The 8/11/22 Rhymes With Orange, exploiting an ambiguity in the noun killer as the modifier N1 in N1 + N2 compounds, in this case in killer abs (literal ‘abs that are killers, abs that kill’ vs. figurative ‘abs that are killer / remarkable’):
(#1) In the worlds of advertisements featuring beautiful people, the health and fitness literature, and soft porn, figurative killer abs are commonplace; abs that kill, however, have (so far as I know) never once appeared on a police blotter
Wider topic: the figurative modifiers of mortal power — premodifying killer (killer abs, a killer app), postmodifying of death (the cruise of death, referring to a penetrating sexual facial expression).
Male body parts and sexual connections between men plus a ton of linguistic expressions in their social contexts, what more could I ask for?
Two recent Wayno/Piraro Bizarro strips, from the 15th and (for St. Patrick’s Day) the 17th, both of linguistic interest: among other things, the portmanteau arthropodcast in the first; and the front-clipping ‘shmallows (for marshmallows, of the psychedelic sort) in the second:
Today’s Bizarro, with yet another unpacking of the initialism BYOB:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 12 in this strip! — see this Page.)
In the conventional initialism, BYOB stands for ‘bring your own bottle / booze / beer / beverage’, but here it’s ‘bring your OB’, where OB /o bi/ is short for — a clipping of — OB-GYN /o bi ǰi waj ɛn/. From NOAD:
noun ob-gyn: abbreviation [pronounced as an initialism] obstetrics and gynecology.
Just one day after a particularly fine Rhymes With Orange cartoon combining the Desert Island cartoon meme and the Grim Reaper meme — in my 6/27 posting “The Desert Island Reaper” — came a Wayno/Piraro Bizarro with a groaner Grim Reaper pun:
(#1) (If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 2 in this strip — see this Page.)
The figure of the Grim Reaper — the bringer of death — as a window-washer, removing — destroying — the grime on the windows of a high-rise building, with the blade of his scythe replaced by a window-washer’s squeegee.
A few days ago, this full-page magazine display made the rounds of Facebook:
(#1) Deriding the “Libtard Agenda” while imitating the Johnson Smith Co.’s ads for novelty items in the back pages of comic books and other publications aimed at children
The first copies I saw didn’t identify the creator or the publication the page came from, and there was some question whether it was (as George V. Reilly, invoking Poe’s Law, put it) “a right-wing parody of progressive views, or a left-wing parody of right-wing opinions of progressive views”. Parody, certainly, but from what viewpoint?
So in its form it’s a parody of a genre of advertising hucksterism. And then in its specific content it’s a parody of a style of political talk (either mocking what’s framed as a preoccuption with kale, gun control, facts, and the like, or mocking those who engage in such mockery).
Much has now become clear. To start with, the copy of the page in #1 identifies the creator as Mary Trainor, and that provides enough context to eventually sort things out.
… Before Swine(s), with language play. From 10/6/18, exploiting the ambiguity of /flu/ as flew or flu ‘influenza’; and two testicular cartoons, from 11/1/18 (nut sack) and (yesterday) 2/5/19 (go nads).
3 x 3: three cartoons of linguistic interest for the 3rd of December: a Dave Blazek Loose Parts with merged phonemes; a Wayno/Piraro Bizarro with an ambiguity; and a Zits with an onomatopoeia.
Another chapter in word attraction: Zippy’s (and Griffy’s) enjoyment of “funny words”. Here, gargoyle, which Zippy, absurdly, analyzes as a compound of the nouns gar (referring to a kind of sharp-toothed fish) and goyle (a rare, mostly dialectal, term for a deep trench) — so, roughly ‘fish ravine’. Turns out the actual etymology of gargoyle is entertaining enough on its own.
Another birthday report, from the 6th: a sushi lunch at Kanpai (Lytton Ave. in downtown Palo Alto), a gift from Kim Darnell — with mostly standard items, but featuring toro katsu (and there lies a tale of borrowing words from one language to another). Photo of a man, bowl of miso soup in hand, seriously contemplating Japanese food, wanting a photo of the meal, and really not wanting a photo of himself:
(#1) The author with a Kanpai lunch special
Your left to right: bowl of miso soup, salad of fresh baby greens with Japanese dressing, toro katsu (with tonkatsu sauce, sriracha mayonnaise, and cooked broccoli floret), bowl of rice; then a platter of California roll and sashimi (tuna and salmon), mug of green tea (with images of sushi on it, labeled in Japanese and English), glass of Chardonnay. The side order of eel (unagi) sushi has not yet arrived.
