Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Today’s Bizarro, turning on an ambiguity in spoiled:

(#1)

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)

On the ambiguity, from NOAD2:

(of food) become unfit for eating: I’ve got some ham that’ll spoil if we don’t eat it tonight.

harm the character of (a child) by being too lenient or indulgent: the last thing I want to do is spoil Thomas | (as adj. spoiled): a spoiled child.

The witch figure in the cartoon is the wicked witch of Hansel and Gretel:

“Hansel and Gretel” (also known as Hansel and Grettel, Hansel and Grethel, or Little Brother and Little Sister) … is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister kidnapped by a cannibalistic witch living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children save their lives by outwitting her. The tale has been adapted to various media, most notably the opera Hänsel und Gretel (1893) by Engelbert Humperdinck and a stop-motion animated feature film made in the 1950s based on the opera.

The three main characters in the 1955 animated film:

(#2)

But the witch figure in #1 has a witch’s classic pointy hat; plus a green face, probably from Wicked.

This entry was posted on March 12, 2016 at 10:21 am and is filed under Ambiguity, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv. 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.