Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Today’s Bizarro, in which Mr. Peanut (a registered brand) and Ms. GrapeJella (my invented name), a jar of grape jelly, face off:

(#1)

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

So many ways to combine the grape and the peanut, directly or via their metonymic associates (Ms. GrapeJella and Mr. Peanut) and their metonymic associates (grape jelly and peanut butter); and by combining things or by combining words (more carefully: linguistic expressions denoting those things).

In the cartoon, Mr. Peanut and Ms. GrapeJella engaged in sexual union, the product of which is baby PB&J, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich (on which, see my 4/2/17 posting “National PB&J Day”). That’s one kind of combo.

In a literal peanut butter & jelly sandwich, peanut butter and jelly (most commonly, grape jelly) are layered between slices of bread, to yield a composite. Or they could combine in a mixture, as in this product from the Smucker’s company:

(#2) Goober Grape® PB&J Stripes is the ultimate combo made with Smucker’s Grape Jelly. Perfect for that classic peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

Hybrids. Though bioengineering hasn’t reached these stages, we could imagine a hybrid plant Vitis x Arachis, a genetic cross between a variety of grape and a variety of peanut.

What to call it? Perhaps with a copulative compound grape-peanut or peanut-grape, denoting something that is both grape and peanut. Or with a headed compound grape peanut or peanut grape, depending on which contributor you take to be primary. Or perhaps with a portmanteau like the clunky peanape (the words do not combine any more easily than the plants hybridize).

More possibilities. The headed compounds grape peanut and peanut grape could also name other kinds of combos of peanut and grape (or peanut butter and grape jelly). A grape peanut could be a grape-colored peanut, a grape-shaped peanut, a peanut simulacrum made of whole grapes, crushed grapes, grape seeds, or grape jelly, and no doubt other things. A peanut grape could be a grape that of a peanut-brown color, a peanut-shaped grape, a grape simulacrum made of peanuts in their shells, shelled peanuts, or peanut butter, and no doubt other things.

If you’re artistically inclined, you could try drawing some of these possibilities, or others that you might dream up.

This entry was posted on August 14, 2017 at 12:41 pm and is filed under Compounds, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Words and things. 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.