Archive for the ‘Phonetics’ Category

Corey Saucier

April 2, 2017

… the male model, in body-display, rather than fashion-display, mode — so only a little about language. On the other hand, this posting is, in word and image, at least technically SFW (though homo-steamy).

It begins with a Facebook comment from Ken Rudolph about image #1 in my “Hitchhiking” posting of yesterday:

(#1)

Ken asked:

Who is #1? And where did that still come from…it looks more like a regular movie than a porn.

Not any kind of movie, but a posed still done by a professional photographer (as are, I think, #2-7 in my hitchhiking posting, and the three photos in the accompanying AZBlogX posting). Meanwhile, a Google Images search led me to Saucier.

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Posted in Facial expression, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Male art, Names, Phonetics, Photography, Professional names, Variation | Leave a Comment »

The audible asterisk

December 1, 2016

Today’s Zits has Jeremy breaking out in asterisks, and they’re neither taboo avoidance characters nor stigmata of ungrammaticality:

What Jeremy’s mother perceives as a spoken asterisk is some complex of vocal quality, pitch. intensity, and timing that marks an expression as produced with some reservation, rather than whole-heartedly. Notably, in the last panel, Jeremy’s production of No corresponds to a Jeremy-mental Yes.

Posted in Linguistics in the media, Paralinguistics and kinesics, Phonetics | Leave a Comment »

True Confessions Ripped from the Tabloids

November 6, 2016

(Well yes, men’s bodies, and lots of gay innuendo, but nothing to frighten the horses.)

Headline in The Gaily Male:

“How Giacomo ‘Giacco’ Giaccone’s
SuperSnapJock made me into a sniveling bitch”

  (#1)

Big
Jimmy ruled the
Gym with a thumb of
Steel – one
Snap of his
Strap made the
Strongest man
Kneel

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Posted in Captions, Gender and sexuality, Language in advertising, Music, Names, Phonetics, Phonology, Slang, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Bizarro groaner

January 7, 2016

Today’s Bizarro, with a major pun:

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

Groan: analogy – an allergy. Fairly distant pun for rhotic (r-ful) speakers like me, potentially perfect pun for non-rhotic (r-less) speakers in connected speech (where the indefinite article an is part of a phonological word with allergy, so that the [n] moves from a coda to an onset; then things depend on the vowels in the –ogy part of analogy and the –ergy part of allergy).

Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Phonetics, Puns | 1 Comment »

The sounds don’t quite match

December 26, 2015

Two Christmas cartoons involving puns — one very close, one pretty distant. A Scott Metzger cartoon (which came to me through the Tysonism page on Facebook) and the Mother Goose and Grimm of 12/20/11 (which came to me though the King Features site):

(#1)

(#2)

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Posted in Holidays, Linguistics in the comics, Phonetics, Puns | Leave a Comment »

peanut(s), penis, and Cracker Jack

October 30, 2015

In a posting three days ago on matters having to do with a Pop-Tart commercial on tv, I reported that at first I heard the peanut in peanut butter as penis. Now a Facebook poster adds his own experience, which had to do with the Cracker Jack slogan (for many years), “Candy coated popcorn, peanuts and a prize”, which as a kid he heard as hawking “penis and a prize”; he took that as an early indicator that he was gay. And now I discover that there’s a rich vein of joking (much of it sophomoric) exploiting the phonetic similarity of peanuts and penis (penis brittle and, yes, penis butter), plus considerable anxiety over the word peanuts from speakers of languages that disfavor consonant clusters (like /ts/).

Two topics here: the phonetic similarity of peanut(s) and penis; and some reflections on Cracker Jack, both the snack and its name.

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Posted in Language and food, Language play, Mishearings, Phonetics | 2 Comments »

Pop-Tart blasphemy

October 27, 2015

This Pop-Tart commercial for their new Peanut Butter & Jelly line went past me this morning:

Well, I heard the peanut of peanut butter as penis, but that’s no surprise for someone of my inclinations. I noted it, to add to my file of mishearings, but decided not to post about it; I don’t post about each instance separately. But then along came the One Million Moms and their campaign to try to force Kellogg’s to withdraw the ad, or at least edit one line they found offensive because of its “foul language”. From their 10/15 posting, “Contact Kellogg’s Concerning ‘Jam It’ Ad”:

“No! Ah, Jam It!” The advertisement could have ended with “No!” but Kellogg’s chose to include a phrase that sounded just like a curse word.

It took me a while to see that they were talking about the blasphemous profanity Damn it! / Dammit!, which for me is the mildest sort of strong language. But they’re really serious Christians, who feel that children need protection from blasphemy, or allusions to blasphemy, in the media (in expressions with words like Christ, God, damn, and hell in them — OMG!).

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Posted in Blasphemy, Language and food, Language in advertising, Mishearings, Phonetics, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »

St. David’s Day

March 2, 2015

Yesterday (March 1st) was the first of this year’s Saint’s Days of the Lands of the British Isles: Saint David, patron saint of Wales. Land of the leek and the daffodil and the Red Dragon national flag (see my 3/1/12 posting “Take a leek” for some discussion of these symbols).

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Posted in Holidays, Language and plants, Phonetics | Leave a Comment »