Archive for the ‘Language in advertising’ Category

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He came from the sea … And can only love me

November 29, 2018

(Hunky men in minimal swimsuits, but nothing actually X-rated. The posting is about the presentation of self in photographs, via clothing, stance, gait, facial expression, gaze, and the like. Not much about language here.)

11/9 Daily Jocks sale ad for Marcuse underwear and swimwear:


(#1) Come Wander With Me

He came from the sunset
He came from the sea
He came from my sorrow
And can love only me

He said, “Come wander with me, love
Come wander with me
Away from this sad world
Come wander with me”

(more…)

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Male art, Movies and tv, Music, Photography, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Wisc Swiss music

November 20, 2018

From Joe Salmons on Facebook a few days ago, this arresting photo of celebratory alpenhorns indoors:

(#1)

Two things: the occasion and the instruments.

(more…)

Posted in Language in advertising, Music, Switzerland and Swiss things | Leave a Comment »

A commercial zeugmoid

November 8, 2018

A recent Arm & Hammer Slide TV commercial, ‘Change Your Cat’s Litter’ (viewable in an iSpot.tv posting here) exhorts the viewer:

If you hate changing your cat’s litter, then change your cat’s litter.

A cute zeugmoid, playing on two (related, but distinct) senses of the verb CHANGE.

(more…)

Posted in Language in advertising, Zeugma | 1 Comment »

Mandala swimmer, Kali tat, Banksia stamp

November 5, 2018

(Hunk in a swmsuit, oblique literate raciness. Plus religion, art, and plants.)

Today’s mailing from the Daily Jocks company takes us to the beaches of Oz, where an ad for the Aussie homowear firm 2eros’s Mandala swimsuit is framed as a postcard, complete with a 2018 Oz-floral stamp. Plus a caption of mine:


(#1) The flower of his manhood

Ramble down the
Rocks to revere his pink
Lotus flower, to
Lose yourself on the
Blue wheel of desire

(more…)

Posted in Art, Captions, Gender and sexuality, Language and plants, Language and religion, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Language of sex, Signs and symbols, Slang, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Annals of word retrieval: in promiscuous positions

November 4, 2018

(Warning: embedded in this posting is a bit of — just barely euphemized — taboo vocabulary and the image of a hunky guy in his underwear.)

From Sim Aberson on 10/29, from WSVN, channel 7 in Miami FL:

BSO deputies arrest Dania Beach man in child porn case

Dania Beach, Fla. (WSVN) – Deputies have arrested a Dania Beach man on numerous child pornography charges.

The Broward Sheriff’s Office arrested 66-year-old Roger Aiudi on Thursday following a months-long investigation by the agency’s Internet Crimes Against Children task force. Investigators said Aiudi had 13 pornographic images of children and dozens of other images showing children in promiscuous positions.

Well yes, not promiscuous ‘having or characterized by many transient sexual relationships’, but provocative ‘arousing sexual desire or interest, especially deliberately’ (NOAD definitions). This is a very likely sort of word retrieval error, since the words are similar phonologically (sharing the accent pattern WSWW and sharing the initial syllable /prǝ/) and morphologically (both ending in Adj-forming suffixes, –ous vs. –ive) as well as semantically.

(more…)

Posted in Clitics, Errors, Etymology, Gender and sexuality, Language in advertising, Language of sex, Metaphor, Psycholinguistics, Terminology, Underwear, Word confusions | Leave a Comment »

PUMP!ing it up

October 17, 2018

(Homowear: male models in underwear, displaying their bodies homoerotically, with archly queer ad copy. Not X-rated, but not to everyone’s taste.)

The Daily Jocks ad for PUMP! underwear from the 15th:

(#1)

Underwear model as sculptural form. Mahogany Man.

(more…)

Posted in Clothing, Facial expression and gesture, Idioms, Language and food, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Libfixes, Trade names, Underwear, Verbing | Leave a Comment »

Twisting in the wind

October 6, 2018

… in today’s Zippy:

(#1)

The PWT (pneumatic wiggly thing) is a sky dancer, an inflatable tube man that waves and twists in the wind, beckoning passers-by (on foot or, especially, in cars) to come on in and buy.

(more…)

Posted in Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics | 2 Comments »

Bruce Weber II: the photographer’s gaze

August 29, 2018

It begins with this photo, sent to me by a gay friend who found it, unattributed, on a hot-men website; found it, um, moving; and thought I would too:


(#1) Filed under “Hunks at play”, though the hunks don’t seem particularly playful

They are, first of all, hunks. The photographer’s gaze dwells on their bodies, presenting them as desirable pieces of meat. Then, they are sullenly inexpressive, not playful at all, despite the fact that they’re messing around on a boat.

I thought I recognized the style and the content as well, and I was right: Bruce Weber, a photographer who has played a major role in making homoeroticism — crudely, men as meat — a thing in the ad world (women as meat in ads has a much longer history). “Hunks at play” is actually Weber’s “Capri, Italy 1994”.

(more…)

Posted in Art, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Photography | Leave a Comment »

Jo Flamingo

August 21, 2018

(Men, in skimpy underwear, projecting steamy homo-desire; compact captions of puzzling free poetry; reflections on playful fetishwear. No X, but not to everyone’s taste.)

From Daily Jocks yesterday, continuing a mini-series with models who aren’t your standard high-butch Euro muscle-hunks, this time featuring a young man I’m calling Jo Flamingo.

(#1)

Muscle Twinko his
Marco Harness
Flamenconess
Flamingolous

The ad copy (untouched by any editing from me):

Get on board with The NEW Nautical Collection! This exciting new print features Flamingos on top of blue and white stripes.
The collection features a Swim Brief, Harness & two Briefs (including one with a cheeky low cut rear!) you’ll be the hit of every party in any of these.

(more…)

Posted in Captions, Clothing, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Morning names: Hai Karate, Dirk Diggler

August 18, 2018

(The Dirk Diggler section has some plain talk about men’s bodies — penises here, penises there, penises everywhere — so some readers might want to skip that section.)

Yesterday morning, the cheap men’s aftershave of the 1960s, Hai Karate, with an ad campaign that’s hard to forget (nerdy guys karate-chopping away hot models who were irrestistibly drawn to them by the powerful fumes of their Hai Karate). And then this morning, at the tail of an elaborate  character-rich dream, the dream me discovered he was actually the son of Dirk Diggler, the supremely porn-named porn star character in two movies (the mockumentary The Dirk Diggler Story and the dramatic narrative film Boogie Nights).

(more…)

Posted in Flags, Gender and sexuality, Japanese, Language in advertising, Morning names, Names, Shirtlessness | Leave a Comment »

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