Archive for November, 2015

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Canned cranjellyfish

November 27, 2015

On the op-ed page of the NYT yesterday, an Op-Art feature by graphic designer Mark Pernice, “Parade Balloons That Didn’t Get Off the Ground” (in print) or “Rejected Thanksgiving Balloons” (on-line), with (for example) The Turkey’s Head, A Dead Leaf, Booze & Bukowski, Drunk Texting Exes, Black Friday Doorbuster Ad. And Canned Cranjellyfish:

(#1)

The creature is a hybrid of a can of cranberry jelly (on top) and a jellyfish (with its “arms” at the bottom). The name is also a hybrid, a phrasal overlap portmanteau (POP) of canned cranberry jelly + jellyfish.

Two things here: cranberry sauce / jelly / relish for Thanksgiving; and Mark Pernice and his work.

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Posted in Art, Holidays, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, My life | Leave a Comment »

stuffing, dressing, filling

November 26, 2015

The centerpiece of the traditional Thanksgiving meal:

A roasted turkey, with its body cavity filled with a mixture of ingredients that were inside it during the roasting. There is some dispute — well, variation in local usage, about which some people feel proprietary — as to what this mixture is called: stuffing (which is pretty transparent semantically) and dressing (which is puzzling) are the most common alternatives, but some Pennsylvania Dutch folk favor filling (pretty semantically transparent again). But matters are more complicated, since some things called stuffing are used as side dishes, not stuffed into anything.

Then there’s the puzzle of dressing, which turns out to have a surprising etymology, one that connects it to the piece of women’s clothing the dress.

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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Holidays, Language and food, Lexical semantics, Names | Leave a Comment »

A non-traditional Thanksgiving dessert

November 26, 2015

These days, alternatives to classic American Thanksgiving foods are available from any number of ethic and national traditions; people recover the beloved foods of their childhood and incorporate them into their holiday food. In a 11/24/11 posting on “Thanksgiving meals” I surveyed a few alternatives from my own history: a tradition of posole (a Mexican hominy stew — in my cooking, made with chunks of pork and no beans, though there are lots of variants), and more recently dim sum at a Palo Alto Hong Kong-style Chinese restaurant, and today, back to Mexico at Reposado. (And then there’s Calvin Trillin advocating spaghetti carbonara.)

The classic dessert for Thanksgiving is pumpkin pie, which I have no enthusiasm for. After that, pecan pie, which I adore. And then, I suppose, apple pie, though in this case I prefer elegant French versions over sturdy American ones.

Now for something completely different: dried fruit compôte, intense and easy to cook. Here I’ll reproduce instructions I posted in the newsgroup soc.motss back in 1993; well, the instructions are written in the tone of my smart-ass alter ego, Alex Adams.

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Posted in Holidays, Language and food | Leave a Comment »

An underwear Thanksgiving

November 25, 2015

Today’s Daily Jocks ad, wishing us Happy Thanksgiving through a stud with a carefully sculptured body, wearing an Ibiza Brief in white, from Marcuse; and, as it turns out, offering gift boxes and gift vouchers “for a friend, partner, or even yourself!”

(#1)

On to a model of sad countenance showing off these briefs:

(#2)

He despaired of
Returning to Ibiza,
Having only these
Briefs to remind him of
Gay days in the sun.

He takes us to the Voucher Boys, Red and Yellow:

(#3)

The boys are wearing Rugger Jr. shorts from BCNU, in navy blue (with red trim and red-themed socks) and grey (with yellow trim and yellow-themed socks).

They’d been teammates and
Lovers for six years now, but
Hung back from talking about
Kinks: did Red’s red mean
Fist-fucking and Yellow’s yellow mean
Piss, or were they just
Color preferences?

Notes below the fold.

