Archive for March, 2018

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It was 53 to 55 years ago today

March 26, 2018

A bit of intellectual and social history, plus a lesson in the fragility of memory. Set off by the British scholar Chris Knight on his Science and Revolution website, in two postings there:

from 2/18/18, “Chomsky’s Students Recall their Time at the MITRE Corporation”

from 3/4/18, “The MITRE Corporation’s project to use Chomsky’s linguistics for their weapons systems”

I come into this because I was one of those students of Chomsky’s who worked at the MITRE Corp. (in Bedford MA), in 1963-65 (53 to 55 years ago). Some of us have been trying to reconstruct those days, for Chris’s sake but also for our own.

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Posted in Computational linguistics, Language and politics, Linguists, Memory, My life | 3 Comments »

Deacccenting

March 26, 2018

Coming past me every so often on tv, a commercial for the Car Gurus company, in which the pronunciation of the company name varies from a clear car gurus, [ˈkarˌguruz], with a secondary accent on the first syllable of gurus, to something like cargaroos, [ˈkargəruz], with this syllable unaccented and its vowel reduced to schwa — indeed, including the intermediate variant [ˈkargʊruz], with that syllable deaccented and its vowel laxed but not reduced to schwa.

My ears perked up at the pronunciations with deaccented second element, because they sounded so odd — because they effaced the identity of the guru component of the name, which is surely semantically important to the image of the company, which proposes to offer gurus, in this sense from NOAD:

noun guru: an influential teacher or popular expert

(more…)

Posted in Language in advertising, Pronunciation, Prosody | Leave a Comment »

picadillo

March 26, 2018

In my posting queue from long ago, a note about a bon appétit magazine piece on picadillo; the function of the note was mostly to remind me of the version of picadillo that Ann Daingerfield (Zwicky) and I used to make in Columbus OH: a kind of do-it-yourself Mexican meal. The picadillo mixture keeping warm in a big bowl; a platter of browned tortillas to make into tacos and fill with the picadillo; and a large assortment of small bowls with things to add to the tacos.

The result was something along these lines:

(#1)

(more…)

Posted in Language and food, My life, Names | 2 Comments »

Todrick Hall

March 26, 2018

… and one-person quartet singing.

I start with Todrick, from Wikipedia:

(#1)

Todrick Hall (born April 4, 1985 in Plainview, Texas) is an American singer, actor, dancer, director, drag queen, choreographer, songwriter and YouTuber.

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Music | Leave a Comment »

The Caesar cocktail

March 26, 2018

The northern answer to the Bloody Mary. It started in Calgary about 50 years ago.

Clam broth /juice is the secret ingredient

From the girlheartfood site from 6/8/17:

This Ultimate Caesar Cocktail is a total Canadian classic. It’s Clamato juice based with a hit of vodka and the whole thing gets flavour and spice from ingredients like horseradish, Worcestershire sauce and hot sauce.

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Posted in Language and food, Names | Leave a Comment »

Haiku Robot

March 25, 2018

An Instagram site that searches for posted material that can be treated as a haiku (a 3-line poetic form with 5, 7, and 5 syllables in the lines). Recently, the robot took on sex between men (not at all graphically).

An example of a found haiku, based on a posting that went:

I suppose ant-man’s boss could be considered a micromanager

— to which the robot responded with the 5-7-5 version:

i suppose ant-man’s
boss could be considered a
micromanager

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Implicature, Jokes, Memes, Movies, Poetic form, Relevance, Semantics, Variation | Leave a Comment »

Two (more) Sunday cartoons

March 25, 2018

A Rhymes With Orange, with an outrageous pun; and a Zits, with a fatherly fabrication of names:

(#1) Airbnb / DnD

(#2) If Orion’s Belt, why not Orion’s Fanny Pack?

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Music, Names, Toys and games | Leave a Comment »

this guy

March 25, 2018

Today’s One Big Happy, with a now-classic mishearing:

(#1) the sky’s heard as this guy’s

In my 5/30/12 posting “Annals of mishearing”, discussion of the sky misheard as this guy, on several occasions.

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Posted in Catchphrases, Linguistics in the comics, Mishearings, Movies and tv | Leave a Comment »

Art objects and utilitarian objects

March 25, 2018

Today’s Zippy, on the relationship between the two:

(#1)

In brief: utilitarian objects can be aesthetically pleasing — can be seen as art objects — without any conscious intention on the part of the designer; or they can be created with an eye towards pleasing design; or they can be self-consciously designed as objects to view (because they are pleasing or playful or both) as well as objects to use. Above: type 1.

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Posted in Art, Linguistics in the comics | 1 Comment »

Active shooters, armed gunmen, and their ilk

March 24, 2018

(For the day of the Marches for Our Lives.)

On March 2nd in the Stanford Report, the university’s daily newsletter for faculty and staff, the top item:

(#1) About the video “Run. Hide. Fight. — Surviving an Active Shooter Event”

My main interest here is in the family of expressions that includes active shooter and armed gunman, but as usual my attention will wander far afield.

(more…)

Posted in Language and the law, Pleonasm | Leave a Comment »

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