Archive for the ‘Catchphrases’ Category
September 25, 2024
In e-mail on 9/24 from Masayoshi Yamada, Emeritus Professor of Linguistics, Shimane University (author of, inter alia: A Dictionary of Trade Names and A Dictionary of English Taboo and Euphemism), substantially edited:
Recently, I happened to read the newspaper comic strip Zits; on September 23 and 24, the main character Jeremy uses the expression “I had the radish”. One of the few dictionaries which defines it:
have had the radish ‘to be no longer functional or useful; to be dead or about to perish’. Local to the state of Vermont. Primarily heard in US. (Farlex Dictionary of Idioms, 2024) (Free Dictionary link)
However, I don’t have any clue to its etymology: why radish? And is it so local to Vermont? I have no idea which language source the Farlex Dictionary is based on. [AZ: It cites the Free Dictionary, which aggregates information from many sources, so that’s not especially helpful.]
I pointed out to MY that in the strip, Jeremy decides to just invent (make up) some expression, to see if he can get it accepted. And picks had the radish. Presumably in the belief that no one had ever used it as an idiom. The first three strips (in strips to come, Jeremy eventually concedes that his idiom has had the radish):
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Dialects, Formulaic language, Idioms, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics, Slang | 6 Comments »
June 17, 2024
The oxymoron-flavored punchline of today’s Zippy strip:
(#1) “Frivolity is a stern taskmaster”: it had the feel of a play on some existing quotation, so I searched on “stern taskmaster” — only to discover that frivolity is a stern taskmaster is indeed a famous quotation, widely attributed (without specific source) to … Bill Griffith’s Zippy the Pinhead!
At first, I hoped that one of the trackers of quotation sources — especially the Quote Investigator – would have taken this one on, but no luck there, so it was on to a long and tedious search through the Zippy archives. From which I emerged with an apparent winner, in a 2008 strip (though there was a 2003 strip with Jack Kerouac is a stern taskmaster in it; and a 2023 strip entitled “Stern Taskmaster” — both of which I’ll show you).
Then some investigation of stern taskmaster, which turns out to be a common collocation, one of the big three Adj collocations with the N taskmaster: hard, tough, and stern. Not (yet) fixed expressions — catchphrases, slogans, or even idioms — but something more than the fresh combinations of Adj and N into nominal phrases, approaching stock expressions.
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Formulaic language, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Play, Stock expressions | 2 Comments »
April 20, 2024
Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro is a Psychiatrist cartoon with a stylized tunafish on the couch:
(#1) To understand this cartoon, you need to recognize that the patient’s not any old tuna, but Charlie, the celebrity mascot for the StarKist brand, whose widely advertised decades-long goal in life is to taste good (while — sorry, Charlie — his pursuit of good taste constantly frustrates this ambition, an experience that seems have led him to seek therapy) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page)
There’s a surprisingly rich history here (but one that might be specifically North American, so that the cartoon might be baffling to many of my readers). Summarized in this entry on the tv tropes site:
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Language and animals, Language and food, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics, Mascots, Signs and symbols, Understanding comics | 2 Comments »
September 21, 2022
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, with an instance of one of the house specialties — the Psychiatrist cartoon meme — rich in mythic resonances, and incorporating a bovine Nietzschean pun:
Not just any old ruminant on the couch, but the chimeric monster the Minotaur, reflecting guiltily on, oh, the young people sacrificed to him in the Labyrinth, and now confronted with a Theseus figure, in the form of his therapist (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
Wayno’s title, another pun, but a perfect one this time: “Bull Session”.
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Comic conventions, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Myths, Portmanteaus, Puns, Quotations | 3 Comments »
March 11, 2022
Some riffing on yesterday’s posting “Catchphrases for sale”, about this Zippy strip:
(#1) Offering fresh phrases — not already in circulation as catchphrases, sayings, proverbs, slogans, famous quotations, well-known names and titles, and the like — chosen at random
Zippy’s fresh phrases sound like catchphrases — roughly, free-standing expressions that you recognize as coming from a stock of quotations widely known in your culture, which then (if you wish) can be conventionally used to make some point — but are in fact novel. The things called catchphrases are then exquisitely embedded in particular cultures (note: “widely known in your culture” and also “can be conventionally used”).
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Clichés, Formulaic language, Holidays, Humor, Language and medicine, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Nonsense, Poetry, Proverbs, Psychology, Slogans | 1 Comment »
March 10, 2022
(I’m struggling with medical issues and sleeping away much of the day, so this posting will serve as a kind of intro to a host of related topics having to do with formulaic expressions. Bear with me.)
Yesterday’s Zippy strip has our Pinhead (accompanied by Claude) selling fresh catchphrases from a van:
(#1) Zippy’s Guaranteed Random Phrases — meaning, in this case, fresh phrases (not already in circulation as catchphrases, sayings, proverbs, slogans, famous quotations, well-known names and titles, and the like) chosen at random; and not, say, strings of (in some sense) randomly chosen words, like can building of lease my out if I zombies get legally my bought (the 13 words of Zippy’s fresh catchphrase in random order) or level righteous quicksand join sedate nine songs murky promise arrange blind man voice (13 content words selected at random from the English vocabulary)
But in the air we can sniff the sense ‘(informal) odd, unusual, or unexpected’ (NOAD) of the adjective random. So we can wonder about expressions like see how they snide and semolina pilchard (from the Beatles’ “I Am the Walrus”; or Burnt Weeny Sandwich and Weasels Ripped My Flesh (Frank Zappa album titles from 1970); or runcible spoon (Edward Lear nonsense verse) and slithy toves (Lewis Carroll nonsense verse); or portmanteau jam and Jelly Roll Morton’s saltwater Taffy was a Welshman (a POP chain / portmanteau jam from my 1/31/22 posting “The portmanteau truck”).
Meanwhile, Claude asks, “How do you make money out of stringin’ a few unrelated words together?”
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Formulaic language, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
August 16, 2021
(Warning: high fecality content, which some may find unpleasant.)
Todays Zippy strip, in which Zippy is subjected to stoner / surfer verbal abuse:
(#1) Zippy and his surf iron
As usual, there’s a lot here — I admire Beavis’s one wave shy of a wipeout (see Mark Liberman’s 7/14/05 LLog posting “A few players short of a side” on the Snowclone of Foolishness {small quantity of essential items} short / shy of a {desirable collection}) and the laundry-musician pun in the title “Bleach Boy” — but I’ve picked out the mildly abusive expression iron my shorts for full-bore scrutiny.
(more…)
Posted in Catchphrases, Etymology, Idioms, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Puns, Slang, Slurs, Snowclones | Leave a Comment »
July 1, 2021
🐇🐇🐇 The Mother Goose and Grimm strip from 6/30, with an allusion to an item of culture (the catchphrase “Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition”, quoting from sketches from the Monty Python tv shows and recordings) and perpetrating a (fairly absurd) pun on the phrase:
(#1) The bull terrier Grimm and the cat Attila confront punishment for their household misdeed
So the ostentatiously playful allusion to the Spanish Inquisition is motivated by the situation in the strip.
(more…)
Posted in Allusion, Catchphrases, Formulaic language, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Puns | 1 Comment »
February 16, 2021
(This posting is about (real or fictive) sexual encounters between men, sometimes discussed in street language, so it’s not for kids or the sexually modest.)
The Daily Jocks ad from 2/15, under the header:
(#1) With the motor boat emoji (there’s a ferry emoji that might have done the job here, with a bad pun as a bonus)
(more…)
Posted in Books, Catchphrases, Formulaic language, Holidays, Music, Puns, Underwear | 3 Comments »
