Arnold Zwicky's Blog

(Not much linguistics, but there are penguins and mammoths.)

A late birthday present on Friday, wrapped in rainbow tissue paper:

(#1) From the Sock It To Me company in Portland OR: “Penguin Taking Flight” crew socks (artist: Tara Gildow)

The back story from the company:

Blue men’s crew socks featuring a steampunk penguin wearing headgear and a jet pack launching upwards

Tired of being mocked by other flying birds, this flightless penguin is taking matters into her own hands…err wings. Steamed she couldn’t fly, she built herself a marvelous flying contraption and finally took flight. Wear these magnificent penguin socks when you feel a little too earthbound and need to take things to the next level.

Just strap it on and take off.

(Huge hat tip to Sally Byers.)

About the company, in their own words:

Fun socks and comfortable underwear that are as awesome as you are.

You’re going to feel great in Sock It to Me. Why? Because our socks & underwear have a little magic in them … just like you. You’ll walk confidently — whether in knee high socks that everyone can see, or hidden within shoes or pants just for you — because you can be your amazing self. Are you feeling like rockets in space or rainbow-riding unicorns? How are you going to color outside the lines today? We can help.

They offer a range of sizes, various styles (crew, knee-high, dress, etc.), and a huge number of designs (also underwear: bikini, hipster, boxer brief, etc.). Their categories of designs:

aliens, animals, aquatic, bears, bikes, birds, books, bugs, bunnies, cats, christmas, comic book, dinosaurs, dogs, drinks, educational, farm, food, forest, foxes, games, halloween, hearts, historical, hobbies, holidays, legendary, llamas, mermaids, music, mythical, nature, outer space, pets, rainbows, sasquatch, sci-fi, science, sharks, skulls, sloths, sports, statements, stem, stripes, travel, tropical, unicorns, valentine’s day, zoo

(Their new underwear designs, in boxer briefs, include Nacho, Nacho Man; Land of the Dino; and Glazed Galaxy (donuts in space).)

I note that, for the socks to be properly appreciated, you need to go around in your stocking feet. Perhaps I should arrange a sock party, so we could all show off our inventive foot coverings. Underwear parties are, after all, a recognized thing — all that amazing underwear I write about on this blog needs an audience.

One more totem. Having been given penguin socks, I dared to hope for woolly mammoth socks — if one totem animal, why not two? Sock It To Me did not disappoint:

(#2) Man Cave Crew Socks from the company (artist: Britt Hurley)

The copy:

The man cave, where you can do manly things like make fire, ride a woolly mammoth, and paint the walls. Ya know, man stuff. If you feel you need a refuge from this modern, technology-infused world, put on a pair of man cave socks to remind you of your roots. The design is where this socks’ primitive nature ends, because we’ve included our cutting edge technology to make them extremely comfortable & durable.

I didn’t expect my third totem animal, the sea eagle (or erne(s)), to be available as sock or underwear, and it isn’t — only the bald eagle in a patriotic display.

So I’m contemplating doing manly things. Going deep into caves, riding the wild mammoths, rooting around in a primitive way, that sort of stuff. Occasionally strapping on a power pack and shooting off. Socks are inspiring.

This entry was posted on October 6, 2019 at 11:53 am and is filed under Clothing, Double entendres, Language in advertising, Mammoths, Penguins. 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.