The One Big Happy from 4/10:
Ruthie runs aground on two facts that are sad but true: lexical ambiguity is everywhere, especially for short, common words; and though Ns and Vs frequently come in related pairs, there are a great many gaps in the pairings: not all Ns have been verbed or Vs nouned.
Posted in Ambiguity, Conversion, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Rhymes With Orange, with a fine POP (of a nonstandard variety):
(#1) M.C. Hammer-Escher = MC Hammer + M.C. Escher
An M.C. Escher-style tessellation of images of the rapper MC Hammer — visually combining the elements that are combined linguistically in the portmanteau.
Posted in Art, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Shirtlessness | Leave a Comment »
For National Cartoonists Day, this Bizarro/Wayno collaboration from 2010:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
Ah, the Banana Peel trope. Get a cartoonist!
Posted in Comic conventions, Holidays, Language and ethnicity, Language and food, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
Today’s xkcd has three characters unpacking initialisms and acronyms, in eccentric or ridiculous ways:
#1989
Posted in Abbreviation, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
What is so rare as a day in May?
Caught on the Our Bastard Language group on Facebook this morning, this Addison cartoon (by Mark Addison Kershaw):
(#1) Sexy springtime (in the northern hemisphere)
Birds are urgently trolling for sex on every street corner and mating shamelessly in the bushes. Plants are flagrantly displaying their female parts, meanwhile spraying the botanical counterpart of semen everywhere. It’s a jungle out there.
Posted in Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics, Poetry | 1 Comment »
Yesterday’s Matt cartoon by Matt Pritchett, alluding to the travails of Brexit:
(#1) Eskimo words for snow, leading to the the ur-snowclone Eskimo N
Posted in Language and politics, Linguistics in the comics, Snowclones | Leave a Comment »
In the May 7th New Yorker, a Waldomemic Roz Chast:
Chastian family dynamics, skirting the line between touching concern and neurotic overprotection.
Posted in Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Zits, on bodily asymmetry:
(#1)
Bodily symmetry is regularly seen as as index of health and genetic fitness, so it’s valued aesthetically. Ceteris paribus, symmetrical bodies are beautiful bodies. (Things aren’t always equal; sometimes, asymmetries are viewed as charming quirks, adorably unique.)
Easily visible features of the head, especially the face, have special weight in these judgments, because we’re very face-oriented creatures.
So: armpits?
Posted in Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics | 1 Comment »
Today’s Zits:
(#1)
Kids these days! Did Pierce never think to look at the Wikipedia entry for the book? I thought that’s what kids do first when assigned a book report.
Posted in Books, Labels Are Not Definitions, Linguistics in the comics, Literature, Movies and tv, Names, Quotations | 1 Comment »
… in today’s Zippy, which features the old Fran’s Hamburgers in Austin TX — it closed in 2013 — and its notable fiberglass mascot:
(#1)
In Zippy’s world, fiberglass figures are often given to intense self-reflection, especially about their place in the world.
Posted in Diners, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
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