The Zippy strip of 7/27/22:
(#1) At the Pig ‘N Whistle Diner in Brighton MA, immersed in the Team X snowclonelet
Two things here: the Team X snowclonelet; and Pig ‘N Whistle as the name of an eating establishment. Let’s dive right in with Team X, and look at Pig ‘N Whistle afterwards.
Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, requiring a boatload of popcultural knowledge to understand:
(#1) The easy part: these are three anthropomorphic peanuts, M, M, F from left to right, and they are sitting at a bar, with drinks in front of them (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
Somehow the meeting of these three exemplifies the N1 + N2 compound N wingnut / wing-nut / wing nut (which has 4 senses in NOAD, plus a bunch more you can imagine). But how?
A little study in N + N compounds in English, their great utility and versatility (they pack a lot of content into two-word expressions), and their consequent massive potential ambiguity (so that divining the intended meaning can require vast amounts of background knowledge and appreciating details of the context in which the compound is used). You can have (great) brevity, or you can have (great) clarity, but you can’t have both at once.
From the world of commerce, the compound dog spot (which many of us will not have encountered before, or will take to be a reference to the coat pattern of Dalmatian dogs). From the comic strips, two compounds that have conventional interpretations but can also be understood in fresh and unconventional ways: from One Big Happy, dancing school; from Bizarro, cowboy.
Just popped up on Facebook, this old (1/30/07) Bizarro cartoon:
(#1)
See my 8/22/19 posting “Sexy Dark Swiss”, with its section on truffles, fungal and chocolate.
A long long day getting this handout together; my paper is on Friday afternoon. Ides of March. But first, the doctor is in:
Matt LeBlanc, playing Joey Tribbiani on Friends, playing Dr. Drake Ramoray on Days of Our Lives
The title of this cartoon, which turned up yesterday in FB’s Our Bastard Language group:
(#1)
The captain is both a pirate and (as it turns out, once you figure out what the man intends to say) a grammar nazi, bent on correcting his crew’s inferior (as he sees it) English — hence the portmanteau grammar pirate. So the cartoon is, primarily, about (stereotypical) pirate talk (which will take us to the West Country of England), but also about peeving.
Today is the lunar New Year, celebrated as the beginning of the Year of the Pig in China, Vietnam, and a number of other places. From Wikipedia:
The Pig (豬) is the twelfth of the 12-year cycle of animals which appear in the Chinese zodiac related to the Chinese calendar. In the continuous sexagenary cycle of sixty years, every twelfth year corresponds to hai, 亥 [’12th earthly branch’ (in astrology)]
And in this PinMart enameled Chinese zodiac pin ( 1″w x 3/4″h):
Text: Pigs are hardworking, kind, and liberal. With their intense concentration and calm demeanor when facing trouble, Pigs will dedicate full energy into reaching their goals.
Not how most Western people would characterize pigs.
(Warning: brief reference to sexual body parts in a caption.)
As I observed yesterday, in the posting “22-festoon!”, today (December 22nd) is the holiday of Festoonus, celebrating “the victory of light over darkness, good over evil, and knowledge over ignorance”, with “elaborate light shows, decorating your bodies, sharing exotic food, dancing, and making public and communal art and music”. Inevitably, there are people who are intensely devoted to, identified with, the holiday. These are the Festoonists.
On the 5th here, postings on the patron saint of bears and on Swiss saintly dogs (with a bow to the city of Bern(e)). Now: more on Bern; on the movie BearCity; and on two California cities of bears, Big Bear City in San Bernardino County and Los Osos in San Luis Obispo County.
The One Big Happy from 4/11, with Ruthie addressing her mail carrier:
(#1)
Referring to mail carriers. And a snowclonelet composite X lady (one of several; this one is associated with kid talk).
