Archive for the ‘Clipping’ Category

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Word errors

November 9, 2014

From Kristin Bergen on Facebook:

a wonderful eggcorn from a FB teaching discussion group: a colleague reports a senior seminar paper in which the student describes something happening “right from the gecko”

A delightful error (evoking an entertaining image), and surely a type of classical malapropism (CM) — a type I’ll label a Ruthie (after the character of that name in the comic strip One Big Happy) — but not an instance of the subtype of CM known in the error literature as an eggcorn, though to be fair to Kristin it’s significantly similar to eggcorns.

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Posted in Clipping, Eggcorns, Errors, Language play, Ordinary vs. technical lg | 5 Comments »

doxxing

October 26, 2014

A slang term (also spelled doxing) from the Gamergate controversy (see below), for “researching and publishing personally identifiable information about an individual” (Wikipedia), in a form of cyber-bullying. The Wikipedia article derives the term from dox, which it treats as a clipped version of document, but it seems more likely that dox is just a re-spelling of docs, which is a clipped version of documents, used here with a specialized meaning.

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Posted in Clipping, Language and the sexes, Slang, Social life | 1 Comment »

Clipped musculature

October 12, 2014

My most recent posting had a cartoon pun on abdominal (muscles), muscles that have been featured prominently in huge numbers of my postings on shirtless men, under the name abs, for abdominals. The muscles come in sets, hence the plural; and then the base noun abdominal has been clipped to ab. There are plenty more of these clippings, most of them involving muscles that come in pairs.

So from a 8/19/14 posting “Abs of the week”:

It’s been a while since I posted images of shirtless men with astounding abs (and pecs, delts, traps, and biceps, but oh, those abs!) …

And there’s more on fitness sites, for example, from msn health and fitness, on Wall Ball exercises:

MUSCLES INVOLVED: Quads, Glutes, Abs, Traps, Pecs, Delts, Triceps, Total Body

EQUIPMENT: Medicine Ball

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Posted in Clipping, Language and the body | Leave a Comment »

POP goes the taxi

July 31, 2014

Yesterday’s Rhymes With Orange:

A POP — phrasal overlap portmanteau — combining the clipped compound mani-pedi (a manicure plus a pedicure; see here) and the compound pedicab ‘pedal-operated taxi’.

Posted in Clipping, Compounds, Linguistics in the comics, Phrasal overlap portmanteaus, Portmanteaus | Leave a Comment »

Minimumble

March 2, 2014

From Benjamin Slade, pointers to Chris Hallbeck’s webcomic site Minimumble, with three recent language-related cartoons:

From 2/12/14, treating procrastinator as pro + castinator, with pro treated as a clipping of professional  and so contrasted with amateur (link):

(#1)

From 2/14/14, language play extracting panda from pandemonium (link):

(#2)

From 2/24/14, a POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) (link):

(#3)

Bed Bath and Beyond (the retail chain) overlapped with Beyond Thunderdome (the movie).

Posted in Clipping, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus | Leave a Comment »

Slang change

February 15, 2014

Yesterday Mark Liberman posted on this Doonesbury cartoon:

Rich in material. The main thing I want to note (as Mark did) is a sense development in the slang verb rock, from an older sense, around at least since 1990 (‘impact strongly’), to a newer sense, the one in the cartoon, around since at least 2007 (‘wear or display conspicuously or proudly’); this is a change from a more objective sense to a more subjective one, such as Elizabeth Traugott has repeatedly discussed.

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Posted in Clipping, GenX so, Language change, Portmanteaus, Slang, Snowclones | 4 Comments »

hash

February 4, 2014

An recent exchange on Facebook (about Gertrude Stein) led to musings on the drug noun hash, which at least historically is a shortening of hashish. One participant noted that these days you don’t see a lot of mentions of hashish, and I remarked that for some people hash was usable as another synonym (among many) for marijuana / cannabis, similar to pot. I was comfortable with that, but not everyone was.

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Posted in Clipping, Slang | 5 Comments »

amaze

December 31, 2013

It starts with tlhe clipping amaze for amazing and then goes on to the playful extension amazeballs (or amaze balls). Then both of these can be modified by the slang clipping totes (for totally). And another slang intensive modifier, def, can be added to the mix, giving things like the slogan on this tea towel:

(#1)

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Posted in Clipping, Etymology, Language and food, Language play, Slang | 1 Comment »

slashclip

August 23, 2013

My recent postings on slash fiction and imagery, and fan fiction and art, pulled up a series of truncations and clippings, the most notable being manip, a count noun referring to a digital or photo manipulation of an image or video. From “Spike / Marsters” on the 20th:

Angel can be viewed in my previous posting (image #2, and with the Winchester brothers and Spike in a fourgy in #9). Doug Wyman supplied a Spangel [Spike/Angel] manip in a comment to that posting, and here’s another that I like: [#2 in “Spike / Marsters”]

That’s digital or photo manipulation truncated to manipulation, then clipped to manip. Well, it’s short and snappy.

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Posted in Clipping, Compounds, Pop culture, Truncation | 1 Comment »

Wednesday puns

July 31, 2013

Two of today’s cartoons: a Dilbert and a Pearls Before Swine, both with elaborate puns:

(#1)

This turns on the verb weasel, plus the legal phrase (beyond a) reasonable doubt (plus the derivation of adjectives in –able from verbs).

(#2)

And this one turns on the noun and verb hex, plus the food compound Tex-Mex.

In each case, “getting” the comic requires two pieces of information, from different spheres. (And both beyond weaselable doubt and Hex Mex could be viewed either as elaborate imperfect puns or as complex portmanteaus:  weaselable + beyond reasonable doubt, hex + Tex-Mex.)

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Posted in Clipping, Compounds, Derivation, Language and animals, Language and food, Language and the law, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus, Puns, Verbing | 1 Comment »

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