Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Name sharing

March 11, 2026

The Zippy strip for today, 3/11, all about sharing a personal name (with some intrusions of the name Melvin):


The large generalization is that mentioning two people together implicates some special relationship, even more so if they share a name (personal name or family name)

In the first panel we start with two authors, from widely separated times, in different genres (plays vs. fiction), and with hugely different styles — but both with the personal name William.

The personal-name sharing goes on with wildly different characters, oddly yoked to one another: Oscar Wilde the writer and Oscar the Grouch the Muppet; Jackson Pollock the painter and Jackson Browne the rock musician (whose career started with the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band); Mona Freeman the actress (and painter) and the Mona Lisa (the subject of Leonardo da Vinci’s famous painting).

(more…)

Posted in Coordination, Iconicity, Linguistics in the comics, Names | 4 Comments »

Stripes

March 6, 2026

The Wayno / Piraro Bizarro of 3/5, in which the effusive Cat in the Hat of Dr. Seuss / Theodor Geisel meets the elusive Waldo of Martin Handford’s Where’s Waldo? Under the sign of red stripes, in two styles (Wayno’s title: “Stylistic Differences”):


The Cat stands out, Waldo blends in (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)

(more…)

Posted in Clothing, Comic conventions, Costumes, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

Toys, potatoes, and dogs

February 26, 2026

The Wayno / Piraro Bizarro strip for 2/25: Mr. and Mrs. Potatohead with their Potatohead dog:


The toy: Mr. Potatohead and his detachable-bodypart family; the potato: the russet; the dog: the Jack Russell terrier (note russet as a potato-pun on the dog name Russell) (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Wayno says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page)

To understand this cartoon, you need to recognize it as an instance of the potatohead cartoon meme, based on the toy. Now, some details.

(more…)

Posted in Comic conventions, Language and animals, Language and plants, Linguistics in the comics, Puns, Toys, Understanding comics | Leave a Comment »

The megalomania of a small penis

February 24, 2026

(Well, all about penises and what men think about their own and other guys’, so edgy for many people — but mostly clinical in content and tone, not at all raunchy)

Stephan Pastis’s Pearls Before Swine strip of  2/24, about what we might call little-dick grandiosity — the common belief that megalomania is (in general) a compensation for having a small penis:


There is in fact no evidence for this idea; and we might legitimately question whether there are any actual cases of little-dick grandiosity, as I put it so crudely above, at all

(more…)

Posted in Language and medicine, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Psychology | Leave a Comment »

Dear Ed

February 23, 2026

Reprinted on Facebook recently by Jeff Bowles, Charles Schulz’s Peanuts cartoon from 11/3/1988, in which Snoopy the writer upbraids an editor — someone I think of as the powerful but irrationally unappreciative son-of-a-bitch Ed — for failing to print his stories and make him rich and famous:

Me, I share with Snoopy a history — in my case, long past — of having my articles callously rejected by Ed. I did not seek riches, though I was happy to get some royalties from my writing; the currency of academia isn’t financial but reputational: having an audience for my ideas and my creative writing.

(more…)

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, My life, Writers | Leave a Comment »

Anarthrousness in the comic strips

February 16, 2026

The Pearls Before Swine strip by Stephan Pastis, for 1/9/26:


A difference between British English and American English over constructions with the definite article (arthrous) or without it (anarthrous) — putting aside British Bob’s touching belief in the primacy of BrE over AmE

(There is a Page on this blog with links to postings on Language Log and this blog on arthrousness)

Now for some scholarly observations on BrE vs. AmE practices in arthrousness with various prepositional objects, among them hospital and university. Here I take you to Lynne Murphy’s blog “Separated by a Common Language: Observations on British and American English by an American linguist in the US” — in her posting “(the) menopause, (the) flu, (the) hospital” from 4/17/2007:

(more…)

Posted in Articles, Dialects, Language and medicine, Linguistics in the comics, Variation | 2 Comments »

You know it’s good, because it’s free

February 13, 2026

A step into greater complexity in my blog posting, after re-entry in two brief postings yesterday: “Zichichi” (here) and “Calvin Tompkins (here): two separate subjects, united by being cleverly stitched together in The Bob newsletters (from writer and cartoonist Bob Eckstein), about the 2026 Winter Olympics on television, with this cartoon from 2/7:


(Toon) The Bob at the Winter Olympics; BE says “The bob is here”, with this tag about the Olympics on tv:

You know it’s good, because it’s free

This is subject 1, the excellent tag, which I would like to apply to this very blog of mine: you know it’s good because it’s free (and I have gone to some trouble to make it so; applaud here for me)

Meanwhile, Toon is BE’s wiener dog race version of the Olympics, in which the racing dogs are in hotdog buns, observed by an array of condiment bottles. On Facebook on 2/8:

BE: “I’m I’m watching the Puppy Bowl. It’s not the same. Gambling has ruined it, even though I’m admittedly part of the problem.

BE’s eccentric Puppy Bowl is subject 2, and it has nothing to do with the the tag.

(more…)

Posted in Formulaic language, Language and animals, Language and sports, Linguistics in the comics, Slogans | Leave a Comment »

Kinky Beavers and their kin

December 22, 2025

Today’s Zits comic strip sets up a baffling list of ridiculous and raunchy-sounding things Jeremy’s father wants for Christmas — a Wiggly Pickle! Kinky Beavers! — and resolves the puzzle in the final panel.


(#1) Fishing lures, kids, fishing lures; apparently all from the Reaction Innovations fishing lure supply company, and so known to a substantial number of fishing enthusiasts

I suspected what was going on when spinners and crickets turned up in the second panel. But it’s still a sweet set-up.

(more…)

Posted in Jokes, Language and animals, Language and sports, Linguistics in the comics, Names | Leave a Comment »

Two DEC-20 cartoons

December 20, 2025

I am reminded by Amanda Walker that today is DEC-20 Day — it’s the date, kids —  causing me to recall times working at research labs that used DEC-20s as their shared workhorse machines. This DEC-20 brought me two cartoons, the first a Zippy glancingly related to Christmas, the second a Bizarro directly about Christmas in popular culture.

(more…)

Posted in Alliteration, Comic conventions, Diners, Events and occasions, Linguistics in the comics, Nonsense, Onomatopoeia, Pop culture, Technology | 1 Comment »

Godzilla, enlightened and confused

December 17, 2025

Aric Olnes’s Godzilla countdown to Christmas on Facebook, #5 (10 days to go) on 12/15:

Fighting to extract himself from the lights? Showing off his Christmas style? Swatting at the lights like those airplanes that sometimes bedevil him? Or just confounded, as so many of us have been, by the strings of lights? Enraged, delighted, or baffled? It’s the Christmas mystery of Godzilla.

AO’s series began on 12/12 (with 14 days to go); see my posting “Godzilla Santa #1”, showing a wonderfully benevolent Godzilla in a Santa cap, starring in a fable in which he rescues Santa’s workshop from Shimo the ice monster. Other items in the series show us a more traditional Godzilla, devouring trains and devastating city skylines, but for Christmas.

(more…)

Posted in Art, Holidays, Linguistics in the comics, Monsters | Leave a Comment »

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »