic Coffee Hair site, in this cartoon:
A play on homophobic, of course.
Meanwhile, homophones are everywhere.
(The artist identifies himself merely as Jim. Webcartoonists are sometimes reclusive.)
Rising pitch
January 26, 2014In the Stanford freshman seminar on language in the comics, the topic of rising intonation at the end of intonational units came, with the predictable impression from some (by no means all) of the students that it was associated with asking questions. And then I was pointed to a piece by artist Taylor Mali, “Speak with conviction”, complaining about “invisible quesion marks”. There’s a deep but understandable confusion here.
Band names in the
January 26, 2014Neal Whitman on the Grammar Girl website on the 14th: “Why Some Band Names Take “The” and Others Don’t”. The Beatles (not Beatles) but Led Zeppelin (not The Led Zeppelin). And some — whatever the band’s own naming practices — sometimes go either way: (the) Talking Heads.
Cartoon etymology
January 26, 2014A link from Karen Chung to this Joseph Fall cartoon of the 16th:
A naturalistic theory of word origins, based on letter shapes in the Latin alphabet. Preposterous, but entertaining.
Jargon time
January 26, 2014The latest Dilbert:
Follow from the front …