Archive for the ‘Reference’ Category

The definite article of salience

August 6, 2023

The Mother Goose and Grimm strip of 12/3/15 (lots of stuff hangs around on my desktop for a really long time), depicting a canine guardian of the gates of dog heaven:


The definite article of uniqueness, here distinguishing a proper name St. Bernard (unique in some salient world for the user and their audience), the name of a specific saint, from a common noun St. Bernard (a type name), the name of a breed of dogs

Now it turns out that this usage can be employed to distinguish two proper nouns (according to their salience in a particular sociocultural context); and to distinguish two common nouns (picking out the salient type, rather than naming an individual). (Necessarily rather complex) examples follow.

(more…)

Posted in Context, Definiteness, Language and animals, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Pragmatics, Reference, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

DISNEY ON ICE

April 17, 2023

Well, the title pretty much gives the joke away. An outrageous (but phonologically perfect) pun in a Bizarro cartoon from 9/6/12:


(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbol in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there’s just 1 in this strip — see this Page.)

What the woman and her two kids get to view is Disney on ice —

(the body of the dead-since-1966 Walt) Disney (resting) on (a block of preservative) ice (in a display case)

What she bought tickets to was an entertainment (especially aimed at children) called Disney on Ice —

(an entertainment in which characters from the Walt) Disney (Company’s animated cartoons are portrayed by performers skating) on ice

(more…)

Posted in Ambiguity, Common vs. proper, Context, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Names, Puns, Reference, Relevance | 4 Comments »

My allergic ass

April 30, 2022

Back on 4/21, I wrote to John Beavers (the University of Texas semanticist) with a data find that was, perhaps, of interest to him (mail exchanges edited quite substantially):

AZ >JB: Caught in a Facebook discussion just now:

Sister Hera Sees Candy (wonderful drag name of a Sister of Perpetual Indulgence [a SF order of queer and trans drag nuns]): My allergic ass in high school used to sing, “The hills are alive with the sound of mucus.”

It’s the 1sg pronominal ass [that is, my ass referring to the speaker, Hayden Reynolds, not to his buttocks], which I thought was admirable (I am easily amused), as well as an ingenious way to get a noun in there so that allergic would have a place to go. (otherwise, the marginal Allergic me in high school used to sing …; and the clearly ungrammatical Allergic I in high school used to sing …).

Did you and Andrew [John Beavers & Andrew Koontz-Garboden, A universal pronoun in English? Linguistic Inquiry 37.3.503-13 (2006)] have other 1sg examples? (Clearly, it’s pushing the envelope.)

(more…)

Posted in Pronouns, Reference, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

Phosphorus and Hesperus

June 2, 2021

(Folded into this posting there will be some discussion of male-male sexual acts, and paintings of these, so the posting isn’t suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

🐇🐇🐇 To greet the new month — Pride Month, though that’s no doubt an accident — my Facebook ads on 6/1, yesterday, included one new to me, for art.com, offering giclee or canvas prints of Evelyn De Morgan’s 1882 painting Phosphorus and Hesperus:

(#1)

An embodiment of complementarity: two half-brothers (sharing their mother, Eos), one (Phosphorus) lighter haired, eyes open, facing up, bearing a flaming torch aloft; one (Hesperus) darker haired, eyes closed, facing down, holding a cold torch pointing down; with their arms intertwined and their bodies aligned complementarily, in a 69, or sideways astrological Cancer, or yin-yang pattern (with Hesperus as yin, Phosphorus as yang).

(more…)

Posted in Art, Astronomy, Myths, Names, Philosophy, Portmanteaus, Reference, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

Calvin becomes a personage

April 6, 2021

Two Calvin and Hobbes cartoons recently — yesterday and today (originally from 4/8 and 4/9/91) — in my comics feed, in which Calvin takes on a title (the epithet the Bold) and adopts illeism (referring to himself in the third person):

(#1)

(#2)

Yes, it’s all about linguistics.

(more…)

Posted in Address terms, Anaphora, Linguistics in the comics, Names, Pragmatics, Reference | 6 Comments »

The first two days of Christmas

December 26, 2019

On the first day of Christmas, in a Wayno/Piraro Bizarro, Jesus seeks therapy for a life that has gotten out of his control. On the second day of Christmas, St. Stephen’s Day, Daily Jocks enlists a hugely overstuffed musclehunk to memorialize St. Stephen of the Sacred Box.

(Note: a certain amount of male flesh, crude wordplay on package and box, and lots of sacrilege. Use your judgment.)

(more…)

Posted in Comic conventions, Fiction, Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and sports, Language and the body, Linguistics in the comics, Linguists, Reference, Underwear | 1 Comment »

More pipe philosophy

July 21, 2017

On the Philosophy Matters Facebook page, this take on Magritte’s The Treachery of Images (which comes up on this blog every month or so):

(more…)

Posted in Philosophy, Reference, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

The patriotic fig leaf

July 2, 2017

(About men’s bodies; some readers may want to exercise caution.)

The Michael Lucas (gay porn studio) Fourth of July sale for this year:

(#1)

They are covering their junk with the Stars and Stripes (and their hands): the flag as fig leaf, or modesty shield.

(more…)

Posted in Clothing, Compounds, Gay porn, Holidays, Language and the body, Pragmatics, Reference, Semantics, Slang, Subsectivity, Underwear | 1 Comment »

More Magrittean disavowals

June 28, 2017

Today’s Zippy:

(#1)

One in a long series of Zippy strips about Tod Browning’s film Freaks, the characters in it, and the actors who played them (only some of them posted about here). Also one in a long series of strips referring to the Magrittean disavowal, a contradiction between text and image: in this case, the title of this comic strip, This is not a comic strip.

(more…)

Posted in Art, Formulaic language, Gender and sexuality, Language of advertising, Language of sex, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Music, Names, Reference, Speech acts | 2 Comments »