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Archive for September, 2016

Anniversaries

September 18, 2016

A recent plaint from Aric Olnes (who is now 51) on Facebook:

Ugh. That moment when a retailer automatically spits out post-transaction coupons for Centrum Silver and laxatives! WTH, fifty is fifty! Sigh. Damn you, Walgreens.

Fifty is a cut-off point (at least in the U.S.) for the seque from middle age (beginning at 40 or 45, depending on who you read) to senior status (entered at 60-65, depending on who you read). There are “50+” organizations of many types, and the AARP takes members beginning at 50 — so it’s clearly not literally an association for retired persons (instead, it provides a kind of anteroom to retirement and true senior status).

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Posted in Events and occasions, Language and food, Puns | Leave a Comment »

Taking the job description literally

September 17, 2016

Two recent Dilberts:

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First Dilbert and the quality assurance guy Alan, then the pointy-haired boss and Alan.

Standard dictionaries don’t seem to have the technical use of assurance in quality assurance, though there is a techie Wikipedia entry on quality assurance that relates the expression to the verb ensure, rather than to the verb assure that the literalist Alan sees in it.

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Posted in Idioms, Linguistics in the comics, Ordinary vs. technical lg | 1 Comment »

Going all the way gay with the X-Men

September 16, 2016

An ad from the porn purveyor HisXpress for a gay porn flick from men.com:

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A remarkable project in several ways, starting with the fact that the video uses six of the X-Men characters without disguise in punning names or anything of the sort, so the Marvel firm must have been on board for the project — this despite the fact that the video is flat-out XXX-rated gay porn, as you can verify (if you wish) by viewing the trailer for the flick, which manages to provide a very short overview of the varieties of hot-hot man-man sex.

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Posted in Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Movies and tv, Parody | Leave a Comment »

hinky?

September 16, 2016

Caught in passing on a tv show, a character talking about cop-talk:

Hinky? That’s not even a word!

Like every other cry of “That’s not a word!”, this one is bullshit.

Start with the very short story, from NOAD2:

US informal (of a person) dishonest or suspect: he knew the guy was hinky. (of an object) unreliable: my brakes are a little hinky. ORIGIN 1950s: of obscure origin

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Posted in Music, Word attraction, Words | 3 Comments »

Toucan, get what you need

September 12, 2016

Ok, a lame pun on the line from the Rolling Stones’ song “You can’t always get what you want”(from their 1969 album Let It Bleed), here with reference to what we know in my household as the Toucan Bowl:

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The Stones song; toucans; and the Toucan Bowl.

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Posted in Language and animals, Music, My life, Puns | Leave a Comment »

The durian

September 12, 2016

Attacking a giant backlog of postings on food and plants (mostly due to prompts from Juan Gomez), I give you today the King of Delicious Stink, the durian.

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Regarded by many people in southeast Asia as the “king of fruits”, the durian is distinctive for its large size, strong odour, and formidable thorn-covered husk. (Wikipedia)

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Posted in Language and food, Language and plants | 3 Comments »

Breaking bad

September 12, 2016

Today’s One Big Happy is mostly about Ruthie’s mistaking femur (a genuinely rare word) for fever (a common one):

But there’s also a crucial ambiguity in the verb break.

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Posted in Ambiguity, Errors, Linguistics in the comics, Music | Leave a Comment »

Another take on evolution

September 11, 2016

A Mick Stevens cartoon in the latest (September 12th) New Yorker:

On the surface, just about evolution, but actually about any leaving, from any place or situation. Please don’t go; we can make things better here!

Posted in Evolution, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

The Mystery Man of Crotch Beach

September 11, 2016

(Some crude sexual talk, but some humor, too, and plants, several plants. Use your judgment.)

(Notice: Prunella vulgaris and Orchis mascula are real plants, and what I say about them and their names is, to the best of my knowledge, accurate. As for the rest, caveat lector.)

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