Mentioned in passing on the public radio show Sez You! today, the punning Thesaurus rex. Often played with, as in this children’s book:
Follow this mischievous dinosaur as he frolics, rollicks, frisks and romps. Each colorful page introduces simple synonyms and a fun-filled way to build vocabulary and word recognition. (Ages 3 to 7 years)
And in this cartoon:
Two recent octopus postings on Facebook.
Octopi Wall Street. The first is a cartoon that Bert Vaux and Barbara Need passed on from the I fucking love science (name of a blog) site:
Today’s Rhymes With Orange:
Poe’s “The Raven” (second verse) parodied by substituting Eeyore for Lenore. Nothing else changed, but in combination with the visual, modeled on Winnie the Pooh, and the punning identifier Edgar Allan Pooh, the effect is to turn sorrow into silliness.
Silliness for the weekend, taking off from a postcard I got from Max Vasilatos a little while back:
This from Pantalaine (ostensibly from 2005):
Est. 1950 – Provisioners of America’s Finest Plural Clothing – South Bend, Ind.
Yes, clothing cut for two.
Recent reports on the -gate front: on September 20th, in a comment from Chris Waigl on my mooch(er)- word posting, moochergate; and in the September 24th New Yorker, a Talk of the Town piece “Gropegate” (p. 34) by Ben McGrath, about NY state assemblyman Vito Lopez and his reported inclination to grope female staff.
These took me back to a reporter’s query in June about -gate words.
At sundown today begins Yom Kippur:
Yom Kippur (Hebrew: יוֹם כִּפּוּר, … or יום הכיפורים), also known as Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the year for the Jewish people. Its central themes are atonement and repentance. Jewish people traditionally observe this holy day with a 25-hour period of fasting and intensive prayer, often spending most of the day in synagogue services. Yom Kippur completes the annual period known in Judaism as the High Holy Days or Yamim Nora’im (“Days of Awe”). (link)
Despite the deep seriousness (and foodlessness) of the day, many have been tempted to play on the name, as here:
(Hat tip to Bert Vaux, who credited Russell Mystiek.)
As for kippers:
A kipper is a whole herring, a small, oily fish, that has been split from tail to head, gutted, salted or pickled, and cold smoked. (link)
Suitable for breaking the fast, though lox or smoked whitefish (and eggs, bread, and cheese) would be more traditional.
(Only a bit about language; mostly about (animated) cartoons and cultural analysis.)
From Henry Mensch on Facebook, a link to the Smithsonian Magazine blog Paleofuture by Matt Novak, with a 9/19/12 posting on “50 Years of the Jetsons: Why The Show Still Matters”.
Today’s Mother Goose and Grimm:
The old tongue twister is in fact better — because it’s more likely to trip you up.
