An xkcd (passed on to me by Jim Heringer):
Note: that’s iff (if and only if), not just if.
The mouseover message:
Note that this implies that you should NOT honk solely because I stopped for a pedestrian and you’re behind me.
Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
Formal logic
March 30, 2012Imperative, declarative
March 29, 2012Today’s Bizarro, with an imperative-declarative ambiguity:
A intends You have a nice one as an imperative (a conventional farewell), but B hears it as a declarative (a compliment on some aspect of his appearance). Several things conspire to yield the ambiguity.
Zippy and Zerbina were pinheads
March 27, 2012
unfair / not fair
March 25, 2012Yesterday’s Zits, with Jeremy bemoaning the unfairness of things:
Two Fair World assumptions:
an egocentric version, which seems to be Jeremy’s: In a fair world, I would get what I want/need;
an evenhanded, or utopian, version: In a fair world, everyone would get what they want/need.
Kids, teenagers included, are much inclined to the egocentric understanding of fair: what inconveniences me is unfair.
Monster Mash
March 19, 2012
The news for gnus
March 14, 2012
Liverpool to Dingburg
March 14, 2012
In the proper conditions,…
March 10, 2012The most recent Scenes From a Multiverse:
The cartoon uses the maxim of ambiogenesis; some versions:
Under the proper conditions life can arise spontaneously from non-living molecules.
Whenever a planet exists under the proper conditions, life will evolve.
Where the proper conditions exist, life will evolve.
But stretches it to absurdity. (Note that no horses are depicted.)
Then there’s sea horse, a standard example of a non-subsective compound (of the resembloid type): a sea horse isn’t a horse, though it resembles a horse.
Summer in the comics?
March 8, 2012Something I’ve been up to: a proposal for a summer internship in linguistics for this summer, on Linguistics in the Comics. (more…)