Posted on Facebook, this Peter Steiner cartoon from 2016:
(#1) From a 1/28/16 posting on Steiner’s blog
The humor turns on an ambiguity of the verb read, and also on a specialization of the derived nominal reading to a very culture-specific event.
(Then some words on the artist, who now has a Page on this blog.)
The One Big Happy in today’s comics feed, from 9/26:
(#1)
Ruthie is faced with the task of demonstrating what a word means by using it in a sentence — a task often assigned to children as a test of their understanding of word meanings. But choosing effective example sentences is a challenging art for professional lexicographers, and children are not particularly good at it.
In this case, “the word skate” could be a verb (‘move on ice skates or roller skates in a gliding fashion’ (NOAD)) or any one of several nouns, but, on hearing about her tightwad great-aunt, Ruthie fixes instead on the otherwise opaque /sket/ portion of the compound cheapskate ‘tightwad, miser’ (which she analyzes as a composite nominal cheap skate).
In today’s comics feed, the 9/22 One Big Happy, in which Joe wrestles with people named /lɪl/:
(#1)
(And then there’s Li’l Abner.)
In today’s comics feed, the One Big Happy for September 21st:
Playground Lady intends a WH question with (a reduced variant of) the auxiliary V is + a predicative PP headed by the P like ‘similar to’. Ruthie, ever keen on the reading not intended, hears a WH question with (a reduced variant of) the auxiliary V does (a PRS form of the V lexeme DO) + a complement VP headed by the BSE form like of the V lexeme LIKE ‘find enjoyable’. What is he like? (possible answer: He’s short and blond and funny-looking ) vs. What does he like? (possible answer: He likes playing video games).
The fall special at Dan Gordon’s (on Emerson St. in Palo Alto), as it first appeared on the menu, about a month ago:
Summer Stew $16.95
smoked pork / cippolini onions / chic peas / prunes / red rice
(with the very notable spelling chic peas and with the misspelling cippolini for cipollini). But now the ingredients list reads:
smoked pork / cippolini onions / chickpeas / dehydrated plums / red rice
(with the notable dehydrated plums). Actually, all four ingredients have linguistic interest.
From Robert Coren on Facebook today:
Headline in today’s Boston Globe: “Mormons required to spend less time in Sunday Services”. Wait, what? That seems like a strange requirement.
Turns out it means that the amount of time they’re required to spend in the services has been reduced.
The Globe is behind a paywall for me, so all I can see is that the head seems to have been edited to the unproblematic “Mormons to spend less time in Sunday Services”.
Still, the headline RC reports is of some interest as an example of a scope ambiguity, involving a modal condition (of requirement) and a change of state (in time spent on an activity).
Currently viral on the net, this punning Humpty Dumpty cartoon:
(#1)
The noun fall ‘act of falling or collapsing’ vs. (North American) ‘autumn’, with a corresponding accompanying ambiguity in the adjective great: ‘very large’ vs. ‘of considerably high quality’.
The One Big Happy from 9/5 has Ruthie enmeshed in the syntax and semantics of comparison:
The reduced comparative X can jump higher than your house: ‘jump higher than your house is’ (Grandpa’s intended reading), OR ‘jump higher than your house can jump’ (Ruthie’s perceived reading ).
The catch phrase of writer and performer Merle Kessler’s alter ego Ian Shoales, just a bit short of the more vernacular I’m outta here. That’s motion go. Then there’s elimination go, and an ambiguity between the two, as exploited by Calvin in this (recently re-cycled) Calvin and Hobbes strip:
(#1)