It started with this John Deering cartoon from 11/23/12 (passed on by a series of Facebook posters):
(#1)
In the tradition of the signage
IN CASE OF FIRE, BREAK GLASS
and introducing the cartoonist Deering, who’s fond of the Psychiatrist cartoon meme.
Available in a number of designs on the net:
(#1)
From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy’s “Ambiguity” entry (edited by Adam Sennet, first published 5/16/11, last substantive revision 2/8/16):
Fun fact: the word ‘ambiguous’, at least according to the Oxford English Dictionary, is ambiguous between two main types of meaning: uncertainty or dubiousness on the one hand and a sign bearing multiple meanings on the other. I mention this merely to disambiguate what this entry is about, which concerns a word or phrase enjoying multiple meanings.
In the technical literature on these things, the first notion is known as (among other things) vagueness, while the second is known as (linguistic) ambiguity. Ouch.
(About gay porn, but not wildly racy. Edgy for kids and the sexually modest.)
On the 26th, about the Lucas gay porn sale for Memorial Day 2018: “Memorial mansex” on AZBlogX; and “Porn for the holidays, with narrowed eyes” on this blog, about offering gay porn for various holidays (for Memorial Day as a cultural celebration of summer, in particular), and about interpreting narrowed eyes and drooping eyes.
Now, in “More Memorial mansex” on AZBlogX today, two more gay porn ads for the holiday: one from TitanMen featuring Liam Knox; and one from Dirk Yates featuring Rod Peterson. Here I’ll pick up some themes from those ads: from the Titan, Knox’s tats, and what tats convey; from the DY, a note on palming off pros as amateurs, plus reality vs. fiction and the playful invention new cummer.
There’s Fenwick, and then there’s Fenwich, a Zippy name to conjure with: used as a narrative semi-generic address term, and in explicit discussions of names and their uses.
Edward Steed cartoon in the May 21st New Yorker:
It’s about point of view (pov), especially as this reflects selective attention, an inclination to focus on certain things in the context over others.
The Bizarro/Wayno from the 18th, another exercise in understanding cartoons:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 5 in this strip — see this Page.)
Three things to recognize: the figure of Medusa, the figure of the (Indian) snake handler, and the politeness formula charmed. And then, of course, you need to know that such snake handlers are conventionally known as snake charmers in English and that the politeness formula is part of the social ritual of introduction, where it serves as an alternative to Pleased / Pleasure / Nice to meet you, formal How do you do?, and the like.
Just posted on this blog, this Zippy:
(#1)
Zippy-God as the psychiatrist, a very Zippy-like generic Pinhead as the patient; he’s given the name Fenwick in the third panel. The artist is fond of Fenwick.
… and pornlinguistics.
Recently on Facebook, from Dan Everett and then Rob Pensalfini, calls for research in what I’ll call the profane domain of linguistics:
Dan: How about a pop-up book on the interaction of pornography and linguistic relativity?
Rob: It’s about time for a revival of McCawley’s field of pornolinguistics (and scatolinguistics, while we’re at it).
Dan is a frequent presence on this blog; Rob is new (and I’ll introduce him below). Rob asks about the profane domain, under the name “pornolinguistics and scatolinguistics” (a label I seem to have been responsible for, in 1967, in a moment of careless playfulness). Dan asks about linguistic aspects of pornography (I’ll put pop-up books — they already exist — and linguistic relativity aside in this posting), a topic several commenters thought must be barren, though I’ve found quite a lot to say about it on this blog.
So: on the profane domain, other names for it, and resources on this blog about it. And then on pornography in a similar vein.
Ambiguity is everywhere, but by eliminating useful redundancies in texts, telegraphic registers — headlines, signage, instructional labels, graffiti, and so on — hugely increase the opportunities for unintended multiple meanings. As in this photo that just turned up in Facebook:
(1) N + N compound ‘area for pets (to use)’ OR an imperative, V + NPobj ‘pet the area’
