Archive for the ‘Language and gender’ Category

« Older Entries

Revisiting 27: Lilo, Stitch, Bouba, and Kiki

March 25, 2019

Mike Pope on Facebook, following up on my posting of the 25th “Lilo & Stitch”, with a question about the naming of the characters in the movie:


(#1) Stitch and Lilo

MP: Do you think the animators consciously followed a kiki/bouba paradigm?

AZ:  Almost surely not consciously; they just chose names that “sounded right” to them.

In general, writers’ name choices for fictitious characters are inscrutable in detail; even if the writers have an explicit account of where the names came from, unconscious preferences for certain kinds of names can usually be seen to be at play.

One of these preferences is the bouba/kiki effect, which has to do with the visual appearance of the referents (see the images above). Also involved are effects having to do with the gender of the referents (Stitch is male, Lilo female). No doubt there are more.

(more…)

Posted in Language and gender, Linguistics in the comics, Naming, Onomatopoeia, Phonetics, Pop culture, Psychology of language | 2 Comments »

Lilo & Stitch

March 23, 2019

Today’s morning name. I really have no idea why. I haven’t even seen the movie and was only vaguely aware of its theme. Maybe the sound-symbolic values of the names, the contrast between the /l/s of Lilo, voiced liquids, symbolically flowing; and the /s t č/ of Stitch, all voiceless obstruents, symbolically spiky and aggressive. And the /aj/ of Lilo, long and with a low nuclear F2; versus the /ɪ/ of Stitch, quite short and with a very high F2. Lilo is female, human, and family-oriented; Stitch is male, alien, and destructive.

(more…)

Posted in Language and gender, Linguistics in the comics, Morning names, Movies and tv, Narrative, Narratophilia, Onomatopoeia | Leave a Comment »

On the doo-wop gender train from the past

November 11, 2018

Going the Facebook rounds:

the song that was number 1 on your 14th birthday defines your life

(pretty clearly intended: #1 in the US — though you could certainly carp about that)

Hey nonny ding dong: it’s “Sh-Boom (Life Could Be a Dream)” as recorded by the Crew-Cuts in 1954.


(#1) Trading card photo of The Crew-Cuts. In 1957, Topps gum cards issued a series of movie stars, television stars and recording stars.

(more…)

Posted in Language and gender, Language and the sexes, Music, My life | Leave a Comment »

Another ubertwink

October 5, 2018

(Discussion of men’s bodies and mansex in very plain terms, photos of naked, though not quite X-rated, men, so not at all for kids or the sexually modest.)

Liam Riley, actually an ubertwink we’ve seen before, but now — to celebrate the completion of a “Twinks” Page on this blog (with links to postings on twink as a body type, a persona, and a sexual identity) — viewed in conjunction with his CockyBoys stable-mate Levi Karter.

Levi and Liam, Levis and lace, (more) butch and (more) femme, twink and near-twink (more muscles, swimmer body type). Both playful, affectionate, and (professionally) adorable. And competitors in the Ace Ass department.

For comparison: Levi left and Liam right:

(more…)

Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and gender | Leave a Comment »

volumptuous

August 22, 2018

That’s the portmanteau in yesterday’s Luann strip:

voluminous + voluptuous, probably with a bit of sumptuous mixed in — but certainly ample heft combined with sensuousness. Not a waif, and not any typical fashion model.

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus | 1 Comment »

bossercize

May 26, 2018

Today’s Dilbert, in which the pointy-haired boss goes portmanteauing:

(#1)

boss + exercise (in a spelling variant with –ize) = bossercize, formed on the model of the name of the dance fitness company Jazzercise.

(more…)

Posted in Derivation, Language and gender, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Spelling | Leave a Comment »

A bread maker, Alan?

March 20, 2018

A Xmas card from Ann Burlingham, sent from Queensland:

Marital relations among the penguins

(more…)

Posted in Language and gender, Linguistics in the comics, Penguins | Leave a Comment »

Divine Bodies

March 20, 2018

At the Asian Art Museum of San Francisco:

(#1)

(more…)

Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, Language and religion, Language and sexuality, Language and the body | Leave a Comment »

Call me by your name

March 1, 2018

The Mother Goose and Grimm, from February 21st:

(#1)

A joke playing on use and mention: Grimmy mentions the name of the Oscar-nominated movie Call Me by Your Name, but Ralph understands him to be using the expression call me your your name, so he calls Grimmy Ralph.

That leads us to the movie and so to a thicket of issues about language, sexuality, gender, and the law.

(more…)

Posted in Art, Books, Categorization and Labeling, Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, Language and sexuality, Language and the law, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, My life, Technical and ordinary language, Use and mention | 5 Comments »

LGBT news from Stanford

January 19, 2018

(A posting delayed by assorted computer upheavals at my house and a monster cold, which has caused me to sleep 11 hours a day. In any case, LGBT news bulletins, but no sex at all.))

News from Wednesday the 10th, the monthly Happy Hour! of Stanford’s QUEST group:

(#1) Logo provided by Ryan Tamares for the QUEST website

The gathering (almost all staff these days, and very heavy on librarians of various sorts) was our 8th anniversary event, a return to the Old Pro, a sports bar just up Ramona St. in Palo Alto from my house (yes, a sports bar, but it’s convenient to Stanford, lots of parking, and the CalTrain).

(more…)

Posted in Death notices, Gender and sexuality, Language and gender, My life, Stanford | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries