From my friend Max yesterday, a postcard version of artwork by Michael Kupperman for The Believer:
It starts with a series of rhyming compounds — Maceface, Spacerace Face, Afro Laceface — and then branches out into merely preposterous compounds (with images to go along with them), like Moby Dickface and Mount Rushmore Face.
And then there’s Dick Crazy, an imperfect pun on Dick Tracy.
Posted in Compounds, Dialects, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Phonology, Portmanteaus, Puns, Rhyme | 1 Comment »
From Ned Deily on Facebook, a report of a Morning Call (Allentown PA and the Lehigh Valley) story on rock snot. Here’s yesterday’s headline:
Delaware River rock snot bloom approaches Easton
An outbreak of didymo, a single-cell algae, threatens ecosystem, nearby streams.
JD Malone’s story begins:
Erik Silldorff waded a dozen feet into the river, just off a rock bar in the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area. He plucked a stone from the chilly, clear water and pointed to a mass of brownish slime with tan tendrils.
“That’s a pretty snotty rock,” said Silldorff, a biologist for the Delaware River Basin Commission.
Didymo, a single-cell algae dubbed rock snot for its khaki color and its consistency, is in bloom in the Delaware from Hancock, N.Y., to the PPL power plant near Martins Creek in Lower Mount Bethel Township — about 90 miles of boogered rocks.
Posted in Compounds, Metaphor, Names, Rhyme | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Zippy, supremely silly:
Not a burlesque, but a genuine novelty hit from the heyday of disco.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Music, Poetic form, Pop culture, Rhyme | 3 Comments »
(Eventually there will be some stuff directly related to language.)
Reported several places in the last week, the fate of the musical Kismet in Johnstown PA. Here’s Scott Simon on NPR on the 24th:
Canceling The School Play Won’t Avoid ‘Kismet’
There will be no Kismet in Johnstown, Pa. This week the Richland School District canceled February’s high school student production of the play.
The 1953 musical is the story of a wily beggar-poet; his unruly, beautiful daughter; and the handsome caliph who falls in love with her at first glance.
Kismet is adapted from that collection of folk tales known as Arabian Nights, with a score drawn from the music of Alexander Borodin.
Kismet won the Tony Award for Best Musical. High school groups often perform the show because the songs can be lush and funny, there are good parts for both boys and girls, and the costumes can be colorful, florid, flowing — and cover students from head to toe. Unlike the musical Hair.
“Kismet” is set in ancient Baghdad, a time historians call the Islamic Golden Age. Johnstown is in western Pennsylvania. Flight 93 flew right over our heads, school Superintendent Thomas Fleming Jr. explains. United Airlines Flight 93, of course, plowed into the ground nearby on September 11, 2001 after the hijackers were overpowered by the passengers and crew. They died to keep the plane from crashing into the U.S. Capitol. So, it’s understandable that people might be a little more sensitive perhaps to the play’s content, Mr. Fleming told the told the Johnstown Tribune-Democrat. He said several people had complained because “Kismet” features Muslim characters; the 10-year anniversary of Flight 93’s crash had just passed. Mr. Fleming says he simply doesn’t want his young students to have to face controversy and criticism.
Posted in Language and politics, Language and society, Language play, Rhyme | 1 Comment »
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