In the 2/15&22/21 issue of the New Yorker, this cartoon by Kaamran Hafeez and Al Batt:
(#1)
“Now that we can talk, we have to have meetings.”
In the larger domain of Emergence of Language cartoons, this is a subspecialty — on the Now What? theme:
We’re learned to speak / talk / write. We’ve invented language. Now what?
One of my favorites in this vein, in my 7/3/10 posting “We need to talk”, a Leo Cullum cartoon:
(#2)
And I have posted two Bizarro cartoons on the theme. The first, on Language Log, from 1/30/07 on “Pronouns: the early days”. The cartoon (from 1/29/07) is no longer available in that posting:
(#3)
The other, from 3/30/10, finally appearing here in my 3/30/19 posting “How to use your balloons”:
(#4)
Finally, three texts from relevant cartoons (with the names of the artists, but not the art) that require payment for use:
— Got idea. Talk better. Combine words. Make sentences. — Sidney Harris
— A: Nouns, verbs, adjectves, pronouns, prepositions, interjections and conjunctions — Are those all the parts of speech we’ll need? B. Hopefully. — Bob Thaves and Tom Thaves, Frank and Ernest (one in a series) [I’m very fond of the little adverb twist in this one.]
— Now that we’ve learned to talk, maybe we should establish some speech codes. — Baloo
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