Archive for the ‘Formulaic language’ Category

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Zippy for President

May 24, 2020

Am I elected yet? Am I re-elected yet? Zippyclone examples from the US presidential elections in 1984 and 1988. The big campaign poster from 1984, with the former variant:


(#1) Taco sauce in hand, Ding Dongs at the ready, Zippy throws his topknot into the electoral ring, challenging President Ronald Reagan and former Vice President Walter Mondale (Hat tip: Tom Frenkel)

It looks like Zippy is a perpetual independent candidate, but most of the campaign literature is in comic books, calendars, and posters, rather than in the strips. I’ve found one strip on his presidential runs, from 2012 (in the mainstream: incumbent President Barack Obama vs. former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney):

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Posted in Language and politics, Linguistics in the comics, Snowclones | Leave a Comment »

What’s on YOUR shelf?

April 13, 2020

The bon appétit magazine mailing that came to me today: “Where to Order Your Favorite Pantry Staples Online: Your local grocery store is out of flour. The internet isn’t” by mackenzie fegan on 4/8/20:


(#1) An array of specialty staples to get you through sheltering in place

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Posted in Language and food, Language in advertising, Movies and tv, Slogans | Leave a Comment »

A priest, a rabbit, and a minister

February 26, 2020

… walk into a bar. And into a Walk Into Bar joke, which then goes doubly meta. The rabbit brings a really big beer to the event. The joke has been around in print, in one form or another, for maybe 20 years. The image is a fantasist painting “Bunny with Beer” (from 2017) by the artist Omar Rayyan. The two joined in happy union by an unknown hand, during the past few days, in the form of a texty cartoon:

(#1)

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Posted in Art, Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Jokes, Linguistics in the comics, Words and things | 1 Comment »

Timothy and Agrimony

February 25, 2020

(Plants, but also gay male life, with the latter focus leading to talk of mansex in street language (also with some deeply carnal (but fuzzed) photos of 69ing), so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

My morning names for 2/15: timothy and agrimony. A familiar crop grass (for grazing and hay) and a yellow-flowered bitter-tasting medicinal herb. Then these personified as two queer types: Timothy — called Timmy — the twink, a cute country boy, a hayseed, sometimes found with a stalk of grass between his teeth; and Agrimony — called Agro — the bitter old queen, jaded, sharp-tongued, largely disaffected with the queer community and feeling alienated from those in it.

The two men are of course unlikely to hook up, or even have anything to do with one another socially, but they share one bit of their sexual makeup: they both adore 69, find the exchange deeply satisfying. But characteristically, they prefer different positions for the act.

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Posted in Books, Gay porn, Homosexuality, Language and plants, Language of sex, Memory, Metaphor, Morning names, My life, Names, Phallicity, Stock expressions | 3 Comments »

Preference labels and little pockets

February 17, 2020

(This will go, almost immediately, into the weeds of male genitals and mansex in street talk, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

Daily Jocks ad on the 10th (with somewhat rocky non-native English):

Limited Edition DJX Party Pocket Sock are here. A Crew length cotton sock with a hidden pocket to keep your goodies! Pick from 7 different styles – Buy any 3 get 1 free:


(#1) TOP, BOTTOM, VERS (sex position, well specifically, fuck position); DADDY, BEAR, TWINK (gay type)

Your goodies are probably your condoms — whatever small thing that, if you’re a queer, you need to have immediately available when you are at a sociosexual occasion wearing only footgear, and maybe some minimal, decorative undergarment, like a fashion-forward jockstrap. (Queer buddies: this might not be your world, but don’t tell me you haven’t imagined strolling through it; you and I are, after all, the Daily Jocks target audience. A role I happily embrace, by the way.)

Otherwise, these socks are sexual advertisements: this is how I fuck, this is what kind of queer I am. Some guys put this stuff on t-shirts, some who have dispensed with t-shirts proclaim their preferences on the waistbands of their underwear

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Posted in Clothing, Formulaic language, Gayland, Gender and sexuality, Language of sex, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

I made some art

February 5, 2020

Passed on by John McIntyre, this poignant, or even mordant, eat the rich comic:


(#1) Artie (the artist) and Audie (his audience)

A possible continuation: in panel 5, Artie reluctantly says yes; and in panel 6, Audie goes, well, then, it’s not worth anything, so forget it.

Lessons in modern culture: one, the (only) reason to create things is to make money; and two, to survive, a creator has to sell themselves and their product.

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture, Slogans | 2 Comments »

Roses now, or roses later

January 29, 2020

On Sunday at the Palo Alto shapenote singing, we came to #340 in the 1991 Denson Sacred Harp, Odem (Second), with the chorus “Give me the roses while I live”. Counterbalanced, as it turns out, on the preceding page by #339, When I Am Gone, with the second verse “Plant you a rose that shall bloom o’er my grave, / When I am gone”.

Roses now, or roses later.

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Posted in Aphorisms, Death notices, Language and religion, Music, My life, Proverbs | Leave a Comment »

It’s a metaphor, son!

January 21, 2020

On Facebook recently, this supermarket snap, presumably from a store in Quebec, with a notable offering highlighted:


(#1) Five parts to the labeling: the name of the product in French (ailes de lapin); the name of the company (Canabec, a Quebec distributor of game — gibiers — and exotic meats; cf. elsewhere Plaisirs Gastronomiques, a Quebec company offering gourmet food, and Gaspésien, another Quebec fine food company); the name of the product in English (rabbit wings); the weight (in grams); and the price (in C$ / CA$ / CAD)

Much FB merriment over ailes de lapin ‘rabbit wings’, to which I responded:

Um, these are rabbit legs, right? Metaphorical? They resemble chicken wings and can be cooked in all the same ways. (Chinese rabbit wings are yummy.) M. Lapin: “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! for then I would fly away, and be at rest.” (Psalm 55) — later adding: “Oh, that I had wings like a rabbit! for then I would bound away, and be at rest.”

It’s a metaphor, son! A metaphor! Apparently one that is dead in Quebec, and so unremarkable in Quebecois — cf. Fr chauve-souris ‘bat’ (lit. ‘bald mouse’), Engl head of lettuce (where are its eyes and mouth?), and other dead metaphors that become entertaining when you attempt to breathe life back into them.

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Posted in Catchphrases, French, Language and food, Mascots, Metaphor, Movies and tv, Silliness | 2 Comments »

The penguinocalypse

January 3, 2020

Circulating on Facebook (and many other sites) recently, this penguinocalypse cartoon:

(#1)

I call this a cartoon because it’s a marriage of a quite specific text with a quite specific image, circulated as humor. In fact, I haven’t been able to find this text without this image, or this image without this text (right down to the illegible credit in the lower right-hand corner). Nor have I found any variants of this text, or any variants of this image. #1 is a unique artistic creation, just like the other cartoons I post about here — of the subtype in which the image is taken from some other source (in this case, it’s a photoshopped carnivore penguin) rather than drawn by the creator. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to discover who the creator was.

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Posted in Cartoon conventions, Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Language and animals, Libfixes, Linguistics in the comics, Memes, Penguins, Snowclones | 5 Comments »

Three comic rabbits for December

December 1, 2019

Rabbit, rabbit, rabbit on the first of the month. The Mother Goose and Grimm from 12/30, with a textbook attachment ambiguity. The Rhymes With Orange for today, with an updated version of a classic tongue twister. And the Bizarro for today, with a Mr. Potato Head  wielding a terrible slang pun.

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Posted in Ambiguity, Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Language and food, Language play, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Puns, Slang, Tongue twisters | 2 Comments »

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