The Bizarro of the 25th:
An imperfect pun: hanger /hæŋǝr/ vs. anger /æŋgǝr/. Note the divergent treatment of orthographic NG in medial position: typically /ŋ/ before agentive or instrumental /ǝr/, but /ŋg/ otherwise. (There are well-known exceptions, like dinghy, with /ŋ/; and medial NG sometimes spells /nǰ/, as in dingy.)
Posted in Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Phonology, Puns | Leave a Comment »
Today’s Dinosaur Comics:
A tribute to babies: they poop and they invent language. How cool is that?
Posted in Language acquisition, Linguistics in the comics | 1 Comment »
Today’s Pearls Before Swine, with a word avalanche:
Pearls toilet-talk, which manages to avoid pissy while strongly suggesting it.
[Oh yes, and the reference to pity party.]
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Yesterday’s Pearls Before Swine:
Rat is characteristically insulting; never hire Rat for a delicate task.
Then there’s the agentive noun breaker upper (or breaker-upper), with double marking: -er on both the verb, break, and the particle, up.
Posted in Derivation, Insults, Linguistics in the comics, Morphology, Pragmatics | 1 Comment »
In today’s Pearls Before Swine, Pig once again fails to recognize idiomaticity, but this time he does it in steps:
Pig first treats expect as taking an infinitival complement, as in They’re expecting to leave soon. But then Goat provides an NP direct object (as in They’re expecting a baby, still with an idiomatic use of expect), so Pig shifts to treating expect as taking a direct object plus an infinitival complement, as in They’re expecting the kid to leave soon. Pig asks for the infinitival complement — for him, the sentence is still incomplete — and Goat abandons the whole thing in exasperation.
Posted in Argument structure, Idioms, Linguistics in the comics, Syntax | Leave a Comment »
An xkcd on a theme that comes up in other strips (especially Zits):
When all else fails, send a pigeon.
(Hat tip to Fatemah Abdollahi.)
Posted in Language technology, Linguistics in the comics, These modern times, Uncategorized | 3 Comments »
In today’s Pearls Before Swine, Pig continues to struggle with idioms:
Michael Quinion was on the case back in 2007. Both clean ‘thrash’ and clock ‘face’ are involved.
Posted in Idioms, Linguistics in the comics, Slang | 1 Comment »
Today’s Zippy, about identity (and circuses):
Here’s the puzzle: all four of the circuses referred to in the strip are real ones, but I can’t find information about any of the clowns (Frizbo, Happy Ike, Moltini, Mr. Smiles). Well, occasionally, Bill Griffith does make names up. But I wonder.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Names | Leave a Comment »
Posted in Linguistics in the comics | 3 Comments »
In today’s Zippy, Bill Griffith returns to the story of Schlitzie the pinhead:
From 8/7/13, in “Schlitzie again”:
Bill Griffith told the story of Schlitzie some years ago — see “Zippy and Schlitzie” (2011) – and I told the story (in connection with Tod Browning’s Freaks) in “A Famous Pinhead”. It has an obvious resonance for Griffith.
Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture | Leave a Comment »
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