Archive for the ‘Names’ Category
February 20, 2019
(This posting will go lots of places, some of which — a Greek military re-enactors’ group in Melbourne — you’ll find astonishing, but there’s no denying that, as the title suggests, it’s penis-dense. Without actually depicting them — those images are in my posting this morning on AZBlogX, “Gay Heart Throbs” — but still. However, without penises strewn along the road every few feet, there’s no getting to the fun stuff (like allusions to Miss Anne Elk and to Sonnets from the Portuguese). So use your judgment.)
Phallophilia I: self-regard. A recent Daily Jocks ad (for Kasper Military shorts from the Helsinki Athletica company) showing a hunky model gazing fixedly down at his bulging crotch, with a title and a caption supplied by me:
(#1) On contemplating his penis
Could I just say here for one moment that
I have a new theory about the penis?
Yes, well you may well ask, what is my theory.
And well you may. Yes my word you may well
Ask what it is, this theory of mine.
Well, this theory that I have — which is mine —
This theory which belongs to me is as follows.
Ahem. Ahem. This is how it goes.
Ahem. The next thing that I am about to say
Is my theory. Ahem. Ready?
My theory is along the following lines.
All penises are round at one end,
Tubular in the middle, and then
Anchored in hair at the far end.
That is the theory that I have
And which is mine, and
What it is too.
— excerpts from an interview with noted penis scholar Gay H. Throbs, DPhS. (Doctor of Phallological Science)
On the nose, GHT!
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Posted in Captions, Gay porn, Gaze, Gender and sexuality, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Names, Parody, Phallicity, Poetry, Pseudonyms, Resources, Signs and symbols, Underwear | Leave a Comment »
February 10, 2019
Back on the 7th, at Dan Gordon’s restaurant in Palo Alto: server explains they are out of Tanqueray gin, apologizes, offers me a taste of Junipero gin (not familiar to me, though it’s a San Francisco thing), which arrives in a glass of interesting shape, also not familiar to me. Being a linguist of inquisitive bent, I ask what that kind of glass is called. Server thinks it’s a Nick and Nora (unfamiliar to me as a glassware label, though I got the allusion and understood why the name would be used for drinkware). Bartender shouts out that, no, it’s a Glenn Caron (well, that’s what I thought he said, but I was puzzled about what the connection was between glassware and the tv writer / director / producer Glenn Gordon Caron or his most famous show, Moonlighting). Much later I discovered it was a Glencairn glass, designed for (Scotch) whisky.
Now, the replay, with more detail.
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Posted in Language and food, Movies and tv, Names, Trade names | 1 Comment »
February 5, 2019
A Wayno & Piraro Bizarro from the 4th, presenting an exercise in cartoon understanding and jogging some reflections on comics conventions:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)
To understand the cartoon, you need to appreciate that it shows a situation from everyday life (the office of a carpentry business) juxtaposed with, or translated into, another, more remarkable, world (an undersea, aquatic, world, populated by specific fish, which you need to recognize).
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Posted in Comic conventions, Counterfactuals, Language and animals, Linguistics in the comics, Names, Semantics, Taxonomic vs. common, Understanding comics | 1 Comment »
January 31, 2019
(Thanks to a cascade of medical conditions that began at the beginning of this month and has consumed much of my time, I’m still working my way through Christmas-oriented postings. Better late, as they say. [And yes, the back-truncation better late is in my files.])
The classic vehicle for carrying Christmas ornaments is the Christmas tree, an up-standing object. But suspended vehicles are also possible: hanging baskets, for instance, or this festive arrangement in Virginia Transue’s dining room that takes advantage of a chandelier:
(#1) Virginia’s 2018 smilax chandelier, with ornaments
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Posted in Holidays, Kinship, Language and plants, Names, Taxonomic vs. common, Truncation | 1 Comment »
January 30, 2019
(This posting ends up knee-deep in gay porn, so there will be references to men’s bodies and to mansex, though the X-rated visuals are off in my AZBlogX posting today “Manly Beach”. This material might not suit all readers.)
A Facebook exchange this morning:
Michael Newman [posting a photo on an antipodal vacation]: Notorious [venomous] funnel web spiders? — in Manly, New South Wales, Australia.
Arnold Zwicky: I long ago got used to the place-name Manly, but every so often I see it afresh and giggle.
Michael Newman: I couldn’t help thinking about it the whole time.
The history of the placename Manly is both straightforward and surprising. Manly and nearby Manly Beach then led me to the 1991 Kristen Bjorn gay porn flick Manly Beach (manly mansex among the manly lifesavers of Manly Beach) and to brief notes on facial expressions in gay porn.
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Posted in Etymology, Facial expressions, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Placenames | Leave a Comment »
January 29, 2019
Another chapter in the Lives of the Gay Pornstars, this time the story of Greg Patton (with his sometime boyfriend Bobby Pyron), who performed in porn in the 1980s under the name Rod Phillips (while Pyron performed under the name Lee Ryder). This posting is not particularly lubricious, but it is about male sex workers and does refer to anal sex between men, so it won’t be to everyone’s taste.
My interest is in how these men managed their lives in the porn business (separately and together), how they balanced their everyday lives — Pyron had a passion for flower arranging, Patton for jewelry design (how queer is that?) — with their careers in porn, and (insofar as this can be determined) how they coped with growing up in a largely hostile straight world and managed relationships with their families. The central question — one that has dogged me all my life, from early childhood on — is:
How, in these circumstances, does an anomaly like me fashion a life that is both decent and bearable?
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Posted in Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Names | 1 Comment »
January 29, 2019
A souvenir from Juan Gomez, who visited Peru (Cuzco, Machu Picchu) with his family for the New Year’s holiday: a little stuffed llama I’ve named Glama Grrl (he’s seen here perched high in the spathyphyllum forest on my worktable):
(#1)
The Peruvian camelid has been exploited for all sorts of word play purposes, perhaps most famously in the light verse of Ogden Nash, but also in joking that turns on the fact that the element llam– has (at least) three separate sources in Spanish (referring to the camelid, to fire or flames, and to calling (out)). Glama Grrl will then lead us to the original traveler from darkest Peru, Paddington Bear.
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Posted in Ambiguity, Clothing, Language and animals, Language play, Names, Poetry, Spanish, Toys and games | 2 Comments »
January 26, 2019
The One Big Happy from 12/30/18:
(#1)
Ruthie has heard that huge numbers of people gather in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. But why is it called Times Square? Obviously ’cause that’s where you go to tell time — where the clock stores are.
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Posted in Holidays, Linguistics in the comics, Names | 3 Comments »
December 27, 2018
Keep X In AXB, Put X (Back) In(to) AXB, Take X Out of AXB
(where X is a word included in a larger word AXB — included in pronunciation (exactly or approximately) or spelling or both)
I’ll start with one of the most complicated examples, the seasonally apropos slogan with KEEP:
(#1) An outdoor vinyl banner from ChurchSupplier.com
then go on to a seasonal example with TAKE, and end with the great mass of examples, with PUT.
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Posted in Etymological Fallacy, Holidays, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Names, Slogans, Snowclones | Leave a Comment »
