Archive for the ‘Architecture’ Category
November 19, 2018
From Charlie Doyle on ADS-L on November 10th:
According to two different ESPN commentators, a University of Georgia football player has had surgery on “both groins.” Doesn’t that sound odd?
Others agreed that it did — the problem being that, in their reckoning, each person has only one groin.
Then still others quoted anatomists, and dictionaries, supplying evidence of a usage in which everyone has two groins, one on each side. This is apparently the older usage, though for a great many, metonymy has shifted the everyday meaning to cover the entire crotch region, with (for them) the older usage surviving only as a technical term in anatomy.
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Posted in Architecture, Language and the body, Metaphor, Metonymy | Leave a Comment »
August 8, 2018
Further notes on the 31st motss.con in Montréal (which came to an end with a stragglers’ breakfast on Monday); background in my 8/3 posting “The rainbow pillars of Montréal”. And further explorations of things Swiss, or at least things called Swiss, in particular that Canadian institution, the Swiss Chalet restaurant chain. Motssers on holiday in Québec, food: that means poutine, (by report) consumed often and by many during the con.
Brief visual background on the con’s location, the Gay Village of the city:
(#1) Aerial view of Rue Ste-Catherine E. in the Gay Village, with its overhead rainbow-colored balls (from Chris Ambidge)
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Posted in Architecture, Dialects, French, Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language and society, Rainbow, Switzerland and Swiss things, Variation | 1 Comment »
October 30, 2017
Two recent Zippys offer remarkable vernacular architecture on the US coasts: a great rocky pile of a fantasy home, created by a performer of enormously popular entertainments — a castle on the Connecticut! — on the east, restaurants in the shape of a parasol — SoCal novelty architecture! — on the west:
(#1) Castle built a hundred years ago by actor William Gillette; reminiscent of the house in the Flintstones animated tv series; topped by the Carvel soft ice cream symbol
(#2) Parasol restaurant in SoCal’s Seal Beach (1967), sister to the first Parasol in Torrance (1961)
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Posted in Architecture, Diners, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture | Leave a Comment »
August 17, 2017
Today’s Zippy takes us to photographic LA:
(#1)
While namechecking the famous American photographers Diane Arbus, Edward Weston, Berenice Abbott, and Weegee, Zippy peers in the window of the Darkroom at 5370 Wilshire Blvd. in LA, now a bar and restaurant, originally a camera shop in the shape of a camera.
Looking for buidings in the shape of a camera will then take us around the world, thanks to a construction company in Karawang, West Java, Indonesia.
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Posted in Architecture, Art, Linguistics in the comics, Photography | Leave a Comment »
August 14, 2017
The Edsel and Eleanor Ford House in Grosse Pointe Shores MI (which brings us a satisfying instance of the –palooza libfix); and the Castello di Amorosa near Calistoga CA (which offers a range of California wines and also Belgian-style chocolate). The first designed to reproduce the vernacular architecture of the English Cotswolds, the second a fantasy re-creation of an Italian castle.
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Posted in Architecture, Language and food, Libfixes, Names | Leave a Comment »
September 3, 2015
In the local real estate news (from NBC Bay Area yesterday), “‘Flintstones’ House in Hillsborough Listed for $4.2M” by Tamara Palmer and Ian Cull:
Hillsborough’s most recognizable piece of real estate has hit the market.
The home at 45 Berryessa Way, though relatively small by the town’s standards at 2,730 square feet, is seeking a big price tag of $4.2 million
(#1)
A story that will take us through several twists and turns of pop culture.
(more…)
Posted in Architecture, Books, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Pop culture | Leave a Comment »
