Today’s Pearls Before Swine, with an absurd portmanteau:
That’s disappoint(ed) + optimist. Though (like Goat) I wonder how you could maintain optimism in the face of constant disappointment. Note that Rat says he’s optimistic Goat will get smarter — but since Rat is always disappointed, we expect that Goat will not in fact come to understand disappoptimism.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus | 1 Comment »
A set of One Big Happy strips in which little Ruthie confronts the language: a spectacular mondegreen, some other misunderstandings based on phonological similarity (with more familiar words replacing unusual ones), and some troubles with idiomatic usages.
Posted in Ambiguity, Errors, Idioms, Linguistics in the comics, Mishearings | Leave a Comment »
I’ll start with a three-strip series from One Big Happy:
(#1)
(#2)
(#3)
The two features at issue here — the discourse particle like and “uptalk” (a high rising intonation at the end of declaratives) — have been much discussed in the linguistic literature. The popular, but inaccurate, perception is that both are characteristic of young people, especially teenagers, especially girls, and both features are the object of much popular complaint.
Posted in Dialects, Language and gender, Language of teenagers, Linguistics in the comics, Peeving, Phonology, Usage attitudes, Variation | 5 Comments »
Today’s Dilbert:
Now that’s hacking!
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Technology | Leave a Comment »
Yesterday’s Pearls Before Swine:
An outrageous pun, with which Goat taxes the cartoonist, Stephan Pastis.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Puns | Leave a Comment »
It seems to be a Chuck and Beans morning (see here and here). Now an up-to-the-moment strip:
(#1)
The two stories: Miley Cyrus and twerking (coverage on this blog here), and the casting of the next Batman movie (which will bring us to Justin Timberlake and then to other actors).
Posted in Gender and sexuality, Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture, Shirtlessness | 1 Comment »
A Chuck and Beans webcomic from the 16th:
Texting is, of course, the written word. But then there are emoticons.
Posted in Language technology, Linguistics in the comics, Signs and symbols, These modern times | 1 Comment »
A Shoebox cartoon by Brian G. (in the Chuck and Beans series) from 4/30/10:
(#1)
Endless discussion on geek vs. nerd. On this blog, “Geek days” of 5/22/12. And earlier, “Venn diagramming for nerds” of 9/17/11, where I wrote:
Note that all four of the terms in this diagram — dweeb, nerd, geek, and dork — are of obscure etymology. This is a semantic domain where people are likely to just make words up.
(Another Chuck and Beans strip came by here.)
Posted in Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Words | Leave a Comment »
A Joy of Tech webcomic about a currently topical matter, going off to college:
A frequent theme in these days of cellphones: you can stay in touch with someone all the goddam time.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, These modern times | Leave a Comment »
A New Yorker cartoon by Emily Flake:
(#1)
The reference is to Miley Cyrus’s performance at the recent Video Music Awards.
Posted in Dance, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Pop culture | 1 Comment »
You are currently browsing the archives for the Linguistics in the comics category.