This morning’s Bizarro:
A ridiculous analysis of tendinitis as ten ’10’ + a mystery element -dinitis (presumably referring to some medical condition), which would then allow for the greater (and graver) eleven ‘ll’ as the first element — a morphological analysis and extension you might expect from a clever child, but scarcely from a physician.
A doctor would recognize tendinitis as tendon (the body part) + the inflammation suffix -itis. (tendIn rather than tendOn reflects fine points of Latin morphophonemics).
[Added: On Google+, Tim Evanson reminds me, indirectly, that Nigel Tufnel is the lead guitarist in the rock band Spinal Tap, as in the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap.]
June 28, 2014 at 3:39 am |
Nigel Tufnel, whose amplifiers went up to 11, not just 10 (see quotes from the mockumentary).
June 28, 2014 at 5:06 am |
Ah yes, I’d forgotten that. It makes the cartoon even more satisying. But note, once again, just how much background knowledge you might need to fully appreciate a cartoon.
June 29, 2014 at 2:25 am |
The BBC’s online media have a volume setting that goes up to 11, as a deliberate nod to Spinal Tap.