Archive for February, 2016

The greater West Coast area

February 29, 2016

Recently got a note on the local shapenote singing list about shapenote events in the “greater West Coast area”, which turned out to include at least AZ (where there was an event) as well as WA, OR, and CA — which are actually on the West Coast, though AZ (which abuts CA) isn’t much further away from the coast than much of central California.

In fact, if AZ, why not NV as well; they’re about equally far away (but I suspect there’s very little if any shapenote singing there). And indeed, the southwest corner of UT is only a little bit further away from CA.

And in fact, there’s at least one site that includes AZ, NV, and UT in the greater West Coast region/area.

(more…)

Four mythic hunks

February 29, 2016

(Almost no language stuff: it’s about mythic, in one sense, performances by hunky men. Yes, I have my shallow moments.)

The appearance on my cable tv menu of the playing of the 2012 Wrath of the Titans got me to check the movie out. That brought me to a list of (relatively) recent movies and tv shows with mythological themes and hunky actors in starring roles. By actor, reverse chronologically:

Sam Worthington (film: Perseus in Clash of the Titans (2010) and Wrath of the Titans (2012))

Brad Pitt (film: Achilles in Troy (2004))

Ryan Gosling (tv: Young Hercules (1998-9))

Kevin Sorbo (tv: Hercules: The Legendary Journeys (1995-99))

(more…)

Briefly: what is a category?

February 29, 2016

Life on the net brings many annoyances. Software is frequently updated, in ways that sometimes make you have to re-learn how to do things. Blogging sites (I use WordPress for this blog and the much more tolerant livejournal for AZBlogX) and social media sites  (I read and post to Facebook and Google+) change the way they work, frequently, and they almost never announce these changes, so you suddenly discover that things no longer work the way they used to, and you have to discover (by trial and error, or asking around) a way to do what you want to do.

Facebook is famous for changing the way it works, sometimes apparently trying something out (maybe on only some of its users) and then changing things back the next day. Vexing.

WordPress made some substantial changes, unannounced, a few months ago, and I’m still coping with one of the little oddities of the current system, the way the label Uncategorized is used.

(more…)

Comic consciousness

February 28, 2016

The Scenes From A Multiverse from the 26th has Snake One suddenly, and comically, conscious of the limitations of his body for performing his duties under Snake Leader in the Spacespider Colonies :

(#1)

This casts Snake One into a downward spiral of doubt and confusion.

(more…)

Georgia Dunn and BCN

February 28, 2016

Benita Bendon Campbell points me to a feature on the GoComics blog: “Meet Your Creator: Georgia Dunn (Breaking Cat News)”, in which Dunn talks entertainingly about how her strip Breaking Cat News (in which cat reporters present the television news, for the cats in their household, about events of the day in that household) came into being.

(more…)

Paul Sixta and Marios and more

February 28, 2016

(About photography/video and the male body, rather than about language.)

It started with a wonderful atmospheric photograph of a gorgeous nude man, sent to me by Mike McKinley, but without a source. The image is #1 in a posting I just did on AZBlogX; although it’s clearly a work of art (by a professional photographer using a professional model), it has a penis in it, so I can’t reproduce it here or on Facebook or Google+.

I gave the image the name “Romantic Haze” (since the model was posed in a blue-purple haze) while I searched for the source. This time Google Images eventually brought me to young Dutch filmmaker and photographer Paul Sixta and his model Marios.

(more…)

Saturday news for penguins

February 27, 2016

Two items yesterday from friends offering penguiniana: from Victor Steinbok, a report of a (somewhat goofy-sounding) scientific research project on the stability of walking (that is, waddling) penguins; and from Chris Waigl, a German cartoon about philosopher penguins.

(more…)

A new Page, on I vs. me etc.

February 27, 2016

Created yesterday, a Page on this blog (under “Linguistics notes”) devoted to pronoun case in English, created originally for the use of Tyler Lemon, who’s working on a Stanford undergraduate honors thesis in linguistics on the topic, but now made availabe to everyone interested.

The page inventories postings (mostly on this blog, but some on Language Log, and a few elsewhere) on the choice between Nom and Acc in English, including who vs. whom, the case of conjoined objects, especially in the NomConjObj (Nom Conjoined Objects, like between you and I) construction, the case of subjects in embedded clauses (Acc case in ISOC — In-situ Subject of Clause — and ESOC — Extracted Subject of Clause), the case of pronouns in combination with preceding items like as, beside(s), but, including, like, than, case in inversion constructions (Along came me), case in predicatives (It is I/he/*they, It’s me/*I, That’s me/*I in the photo), case in fragment constructions (for example, short answers to questions: Who’s there? Me/*I), case in formulas (Woe is me, Till death do us part), Nom he (He ‘God’, generic he) as object of preposition, case in appositives (we/us Americans), case choice and style/register, case choice influenced by the exigencies of rhyme (Oh where oh where has my little dog gone? / Oh where oh where can he be? / They make them [sausages] of dog they make them of horse, / I think they make them of he), case choice in nonstandard dialects, and more. Possessives (Poss my etc.) and reflexives (Refl myself etc.) are clearly related but this imventory touches on them only tangentially.

A Rhymes word exchange

February 26, 2016

Yesterday’s Rhymes With Orange, with a word exchange (also known as word reversal, word metathesis, and word-level spoonerism):

Here’s where the bodies are buried
–> Here’s where the berries are bodied

I’m not at all clear about the story unfolding here, but formally we’ve got a word exchange, occurring (in the world of this strip) as some kind of mistake; such things are reasonably common in real life, and so are word exchanges as a form of language play.

(more…)

On the right

February 26, 2016

Yesterday’s Zippy, with an unusual Muffler Man figure and some language play on senses of right and senses of arms and bare vs. bear:

(more…)