(more…)

Posted in Captioning, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Language of sex, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Tinnitus, tinnitus, semper tinnitus

November 25, 2015

It’s Thanksgiving Eve, so we’re about to embark on the official season of Christmas songs and Christmas shopping (though both have been upon us for some time, and Christmas decorations have been up for some time as well — at the restaurant Reposado in Palo Alto they went up right after Halloween). Periodically I post about about Christmas music, especially weird stuff; my daughter Elizabeth, grand-daughter Opal, and other friends feed me great stuff. In 2012, among my Christmas music postings was “The multicultural Christmas playlist, mostly Jingle Bells”, where I mentioned in passing the Latin translation of the song that I learned in high school, nearly 60 years ago. The part I still recall is the chorus:

Tinnitus, tinnitus, semper tinnitus
O tantum est gaudium dum vehimur in trahā

(There are other translations into Latin out there.) Now to look at the Latin.

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Posted in Holidays, Music, My life, Translation | Leave a Comment »

You’re done

November 25, 2015

Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm (Thanksgiving edition):

(#1)

So this turkey comes into a bar…

And sits down next to the Boston terrier Ralph, who cuts off the turkey’s drinks, announcing to him that he’s done (finished drinking). — because. pointing to the pop-up timer in his breast, he’s done (cooked thoroughly).

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Posted in Ambiguity, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

On the campaign trail with Vermin Supreme

November 25, 2015

Through various people on Facebook, reports on the presidential candidacy of Vermin Supreme.

(#1)

From Wikipedia:

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Posted in Language and politics, Music, Names, Pseudonyms, Puns, Silliness | Leave a Comment »

motion-goal BE

November 23, 2015

Overheard at lunch a few days ago:

(1) We’re going to Puerto Rico for the holidays; I’ve never been.

My first interpretation of the (elliptical) second clause was as

(2) I’ve never been to Puerto Rico.

with what I’ll call “motion-goal BE” in the pattern:

(3) HAVE been [PP to PLACE ]

where the lexical item BE is a motion verb, roughly glossable as ‘go’, so that (3) conveys ‘HAVE gone to PLACE’. Think of Charlene singing

(4) Ooh I’ve been to Georgia and California, and, anywhere I could run
…  I’ve been to paradise, but I’ve never been to me

(I’ll get to Charlene in a while. Meanwhile, you can hear her singing “I’ve Never Been to Me” by going to this YouTube site. Note: opinions about this song are strongly polarized: many people think it’s one of the world’s worst songs, while others think it provides wonderful advice about attending to your feelings. Please: I am not soliciting opinions here.)

Or with past perfect rather than present perfect:

(5) I realized that I’d been to Georgia and not eaten a single peach.

There’s a lot to be said about motion-goal BE, beyond its having BE as a motion verb.

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Posted in Idioms, Implicature, Movies and tv, Music, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

Nugenix

November 23, 2015

A couple of weeks ago I posted about the product ExtenZe,

a herbal nutritional supplement claiming to promote “natural male enhancement”, a euphemism for penis enlargement. Additionally, television commercials and advertisements claim an “improved” or “arousing” sexual experience [longer, stronger, harder erections]. (from Wikipedia)

Now another product has come along and is advertising heavily on cable tv, especially at night. Unlike ExtenZe, which contains small anounts of virtually every substance believed (in some tradition or another) to be of some efficacy in enlarging the penis or improving sexual performance, Nugenix has a small ingredients list, which includes one herb, fenugreek seed, that is not in ExtenZe.

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Posted in Language and medicine, Language and plants, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Names | Leave a Comment »

Using an ethnic slur

November 23, 2015

Once again, the New York Times has tip-toed around a taboo word or (in this case) slur by paraphrasing a speaker, while signaling that the speaker used an item banned from the paper.

This time, it came in the story “Ben Carson Is Struggling to Grasp Foreign Policy, Advisers Say” by Trip Gabriel, which quotes Duane R. Clarridge, former CIA agent and adviser to Carson:

“Russian special forces are staying in the Titanic Hotel in Sulaymaniya,” the operative said, according to notes recorded by [Carson’s top adviser Armstrong] Williams. “They frequent an Irish pub in the hotel bar.”

“The jump from Erbil and Soviets [by which Clarridge must have meant Russians]” to the Chinese in Damascus “is a long leap,” Mr. Clarridge said, using an ethnic slur for the Chinese.

Two things here:

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Posted in Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »

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