Came up in a Facebook discussion involving Ann Burlingham and Aric Olnes, the catchphrase in this bit of digital art by Methune Hively:
off like a herd of turtles, referring to a very slow start or to slow progress after an auspicious start – based on the horse-racing announcer’s They’re OFF!, plus the legendary slowness of turtles, with the rhyming play thrown in.
Yesterday morning, foraging in the Whole Foods around the corner for something to take as a food contribution for the annual Palo Alto all-day shapenote singing (we eventually settled on some truly fine smoked trout — see below), Kim Darnell and I happened to walk past the jerky section of the store — who knew there was such a thing? — where I admired some lamb jerky, and then we discovered, groan, turkey Perky Jerky:
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Earlier on this blog: a 7/26 posting on the song “Despacito” and the Mikey Bustos parody of it; a 7/27 posting following up on that; and a 7/28 posting on covers of the song. Now from Norma Mendoza-Denton, a link to a Sesame Street parody of it: “Patito” (patito ‘duckie’, the diminutive of pato ‘duck’):
Ernie, El Patito, Bert
(Men’s underwear, sexy song lyrics, nicknames, half-rhymes, and more. Some of it raunchy enough to have been banned in Malaysia, but then we’re not in Malaysia, are we?)
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His name is Mikey Bustos, he’s (self-described) Canadian Filipino, and he rap-sings of skimpy Speedos —
My goods are protected like an armadillo
When I’m in the ocean I feel good emotion
Because all the sand causes some real exfoliation.
and prances in them like a pro.
Four language-related strips in my comics feed on Sunday the 4th, which this year was Pentecost,
the Christian festival celebrating the descent of the Holy Spirit on the disciples of Jesus after his Ascension, held on the seventh Sunday after Easter. (NOAD2)
KJV Acts 2:3: And there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire, and it sat upon each of them
The word came down. In One Big Happy, Rhymes Wth Orange, Zits, and xkcd.
Passed on from Facebook posters by way of Chris Waigl, this storefront, with comments from readers about the store name Kum & Go:
(Note the use of rhyme and alliteration in the follow-ups.)
Another chapter in the annals of dubious and unfortunate names on this blog. In this case, you might have thought that a double entendre was intentional, a bit of playful naming to catch your eye and stick in your memory. But the company’s official story maintains otherwise, so (apparently) it’s only accidentally risible.
It starts with a single-panel gag cartoon in the April 2016 Funny Times:
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First, things you need to know to get this cartoon. Then, information about cartoonist and graphic novelist Peter Kuper and his other work.
Today’s Zippy, continuing the cartoon’s run of burlesques:
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Yesterday it was Poe’s “The Raven”; today it’s the nursery rhyme “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”.
The Rhymes With Orange from the 19th, with a play on -ocus words:
And the place where the group meets is the Hocus Pocus Focus Locus. And the flower that blooms in that place is the Hocus Pocus Focus Locus Crocus.
Heard recently as music accompanying an NPR show: Cab Calloway performing “Everybody Eats at My House”, rhyming (or half-rhyming) food names and personal names, beginning:
(1) Have a banana, Hannah
Try the salami, Tommy
Get with the gravy, Davy
Everybody eats when they come to my house
(Four-line verses, with three that rhyme food names with personal names, plus a constant final line. The verse form should probably be called a Calloway.) (more…)
