Two recent cartoons turning on fixed expressions, compounds in fact: a Rhymes With Orange and a One Big Happy:
(#1)
(#2)
Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
Fixed expressions
August 7, 2016Naming rights
August 6, 2016A recent Calvin and Hobbes re-run:
The general principle is that whoever discovers (or invents or even just promulgates) something has naming rights, and there are a number of circumstances in which these rights are recognized, though in some — the binomial nomenclature of biology, for instance — there are official bodies that oversee the naming.
It turns out that it’s not very common for someone to name a place, concrete object, idea, product, whatever after themselves, as Calvin and Hobbes both do in the cartoon; descriptive names are much more common, and even in the world of eponymy, naming in honor of someone or something is much more common than naming for oneself . In addition, when something is named after someone, the naming is often done by someone other than the originator.
xkcd mansplaining
August 6, 2016
Dick Deadeye in the morning
August 6, 2016Ziplinguists
August 5, 2016Prompted by a Zippy posting of mine, Dan Everett posted on Facebook that he had a signed copy from Bill Griffith of a Zippy that was, in some sense, about him (though he’s not actually mentioned in the strip), “Supreme Throwdown” from 1/9/09:
(#1)
The allusions by the space-alienoid character (Happy Boy) are to Everett’s work on the Amazonian language Pirahã, its speakers, and their culture — work that drew Everett into confrontation with Noam Chomsky, who’s figured in Zippy strips at least six times, from 1993 through 2015.
Zippy and the Edsels
August 4, 2016
Taking things literally
August 3, 2016(It starts in a candy store and eventually works back to my grade school years.)
A recent One Big Happy has Ruthie trying to buy some candy:
(#1)
Well, it’s called penny candy, but that’s just its name, not a description. You can’t take the name literally.
Cartoon conversations
August 1, 2016Two recent cartoons having to do with conversation: a Dilbert and a Zits:
(#1)
(#2)
As background, two brief definitions that get at some of the crucial features of conversation (relevant to understanding #1 and #2), but by no means all:
[NOAD2] the informal exchange of ideas by spoken words; an instance of this
[AHD5] the exchange of thoughts and feelings by means of speech or sign language; an instance of this
Cereal mascots
August 1, 2016Today’s One Big Happy, with the kids’ grandparents at breakfast, contemplating the cereals on offer, with some dismay:
(#1)
Mister Zwicky and Miss Edna
July 31, 2016… in the schoolroom in 2287
Thanks to Google Alert, I have come across Mister Zwicky (a schoolteacher) and Miss Edna (his robot companion), two characters in one area of the video game Fallout 4 (set in the year 2287. Here they are together:
(#1)
You can view the skeleton of this episode, “Love Conquers All”, here.
Zwickys are everywhere, even in the digital post-apocalyptic future.