Archive for October, 2019

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The better body butter, with Whipped Shea Butter

October 15, 2019

Now seen on tv, commercials for Gold Bond creams. In particular, this remarkable item:

(#1)

Radiance Renewal Whipped Shea Butter. Body Cream: 8 oz. Buttery smooth, ultra-rich hydration moisturizes skin for 24 hours.

Have you ever wished you could have all the benefits of a raw Shea Butter, but with a smooth, easy application? Meet GOLD BOND® Radiance Renewal Whipped Shea Butter.

Oh, honey, I have yearned for raw Shea Butter, but always hoped it could somehow be whipped into smoothness, for I am a sensitive fellow. And I’ve long mused about the fabulous Irishman Shea who gave his name to this remarkable ultra-rich hydrating substance.

Imagine my astonishment when I discovered that Shea was not Irish at all but West African, and that he was a nut-bearing tree. Also that Shea Butter, like Coconut Oil, provides not only moisturization, but also nourishment. Shea is, in a word, eminently edible.

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Posted in Language and food, Language and plants, Language in advertising, Language play, Names, Tongue twisters, Trade names | Leave a Comment »

Sharing your penguin

October 15, 2019

From the Economist‘s 8/17/19 issue, in the Science & Technology section, under “Animal behaviour”: “Leopard seals share their suppers: Bad news if you are a penguin” on-line; “P-P-Pick up a penguin: Antarctic predators share their supper” in print (with a headline bow to McVitie’s biscuits):

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Posted in Language and animals, Language and food, Penguins | Leave a Comment »

Space Candy

October 14, 2019

(Highly sexualized men’s underwear, leading to blunt talk of men’s bodies and mansex. Lots of other content, but this is enough to put it out of bounds for kids and the sexually modest.)

Today’s Daily Jocks ad, for a new line of underwear for the PUMP! company — the image is meant to be outrageous, fey, macho, and funny, all at once — with their ad copy:


(#1) The all new Space Candy Collection from PUMP! has launched. A new take on PUMP’s classic shape, available in Space Candy Pink & Purple. [available as a boxer (boxer brief), (low-rise) brief, and jock]

An image crammed with content — incuding those little candy-themed patches on the front (on the hip or pouch) and the back (on one cheek) of the garments.

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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Color, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and food, Language and plants, Lexical semantics, Masculinity, Metonymy, Movies and tv, My life, Phallicity, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Unaccompanied

October 13, 2019

This touching Sara Lautman pun cartoon from the 10/14 New Yorker:


(#1) “You know, sooner or later we’re going to have to let her go out unaccompanied.”

It all depends on what you mean by unaccompanied.

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Posted in Ambiguity, Argument structure, Formulaic language, Implicature, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Negation, Puns | 1 Comment »

Butch fagginess, take 3

October 12, 2019

(Underwear models performing displays of their bodies as sexual objects and, through their attire, stance, and facial expression, projecting personas. So: definitely carnal, but not down and dirty — mostly reflections on styles of masculiity and styles of male homosexuality — but not to everyone’s taste.)

The Daily Jocks ad from the 9th is another in a series of DJX Varsity mesh offers featuring a forbiddingly / seductively hyper-masculine character I’ll call the MeshMaster, from the tough-top persona the character projects. But this time the MeshMaster has accessorized with a bit of high-gay fashion, a neon pink harness under his black mesh crop top:


(#1) Macho on the outside; on the inside, behind the black mesh curtain, flamboyance — which he secretly treasures (his right hand, inside, pointing to the harness, is the visual center of the composition)

Yet another chapter in what I’ve called butch fagginess, sending  mixed messages: simultaneously high-macho and flagrantly gay.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Masculinity, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

The verb of the American moment

October 12, 2019

The verb is depose — actually two homophonous verbs, with very different senses (though they share a history). Currently in the US news in one sense because of Helmet Grabpussy’s shrieks that movements towards impeaching him are attempts at a coup, attempts to overthrow him, depose him from office; and in another sense because House committees have been summoning witnesses to give sworn testimony, to be deposed formally.

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Posted in Ambiguity, Etymology, Language and politics, Lexical semantics, Movies and tv | 2 Comments »

The existential question

October 11, 2019

In today’s Zippy strip, Zerbina and Zippy contemplate their existence — ever an issue for self-aware cartoon characters:

(#1)

How do we know we exist? And if this perilous sort of existence, created in the mind and (literally) at the hands of an artist, fails to be validated by those in the outer, non-cartoon, world, are we nothing but a dream (sweetheart)?

Perhaps a concern for all of us, but especially pointed for cartoon characters. Who will speak for them, especially now that Mad Magazine is gone?

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Posted in Comic conventions, Identities, Linguistics in the comics, Poetry | 2 Comments »

Der Migros-Sprecher Gabriel Zwicky

October 9, 2019

In the Swiss German-language daily Blick, a 10/6 story by Marc Iseli, “Neues Gastro-Konzept kommt nach Zürich: Migros bringt den Metzger zum Anfassen” (‘A new gastronomic concept comes to Zürich: Migros makes the butcher accessible’), about a new program — some combination of Retail, Gastronomie und Event — that is somehow supposed to bring the consumer closer to the producers of food (the butcher, the baker, the fisherman, the farmer), at least in the giant supermarket by the main railway station in Zürich:


(#1) From the butcher’s hands to yours, in the new “Meet Food” (yes, with a name borrowed from English) program (note: I didn’t choose this photo; Blick did; I will, however, inventory it in my files under “Phallicity: The Wurst”, where it deserves some sort of vividness trophy)

The story is about this still not fully defined program, but its primary interest for me is that it comes from der Migros-Sprecher (‘the Migros spokesperson’) Gabriel Zwicky, who gets his name in the news quite a lot, Migros being a very big thing in Switzerland. Zwickys, we are everywhere.

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Posted in German, Language and food, Lexical semantics, Names, Phallicity, Switzerland and Swiss things, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »

Two old cartoon friends

October 9, 2019

… in recent mail: border-collie-bereft medicos (from Scott Hilburn on 8/12/14) and Egyptian spelling contests (from Rhymes With Orange today), bringing the return of two familiar cartoon themes:


(#1) The POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) from Doctors Without Borders + border collies


(#2) A spelling bee done with hieroglyphs

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Spelling | Leave a Comment »

A rich internal life

October 8, 2019

(The beginning of this posting is about the complexities of conscious experience — attentional foci and internal lives — but midway through it veers into sexual matters, eventually into a raw account of steamy mansex, entirely unsuitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

The Zits strip from 10/5, about Sara and Jeremy’s fugitive thoughts:


(#1) Sara’s conscious attention is on her homework, but anxieties about her academic life and about current events intrude; meanwhile, Jeremy is consciously focused on listening to Sara’s lament, but finds thoughts of food intervening

What’s involved is a division between two parts of the stream of consciousness: an attentional focus, the central concern in what you are doing at the moment; and any number of peripheral concerns, matters that crowd your consciousness without being chosen for attention, these peripheral concerns together constituting what I’ll call your internal life at the moment.

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Memory, My life | Leave a Comment »

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