Today’s morning name, which led me back to an onomatomanic Zippy strip from 7/3/21 (yes, I work extremely slowly):
(#1) Zippyesque repetitive phrase disorder, aka onomatomania, fixated on exploding magic bingo bombs
This being a Zippy strip, exploding magic bingo bombs are a real thing; Bill Griffith doesn’t just make up stuff like this.
Posted in Books, Gender and sexuality, Language play, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Morning names, Pranks, Semantics of compounds, Toys and games | 2 Comments »
(A posting for my half-birthday, 3/6. When you’re a child, half-birthdays are good things, because a year is a long time to wait till people celebrate your life on earth again. When you’re old and infirm, they’re good things again, because a year is a long time to hope you’ll live till such a celebration comes again. I’ve gotten through another 6 months: a small but significant accomplishment, though frankly it seems mostly to be luck.)
Choosing more or less randomly from the fish in the sea of unblogged postings: this wry Wayno / Piraro Bizarro from 1/28:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page.) Like an antique prank phone call
The prank turns on an ambiguity, in this case on fresh as a predicate adjective: ‘(of food) recently made or obtained; not canned, frozen, or otherwise preserved’ vs. ‘(of a person) presumptuous, impertinent’ (with the mutton, preposterously, personified).
Posted in Ambiguity, Dialects, Humor, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, My life, Pranks, Puns | 3 Comments »
… “Pull my tail, and see my eye light up!” Mr. Nutz is a squirrel of brass, also a notorious flasher (if you don’t pull his tail, he’ll do it himself, in the road) — all at once a squirrel, a brass sculpture, a flasher, and a flashlight too (alas, though he tries to be all things to all people, he is neither a floor wax nor a dessert topping). The eye in his brass face lights up lewdly to show us the way to squirrel verse #2:
We’ll walk in the light, beautiful light,
Come where the dew-drops of morning are bright;
Shine all around us by day and by night,
Squirrels, the light of the world.
(Truly, no squirrel’s light was ever hidden under a basket. Mr. Nutz is not only brazen and bawdy, but also bold and boastful. And, he truly believes, beautiful.)
Posted in Art, Language and animals, Language and the body, Language of sex, Metaphor, Metonymy, Parody, Poetry, Pranks, Riddles | 3 Comments »
Today’s Wayno/Piraro Bizarro (Wayno’s title: “Mythical Miscreants”):
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 6 in this strip — see this Page.)
leprobate, a portmanteau of leprechaun + reprobate. Naughty, naughty boys.
Posted in Folklore, Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture, Portmanteaus, Pranks | 5 Comments »
It started with a candid photo of people at a social gathering, with one person making a V hand gesture behind the head of the person next to them, much as in this photo of pro tennis players:
(#1) Swiss jock jokery: Stan Wawrinka doing the ‘bunny ears’ gesture behind Roger Federer
Bunny-earing someone is a prank (NOAD on the noun prank: ‘a practical joke or mischievous act’), pranks being a very culture-specific form of play + humor that deserve analytic attention that I’m not able to provide, but will just take as a cultural given here.
To come: a bit of the history of bunny-earing; senses of the expression bunny ears (illustrating (mostly metaphorical) sense developments in many directions); and uses of the V hand gesture (illustrating symbolic functions of many different kinds; the gesture itself is “just stuff”, without intrinsic meaning, which can be exploited for many different symbolic purposes). The act, the meanings of the linguistic expression for the act, the cultural significances (or “social meanings”) of the act.
Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Gesture, Language and ethnicity, Language and plants, Language and religion, Metaphor, Music, Play, Pranks, Signs and symbols, Social life, Words and things | Leave a Comment »
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