Archive for June, 2019
June 11, 2019
Today’s Zippy has our playful Pinhead frolicking and cavorting in the surf, on a water trike:
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In no particular order: the Aqua-Cycle water trike, seen above churning through the surf (and, quite possibly, several holiday-goers); the verbs frolic and cavort, great favorites of Zippy’s, which tend to come with a sexual tinge; the social custom of pleasurable frolicking and cavorting in the water, easily bent to homoerotic purposes, in displays of the body and playful contact between men; and one particular artist of that scene (from a great many), Keith Vaughan.
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Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Photography, Toys | Leave a Comment »
June 9, 2019
The 6/7 Zippy takes us to the Jersey Shore for some water ice in a squeeze cup:
(#1) At the Strollo’s Lighthouse Italian Ice shop in Long Branch NJ: Zippy (alarmed at climate change) speaking on the left, Claude Funston (who denies climate change) on the right
On the setting. On Strollo’s. On lemon as the vanilla of Italian ices. On the relevant C(ount) noun ice, the nominal Italian ice, and the compounds water ice and squeeze cup. On Italian ice and the family of similar confections.
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Posted in Combining forms, Compositional semantics, Compounds, Count & mass, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, My life, Semantics, Snowclones, Subsectivity | Leave a Comment »
June 6, 2019
Today’s Zippy starts with Zippy and Griffy at Universal Studios Hollywood, reflecting on what is worthwhile in our lives:
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Griffy inventories some of his passions, in high culture and popular culture (including sports and food):
Beethoven, Alice Neel, Miles Davis, Tiger Woods, Ernie Bushmiller (the Nancy cartoonist), tuna melt
And Zippy, being a cartoon character, follows with a catalogue of his own cartoon favorites:
Gerald McBoing Boing, Baby Huey, Yosemite Sam, Popeye the Sailor Man
Lots of stuff in these lists, but most of it is either in the cultural commons or treated in previous postings on this blog. The standout exception is the uncompromising portrait painter Alice Neel. She will lead us to a number of her subjects: the art critics Gregory Battcock and David Bourdon; the Greenwich Village eccentric Joe Gould; and the poet Frank O’Hara. It will end in naked men and some flagrant mansex, but I’ll warn you when this material looms.
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Posted in Art, Formulaic language, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Logos, Movies and tv, Music, Poetry, Signs and symbols | 3 Comments »
June 5, 2019
Thanks to my reader RJP, this excellent June cartoon by Christian Talbot and Sophie Hodge:
(#1) It’s got penguins. In a same-sex wedding. Plus sharks (exhibiting penguin envy: those penguins are always so smartly dressed!). For Pride month.
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Posted in Homosexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Penguins | 1 Comment »
June 5, 2019
Today’s Zippy takes us to a bit of now-vanished Camden NJ, the Elgin Diner Restaurant, and, next to it, a fantasy Chinese diner, an amalgam of two items of demotic culinary Americana: the classic diner (an Art Deco railcar where people meet to eat plain, familiar food); and the little Chinese (that is, American-Cantonese) restaurant:
(#1)
This will take us on the road to Ardmore PA, Wheeling WV, and Idaho Falls ID. For the trip, choose a diner classic — tuna melt, patty melt, club sandwich, meatloaf, macncheese — from column A; and a Chinese-restaurant classic — hot and sour soup, chow mein, garlic eggplant, General Tso’s chicken, sweet and sour pork — from column B. And then wok this way.
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Posted in Chinese, Language and culture, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture | 6 Comments »
June 4, 2019
From an exchange on Facebook a few days ago, in which (at least) two of the participants use the term perennial to refer to plants that are green all year round, that don’t lose their leaves for a dormant season. The discussion was set off by DA (not knowing the privacy wishes of the participants, I refer to them by their initials), posting about a practice that puzzles him:
DA: I never understood why [people] bother to plant [fruit] trees that don’t bear fruit.
To which DS replied with a number of reasons for the practice, but along the way introducing perennial in the sense ‘green all year long’ (relevant materal boldfaced):
DS: They provide many other benefits, for birds, shade, soil augmentation … they hold together hills so they don’t wash away .. and much more. Besides, they can be lovely. As far as I know, there are no perennial fruit trees so they can’t be used for privacy.
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Posted in Derivation, Language and food, Language and plants, Metaphor, Names, Naming, Taxonomic vs. common | 5 Comments »
June 4, 2019
Yesterday on Facebook, current political events brought me to a name from the past:
Arnold Zwicky: Topics suddenly resurrected from the past: the Ceausescus. Because of the solid diplomacy accorded to them by the British royal family when the Romanians came on a state visit. If them, then anyone.
Bert Vaux: Interestingly I first read that as “the Caucasus”…
Dennis Preston: And I read “caduceus.”
John Lawler: It took me quite a while to resurrect čaušɛsku.
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Posted in Errors, Language and politics, Misreadings, Signs and symbols | 1 Comment »
June 2, 2019
From the annals of Cartoonland spelling bees, in my 5/31 posting “Ultimate spelling bee”, this Bob Eckstein cartoon:
(#1) The contestant offers BOOIESUZYKQHHHH as the spelling for the given pronunciation /búwisúzikyú/ (or something very close to that)
In creating this cartoon (hastily — if you’re doing a bunch of cartoons a day, you don’t have a lot of time for reflection), Eckstein pulled some pronounceable nonsense out of his head as the contest word. The result is an expression with recognizable parts, two of which, /súzi + kyú/ form a familiar name — Susie Q — while the other, /búwi/, might be heard as any of several names, but in Eckstein’s mind was just two nonsense syllables that bubbled up in the heat of the moment.
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Posted in Interjections, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Names | 2 Comments »
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