Archive for the ‘Linguistics in the comics’ Category
May 25, 2019
(After the cartoons and the lexicography, John Rechy will take this posting into the world of mansex, in some detail and in very plain talk; that section is not for kids or the sexually modest, but I’ll warn you when it’s looming on the horizon.)
Two bison greet each other in a John Baynham cartoon with a wonderful pun:
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That’s numbers (roughly ‘amount’, but as a PL C noun) — and indeed large numbers of buffalo did once roam the plains of North America — vs. numbers referring to physical models, or simulacra, of symbols for certain abstract mathematical entities — in this case, the natural numbers. Such physical models are also familiar: think of the letters in the HOLLYWOOD sign, or the numbers on the building at 666 Fifth Ave. in NYC (with its own kind of fame as a Jared Kushner property). But people don’t walk around with, much less inside, giant versions of such models. That’s deliciously absurd.
Looking at the lexical items involved will take us deep into the lexicographic weeds and then to the secret places of mansex, starting with the dim recesses of Griffith Park in Los Angeles.
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Posted in Books, Homosexuality, Language and animals, Language of sex, Lexical semantics, Lexicography, Linguistics in the comics, Metonymy, Porn actors, Puns, Slang | Leave a Comment »
May 20, 2019
Music, cartoons, and language play, plus Slavic folklore, Seiji Ozawa and his expressive hair, pony cars, symphony trumpeters, NPR, and Frankenstein’s monster. It starts with this wonderful cartoon by Jeffrey Curnow from the NPR site (hat tip to Virginia Transue):
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Posted in Art, Folklore, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Music, Names, Portmanteaus, Puns, Trade names, Understanding comics | Leave a Comment »
May 16, 2019
The Wayno/Piraro Bizarro from the 14th shows us Lassie trying to deliver a message about Timmy:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
Ah, a variant of the Lassie-Timmy cartoon meme. With a play on the senses of be in trouble. From various dictionaries:
(i) ‘in a problematic situation or state of hardship’
(ii) ‘in peril, danger’
(iii) ‘subject to or due for punishment’
(iv) (euph.) ‘pregnant and unmarried’
In the usual cartoon meme, Timmy is in trouble in sense (i) or (ii) — classically, he has fallen down a well — but in #1, it’s sense (iii). I haven’t found an instance of the meme that bends gender to take advantage of sense (iv), but it’s certainly imaginable. (And for a possibility torn from the headlines, if you’re in trouble in sense (iv) and get an abortion, in Alabama you’re now in trouble in sense (iii).)
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Posted in Ambiguity, Argument structure, Comic conventions, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Semantics | 1 Comment »
May 9, 2019
During the frustrating days of searching for a source of the Japanese-Spanish “Ariperro” cartoon (5/5 report on this blog here), I wrote on Facebook:
Stacy [Holloway] says there’s no clear answer. I say I’m sad about the unclear answer.
And Stacy offered to allay my sadness with something happy, specifically, from the My Modern Met site, “Adorable “Leaf Sheep” Sea Slugs Look like Cartoon Lambs” by Jenny Zhang on 8/22/15:
(#1) A leaf sheep sea slug, Costasiella kuroshimae
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Posted in Compounds, Holidays, Language and animals, Language and food, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Morphology, Tongue twisters | 1 Comment »
May 5, 2019
The punchline to a wonderful two-line bilingual joke, realized in this cartoon:
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First, some analysis of the Japanese-Spanish joke. Then some reflections on its appearance, all over the net, in both English-speaking and Spanish-speaking contexts, without attribution to an artist or identification of a source. And, finally, a likely account of its origin, in the Zona Dorado district of Mazatlán, Sinaloa, Mexico.
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Posted in Books, Japanese, Jokes, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Spanish, Understanding comics | 2 Comments »
April 30, 2019
The One Big Happy from 4/3, recently in my comics feed: the tough neighborhood kid James and his sledgehammer:
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What I hear in the first panel is an echo of a quotation with an ax, not a sledgehammer:
‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.
One of the great first lines in English literature, just grips you right off, does E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web.
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Posted in Books, Linguistics in the comics, Memory, Metaphor, Movies and tv, My life, Phallicity, Quotation, Signs and symbols, Verbing | 4 Comments »
April 28, 2019
(This message is brought to you by Frolic, Romp, Frisk, Gambol, Cavort, Caper, & Prance, Ltd., purveyors of iambs and orgies.)
Today’s playful Zippy:
(#1) Drying clothes engaged in an orgy of cavorting and gamboling, playfully, sensually sliding against one another: inhale the freshness!
With one satisfying line of enigmatic iambic pentameter:
All ˈlaundry ˈis a ˈblur of ˈstatic ˈcling
Words to live by. If you can only divine their deeper lesson.
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Posted in Homosexuality, Language of sex, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Poetic form | 5 Comments »
April 27, 2019
(Mesh Man in his underwear, leading us in many directions, but with plenty of sexual content — not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)
From the 12th: Mesh Man returns to the Daily Jocks underverse, flogging their fabulous Varsity Mesh Shorts, flaunting his famous receptive organ — he’s all man and a foot deep — kneeling with feeling in #1 and flashing a finger gun to his fans in #2:
(#1) Party shorts! (see the ad below) — I go down on one knee to go down on my guy
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Posted in Ambiguity, Art, Clichés, Compounds, Gesture, Idioms, Language and religion, Language and sports, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Movies and tv, Music, Parody, Phallicity, Photography, Signs and symbols, Underwear | 10 Comments »
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