From several sources: repticide, reptard, danglology.
Archive for the ‘Language play’ Category
Playing with morphology
July 13, 2011
Pornmanteaus
July 6, 2011From Ann Burlingham on July 4 (slightly edited):
I’m plowing through the second season of “Bones” when a character explains his familiarity with a topless college woman site by saying “I clicked on a pop-up and got caught in a pornado”.
Naturally, I love the word “pornado” [porn + tornado]. I wasn’t surprised to find it wasn’t new: the Urban Dictionary entry (here) gave me a smile.
Of course I wondered about other pornmanteaus (not my invention; see, for example, the site Pornmanteau – The Word Combo Dicktionary).
Gay spaghetti
July 6, 2011(Only a little bit about language.)
It starts with this image, provided on Facebook by Cliff Johnson:
(#1)
A photo of a shirtless hot guy, with a caption challenging the viewer’s heterosexuality, using a familiar pun on straight — as in “I can’t even think straight” on this t-shirt (from CafePress):
(#2)
But wait, there’s more!
telephon-
July 4, 2011A combination of two things: telephonoscopy (also telephonotomy) on this blog, here; and a recent card to me from Chris Ambidge, reporting a friend (observing him putting shirts and towels into the automatic washing machine) saying jocularly, “Ah, you’re committing laundricide”.
The common factor is “combining forms”, learnèd elements that are mostly like compound elements but somewhat like derivational affixes: -(o)scopy (and -(o)tomy) and –(i)cide.
Hot wieners for the 4th
July 2, 2011On my X blog, porn ads for Independence Day, with puns and a phrasal overlap portmanteau, here.
Definitely not for the kiddies or the modest.
Zeugma: crack
June 28, 2011Ryan Thomas Riddle, “Saggy pants charges unlikely”, [Bay Area] Daily Post of June 25-26:
San Mateo County District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe said yesterday that he can’t imagine his office would take a University of New Mexico football player [DeShon Marman] to court over his saggy pants [on a US Airways flight to Albuquerque].
“The only crack we prosecute is cocaine and not pants,” Wagstaffe told the Post.
Even officers of the court have their moments of playing with language — in this case, committing zeugma on crack ‘crack cocaine’ vs. ‘butt-crack’.
Dinosaur awesomeness
June 21, 2011(Link from Karen Davis) a Dinosaur Comics on modifier inflation over time and on portmanteaus (or portmanteaux):
Awesometastic looks like awesome with the libfix -tastic (though most of the -tastic examples have a noun as first element: carpet-tastic, scab-tastic, dicktastic, etc.). But then playful word formation is, well, inventive.
Alligator Goodbyes
June 4, 2011My grand-daughter Opal showed up for breakfast this morning wearing a new t-shirt her mother had found for her on the Threadless site:
By Kacie Mills, the shirt has 14 instances of a verse form that I’ll call the Alligator Goodbye, on the model of “see you later, alligator” (at the top of the shirt).
The t-shirt watch
June 2, 2011Two t-shirts that came to my attention recently. The first is a Bad Panda, offered by CafePress for Fathers Day; maybe it’s the phallic theme (eats, shoots, and leaves?):
Then there’s a cute visual pun, an Emperor penguin from Woot (link from Elizabeth Daingerfield Zwicky):
The laurel wreath is especially nice.