Yesterday’s Zippy strip, set in Sparta WI:
(#1) Ben Bikin’ astride his high wheel, with an attitude
Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
On the trail of the high-riding fiberglass bicyclists
August 10, 2023
Barthropods seeking silverfish
August 8, 2023Today’s Wayno / Piraro Bizarro, a complex composition in which two centipedes look for bar snacks:
(#1) First bit of language play: the portmanteau barthropod = bar + arthropod, centipedes being arthropods, creatures in the gigantic phylum Arthropoda — also encompassing insects (including silverfish and springtails as well as flies, butterflies and moths, beetles, and more), spiders. crustaceans (among them, shrimp, crabs, lobsters, and barnacles), and millipedes (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page)
Then there’s a more subtle bit of language play in silverfish serving as bar snacks in a world in which centipedes drink in bars — given that Goldfish crackers (gold fish, silver fish, bring out the bronze) are often served as bar snacks in the real world.
The sea captain figure fantasizes in Cambridge MA
August 8, 2023Today’s Zippy strip takes us to the Summer Shack seafood restaurant at 149 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge MA 02140:
(#1) The sea captain figure fantasizes about his Easter Island ancestry: Massive Stone Heads R Us
Sprinkling the log
August 7, 2023The Wayno / Piraro Bizarro strip for 8/7 (Wayno’s title: “Six-Legged Sprinkles”):
A waiter brings an ant farm to the table and shakes ants out of it onto a log, according to the diner’s taste — the parallel is to grinding salt or pepper, sprinkling herbs / spices, or grating cheese onto food in similar fashion, until the diner is satisfied with the amount (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 4 in this strip — see this Page)
Brewster Rockit fails lunch
August 7, 2023From David Preston on Facebook, the Sunday 8/6 stand-alone Brewster Rockit comic strip, in which the dim-witted hero explains that he failed lunch at school because his sandwich was always peanut butter and jalapenos:
J-this or J-that, who cares — though he admits that jelly would have made better sense
The definite article of salience
August 6, 2023The Mother Goose and Grimm strip of 12/3/15 (lots of stuff hangs around on my desktop for a really long time), depicting a canine guardian of the gates of dog heaven:
The definite article of uniqueness, here distinguishing a proper name St. Bernard (unique in some salient world for the user and their audience), the name of a specific saint, from a common noun St. Bernard (a type name), the name of a breed of dogs
Now it turns out that this usage can be employed to distinguish two proper nouns (according to their salience in a particular sociocultural context); and to distinguish two common nouns (picking out the salient type, rather than naming an individual). (Necessarily rather complex) examples follow.
The Big Button
August 2, 2023Today’s Zippy strip, with an undisregardable piece of public art in Manhattan’s fashion district:
(#1) The giant button and needle leaning on the kiosk of the Fashion District Information Center
Now: about this sculpture — the kiosk structure and the sculpture itself were removed last year — and then about its bright yellow stand-alone replacement, unveiled in February of this year.
No more bunny helmets
August 2, 2023Dan Piraro’s Bizarro from Sunday 7/30, in which Vikings with bunny-eared helmets demand horned helmets:
(#1) No more eating grasses, it’s time for Viking pillaging and plundering in an appropriately fierce costume (if you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 10 in this strip — see this Page)
Now, you’re thinking, I’m going to tell you that actual Vikings didn’t wear ornamental horned helmets, just to look fearsome; that instead they wore more effectively protective helmets of thick leather; and that the horned helmet thing is totally an invention of artists — or some disappointing shit like that. And I am.
It’s a good story, and it makes for amazingly impressive operatic scenes and a totally menacing muscle-hunk Marvel comics superhero (among other things), but all that horns stuff is fanciful.
The Bulldog Café, a lost monument of mimetic architecture
July 30, 2023It begins with yesterday’s posting “Charlie’s Dog House Diner” — not actually in the form of a doghouse, but with a doghouse image on its facade; in a comment on my posting, Tim Evanson now suggests a little place in old L.A. in the form of a bulldog — a genuine piece of mimetic architecture:
There is also the Bulldog Cafe, once located at 1153 West Washington Boulevard in Los Angeles, California. A takeout restaurant, it was torn down in 1955. A re-creation was built for the 1991 Disney movie The Rocketeer.
The link Tim provided is unusable for me, but here’s a fine one, to Martin Turnbull’s website (of 3/10/15) on the Bulldog Café, opened in 1928:
I’m a fan of mimetic architecture – buildings intentionally made to look like something, often in the shape of what it sells, like an ice cream store in the shape of a waffle cone. Yes, they’re kitsch, and but they’re fun and memorable. This one was called the Bulldog Café, and opened at 1153 West Washington Blvd in 1928 and lasted until 1955 or 1966 (sources differ.) Not unsurprisingly, it’s no longer there, but a replica of it can now be found at the Idle Hour in North Hollywood. (The replica was built by the Petersen Automotive Museum on Wilshire Blvd, but was removed during their 2017 remodel.)
Featuring ham, barbecue, chili, tamales, and ice cream; if it offered hot dogs, that wasn’t trumpeted.
Charlie’s Dog House Diner
July 29, 2023From the great book of diners of fanciful design (compare, more generally: restaurants of fanciful design and motels of fanciful design), from Tim Evanson: Charlie’s Dog House Diner, 2102 Brookpark Rd, Cleveland OH:
(#1) The facade, representing a doghouse, with dogs; but this is just one face of the diner, which is otherwise of more ordinary form
Now: on the compound noun dog house; on Charlie’s Dog House Diner; on what is no doubt the most famous dog house in pop culture, Snoopy’s from the Peanuts comic strip; and on diners that have taken dog house entirely for its name value, without any attempt to mimic or represent a dog house — taking the Dog House Diner in Encinitas CA as one exemplar of these. Hot dogs! Getcher hot dogs here!