Proverbs | Arnold Zwicky's Blog

Archive for the ‘Proverbs’ Category

Contamination by association

August 13, 2019

(Regularly skirting or confronting sexual matters, so perhaps not to everyone’s taste.)

Yesterday’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro takes us back to the Garden of Eden:

(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.)

The bit of formulaic language for this situation is a catchphrase, a slogan with near-proverbial status (YDK, for short):

YOU DON’T KNOW WHERE IT’S BEEN

The leaves are conventionally associated with modesty, through their having been used to cover the nakedness of Adam and Eve in the Garden — a use that then associates the leaves with the genitals, from which the psychological contamination spreads to the entire plant, including the fruits. You don’t know where that fig has been.

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Posted in Catchphrases, Culture, Formulaic language, Idioms, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Pragmatics, Proverbs, Slogans, Speech acts | Leave a Comment »

Car wash cartoon understanding

March 13, 2019

Yesterday’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro cartoon:

(#1)(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 7 in this strip — see this Page.)

You need to recognize that the cartoon takes place in a garage and you need to know that detailing is a kind of car care. And you need to recognize that Nick is the Devil (note horns and tail). That’s all pretty easy.

Then you need to know what detailing a car has to do with the Devil — and for that, if you don’t know the saying The devil (or Devil) is in the detail(s), you’re just stuck. You’ve missed a devil of a pun (on detail).

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Names, Proverbs, Puns, Understanding comics | Leave a Comment »

The thread drifted in my direction

February 5, 2019

Conversations typically drift in topic, as one thing suggests another. (Occasionally, the conversation is reset when one of the participants introduces a new topic or external events intrude with fresh things to talk about.) On-line threads similarly drift, sometimes in unexpected directions.

Case in point. I posted enthusiastically on this blog (with links elsewhere) about John McIntyre’s book The Old Editor Says: Maxims for Writing and Editing (2/2/19, “The crusty old editor speaks”), and John then noted my review on Facebook. I expected the Facebook discussion to continue with more observations about John’s little book, but since my name had entered the thread, several commentators shifted the topic to me. Whoa!

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Posted in Conversation, Linguists, Proverbs, Quotations, Snowclones | Leave a Comment »

Ruthie x 3

December 29, 2018

In my comics feed for One Big Happy: The Huskies play Oregon (11/23), Money is the root of boll weevil (11/28), ABC order (11/30):

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Posted in Errors, Linguistics in the comics, Metonymy, Mishearings, Proverbs, Quotations | 2 Comments »

The holidays of our lives

October 27, 2018

(Near the end, there will be a hunky male model wearing nothing but a Halloween jockstrap. A warning in case you’d prefer to avoid a holiday men’s underwear discussion.)

Yesterday’s Zippy features a Dingburg-local idiomatic holiday:

(#1)

Of course, I immediately went to sources to discover what was celebrated on October 26th. Well, not only is October National Pumpkin Month, the 26th is the day specifically devoted to the fruit of Cucurbita pepo, this orange squash / gourd / melon / cucurbit: National Pumpkin Day. The day ushers in the Pumpkin Season, which is prefigured by a period in which pumpkin spice erupts as a ubiquitous descriptor of foods and much more (see my 10/20/17 posting “A processed food flavor”); which embraces a number of Halloween-specific cultural practices and symbols (jack-o-lanterns, dressing up in costumes, and trick-or-treating, plus witches and black cats as symbols — and orange and black as a decorative theme); and which is culinarily realized in pumpkin pie as a holiday food for Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

So pumpkin pie can last you from mid-October to early January. Meanwhile, some riffs on the cartoon and some on edible pumpkiniana.

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Posted in Books, Catchphrases, Categorization and Labeling, Color, Formulaic language, Holidays, Idioms, Language and food, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Proverbs, Titles, Underwear | 2 Comments »

God is in the detailing

February 18, 2018

Oh, groan. A divine pun in today’s Zippy:

Bill Griffith’s enigmatic God is a recurrent character in the strip. Today we learn about God’s BMW and how He cares for it.

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Posted in Formulaic language, Linguistics in the comics, Proverbs, Puns | 1 Comment »

Noodling with formulaic language

October 6, 2017

Today is National Noodle Day. Yes, an event fabricated by people in the food indusry to showcase their products and sell them, on a date no doubt chosen only because it hadn’t already been claimed by any other food. But noodles are delicious, they’re multicultural, and they’re fun.

I celebrated the occasion at lunch with some porcini mushroom and truffle triangoli (stuffed ravioli, but triangular rather than square) from Trader Joe’s, with arrabiatta sauce (a spicy tomato sauce). Pasta in English food talk for Italian food, but noodles in English food talk for Chinese (and other East Asian and Southeast Asian) food — so today they’re noodles to me. (I recommend a broadminded view on what counts as noodles.)

I also recommend that we adopt a symbolic figure for the occasion, something like the Easter Bunny, Santa Claus, Halloween pumpkins and witches, Pilgrims for Thanksgiving, the New Year baby, and so on. I suggest the Flying Spaghetti Monster, with his noodly appendages.

But first let’s get down to some recent noodling with formulaic expressions in the comics: One Big Happy (an idiom), Rhymes With Orange (a frequent collocation or an idiom, depending on who you read), and Mother Goose and Grimm (a proverb):

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Posted in Clothing, Figurative language, Formulaic language, Holidays, Idioms, Language and food, Language and religion, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Proverbs, Toys and games, Understanding comics | 5 Comments »

Viking Kids

January 18, 2016

Posted on Facebook yesterday, this entertaining composition:

(#1)

The caption combines two kinds of word play on the original It takes a village to raise a child: a word exchange, of village and child; and a pun on raise / raze. And it alludes to the reputation of the Vikings as ravaging and pillaging as they move across the countryside.

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Posted in Captions, Linguistics in the comics, Proverbs, Puns, Quotations, Semantics, Slogans, Word exchanges | Leave a Comment »