March | 2017 | Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Archive for March, 2017

Risible (faux-)commercial name

March 13, 2017

From a posting by Randy Murray to the Facebook page‎ “THE ERRORIST MOVEMENT – Correct grammar, with humour”, where he comments, “apostrophes mean so much”:

(#1)

At first glance, this ad would seem to fall into four big topic areas on this blog: dubious commercial names; It’s All Grammar; vulgar slang; and phallic play (in particular, word play). To which I add: the conventions on the form of hashtags, e-mail addresses, and web addresses (URLs). But first, I have to tell you that this particular Dick’s Pizza is a fabrication.

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Posted in Double entendres, Language and animals, Language of advertising, Language play, Movies and tv, Names, Phallicity, Punctuation, Puns, Spelling, Taboo language and slurs, Usage advice, Usage attitudes | 4 Comments »

A political parable

March 12, 2017

From the NYT Book Review on 3/5/17, (in print) “Stalin Goes Atomic: The Soviet leader’s terror tactics extended even to the men driving his technology program”, (on-line) “Stalin Gets Results: The Soviet Push for Tech Dominance”, by Simon Sebag Montefiore, a review of Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy 1905-1953 by Simon Ings.

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Posted in Books, Science | Leave a Comment »

bombogenesis

March 12, 2017

The weather forecast for the US Northeast is dire, calling for a fierce late winter storm, with plenty of snow. Map from the Northeast Weather site on Facebook (link from Eleanor Houck, who lives in the Reading area in southeastern Pennsylvania, right in the red zone):

In some of the forecasts, Eleanor came across the colorful technical term bombogenesis, suggesting a “weather bomb”. New to her, and to me, but it’s been around for a while.

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Posted in Language of science, Names, Pragmatics | Leave a Comment »

hyperbaton, hypermasturbation

March 11, 2017

The Dinosaur Comics from the 3rd, in principle about hyperbaton:

But hypermasturbation (which sounds sort of like hyberbaton) intrudes in the conversation.

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Posted in Discourse organization, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Word order | 2 Comments »

Dinobros

March 11, 2017

Link from Alon Lischinsky to this Dinosaur Comics (BROS OF HISTORY) on the 5th:

A festival of broplay, with word substitutions (bros for forefathers, bros for men, bro down on them for fight them) and bromanteaus (Brotus = bro + Brutus, brostravaganza = bro + extravaganza, brofore = bro + before, broversight = bro + oversight). And then there’s Edgar Allan Bro.

(This Dinosair Comics led me to another, from the 3rd, on hyperbaton, which will (remarkably) lead us into men’s bodies and mansex.)

Posted in Language of clothing, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus | 1 Comment »

Ejaculatory pop

March 11, 2017

(This will end up going way into graphic man-man sex territory, so it’s not for kids or the sexually modest.)

It started mildly enough, with an ADS-L posting yesterday by Joel Berson entitled

“pop”, noun, = ‘an ejaculation’ in 1722? As a verb, it dates from 1958

about the sexual slang verb pop ‘ejaculate’ (a natural metaphorical extension of explosive pop) and its nouning pop ‘an ejaculation’. The OED has the verb from 1958 on, but doesn’t have the noun at all, yet Berson found a 1722 quotation that might conceivably have an instance of the noun — though the text is far from straightforward in its interpretation.

According to the evidence in OED3 (Dec. 2006) and in GDoS, taken together, the verb seems to go back only to the mid-20th century, while the noun might go back as far as the mid-19th century (which would bring it much closer to Berson’s 18th-century text).

And then I have a vivid recollection of my first experience with the verb, which is what will take us into graphic mansex territory.

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Posted in Metaphor | 2 Comments »

News for penises: a friend request

March 11, 2017

(Well, yes, men’s bodies, sex talk, and man-man sex. Not for kids or the sexually modest.)

A friend request on Facebook, from someone using the name Nick Petersucker (some time ago, FB obviously ceased to care a great deal about its policy of insisting that posters use their real names; now, all sorts of remarkable names come past me on FB). His profile picture, a selfie of someone, first posted in 2012:

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Posted in Language of sex, Language play, Metonymy, Names, Synthetic compounds | 2 Comments »

Katharina Zwicky

March 10, 2017

Yet another Zwicky artist: Katharina, who signs herself as Katty. From her site:

I am pleased to announce the launch of my new Art & Photography portfolio web site KatharinaZwicky.com showcasing Illustration, Maps, Paper, Stationary & Art for Children.

The site also charts my endeavours on the MA Artist Teachers (MAAT) at Goldsmiths.

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Posted in Art, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »