Leaves like lemons, leaves like holly

June 21, 2022

Arrived in Palo Alto on 6/18, a Gillian Mary greeting card from Ann Burlingham, written on 6/14 to report family news from Pittsburgh — a joyously bright representation of a flowering bottlebrush (genus Callistemon), a wonderful Australian plant that I first encountered in California about 60 years ago. Even better: C. citrinus, with bright red flowers that attract birds, bees, and butterflies; and gray-green evergreen leaves that release a lemony scent when crushed (hence the species name citrinus):


(#1) GMC-076 Crimson Bottlebrush, a Gillian Mary card from Aero Images

That led to more cards from this source — Gillian Mary is a trade name, not a person — and ultimately to the actual artist, illustrator and painter Jill Brailsford (who’s the owner and designer of GMC). GMC offers other cards showing Australian plants and flowers — from which I’ve selected just one more (Banksia ilicifolia, with prickly, holly-like leaves) — also Australian scenes (mostly beach scenes) and Australian animals.

So, lemony Callie and prickly Banksy. And then Jill.

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Posted in Art, Language and plants, Music, Poetry | 3 Comments »

Smockery

June 21, 2022

Today’s morning name came to me not as I emerged from sleep, but as the first thing I saw on my computer: today’s Calvin and Hobbes blast from the past (from 6/23/92, summer time 30 years ago) with Hobbes in the grip of onomatomanic fascination with the word smock (warning: it’s catching):


(#1) Smick, smock, sweaty old jock … Well how was I to know there was a party going on? (1958 apologies to Bobby Darin, Murray the K, and Murray’s mother Jean Kaufman; their version is much cleaner)

Zippy the Pinhead is celebrated for his onomatomania, but anyone can play, even stuffed tigers.

The modern smock is a plain functional garment, a kind of protective overshirt (functionally akin to aprons, coveralls, and the like), associated with artists, who work with messy substances. But its history is more complex.

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Posted in Art, Clothing, Fashion, Linguistics in the comics, Mantras, Morning names, Word attraction | 2 Comments »

Sisgender Night’s Dream

June 20, 2022

Start with the sexual-identity terms cis(gender) and trans(gender), which I looked at on this blog yesterday, and they’ll lead you to various forms of language play. If there’s a Transylvania — actually, there are several —  where is its counterpart Cisylvania? Is there a (punning) gender-identity term sisgender for sissies and fems?  And a Sis(s)ylvania for them to live in — perhaps the fairies’ wooded land (as in Midsummer Night’s Dream)?

It’s the curse of the associative mind. We all have them, but some of us have really big ones.

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Posted in Books, Effeminacy, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Identities, Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Placenames, Puns | 4 Comments »

Extended cisgender

June 19, 2022

A physician writes to the NYT Magazine‘s ethicist about a patient who used a racist slur (the N-word) to his Black nursing staff and a homophobic slur (probably the queer F-word, but maybe the queer D-word) to his receptionist, and contemplated ways to support these staff members as an outsider, explaining in the letter that he’s “a Hispanic, cisgender male”.

The first identifier, Hispanic, is a racial / ethnic identifier, counterposed to Black, White, API, Indigenous, etc. The second identifier, cisgender, is clearly intended to be counterposed to homosexual / gay / queer, terms that refer to same-sex (rather than other-sex) sexual orientation; but that looks like some kind of category mistake, since the standard usage of cisgender (with the prefix cis– ‘on this side of’, opposed to trans– ‘on the other side of’) is for a sexual identity that aligns with birth sex (and so is opposed to transgender) — a matter that’s orthogonal to sexuality / sexual orientation. Indeed, most same-sex-oriented people are cisgender; I myself am a cisgender queer, one of millions, though we’re hugely outnumbered by the cisgender straights, who are all over the place. And while some transgender people are sexually oriented towards their own sex, some are oriented towards the other sex. Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and gender, Language of sex, Lexical semantics | 3 Comments »

From the annals of commerce: Doggie and Whippy do it in a leather bar

June 18, 2022

(This is obviously going to go where no kids or sexually modest people should go, and it’s going to get there fast.)

The commercial names Doggie Diner and Mr. Whippy, both surely conceived in all innocence, but, to the prepared mind, easily evoking sexual images (as it happens, my mind is prepared for man-on-man sexual images, so that’s where I’m inclined to go): the doggie / doggy position for anal intercourse; and a leatherman master whipping a leatherman slave.

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Posted in Double entendres, Homosexuality, Language and food, Language and the body, Language of sex, Linguistics in the comics, Logos, Mascots, Music, Parody, Phallicity, Signs and symbols, Trade names | Leave a Comment »

Be the Master of the Meat!

June 17, 2022

(Warning: some discussion of sexual slang in a serious but straightforward tone.)

From the annals of masculine meat holidays in my country, a Blackstone tv spot “Father’s Day: Griddle Envy” (first aired 6/1/22), in which the announcer projects macho good-buddy enthusiasm for a Blackstone griddle as a Father’s Day gift (6/19 this year, just two days away! And the next American MascMeatHol, Independence Day, aka the Fourth of July, is only two weeks away):


(#1) The envy-inciting appliance: a Blackstone 4-burner 36″-griddle propane-fired cooking station with side shelves (about $300); you can view the ad at this site

From the alliterative text:

Give him what he really wants … Your Dad can be the master of the meat, the king of the cookout, the sultan of steak

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Posted in Alliteration, Double entendres, Holidays, Language and food, Language and the body, Language in advertising, Language play, Masculinity, Phallicity | 1 Comment »

prone, doggy, intimate, intense

June 16, 2022

(Men’s bodies, steamy man-on-man sex, all in raunchy street talk, as you will see immediately, so not for kids or the sexually modest.)

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Posted in Effeminacy, Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, It's Just Stuff, Language and sexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Style and register | Leave a Comment »

Zwicky P

June 15, 2022

(Please, no watersports jokes. Even though the posting is about beer.)

Come across by fortunate accident, this product of the 4 Noses Brewing Company, a family-run independent brewery in Broomfield CO (owned and operated by the Bibliowicz family):


(#1) [AMZ:] Like that logo!

Zwicky P is an ultra fluffy, thirst-quenching 5% ABV Pilsner-style lager with flavor characteristics reminiscent of honey and white grape. “Zwickel”, the term for a port to sample beer, stylistically refers to the German process of serving bier young, unfiltered, unpasteurized and with a pronounced yeast profile often lost during the multiple-month cold maturation process characteristic for modern lagers. Like brewers sampling directly from the fermenter, Zwicky P is meant to be consumed by the litre! (company link)

Here are the four noses (Tommy and David refer jokingly to their noses on occasion):


(#2) The 4 Noses Brewing Co. family, headed by Tommy Bibliowicz, third from left. here; he’s at the brewery with his father, Natan; mother, Jessica; and brother David (2015 photo by 4 Noses Brewing)

The usual genealogical sources seem to have nothing to say about the Bibliowicz family name, but the noses and the spelling of the name say to me: Jews from Poland. So where does the (deeply Germanophone Swiss) name Zwicky come from? Just a play on Zwickel?

 

Posted in Language and food, Names, Zwickys | Leave a Comment »

Flagging day

June 15, 2022

(Well yes, holiday time, but it quicky turns to man-on-man sex in street language, so not suitable for kids or the sexually modest.)

Yesterday, June 14th, was Flag Day in my country: “It commemorates the adoption of the flag of the United States on June 14, 1777, by resolution of the Second Continental Congress.” (from Wikipedia). I am not in the habit of flying the American flag, not out of a lack of love for the country, but out of a desire not to be seen as a yahoo flying the flag as an aggressive symbol of exclusion for those who aren’t “real Americans” — people of color, lgbt folk, liberals in coastal big cities, artists and scholars, and all the rest of us scum. If I flew an American flag yesterday, it would have had to be in conjunction with at least a Rainbow Pride Flag. But I don’t have the flagpoles, or any place to put them. I do have a rainbow flag draped over the fencing in my entryway, and that’s already up against the tolerance of the condo Homeowners Association. And I display the rainbow flag — and also the Swiss flag — on gym shorts and t-shirts.

I think of these displays on my body as flagging gay and flagging Swiss, with a use of the verb flag — to convey (in my rough definition) something like ‘(U.S. gay) display, on one’s body or in one’s attire, a symbol of identity or taste, with the intention of communicating those to potentially interested others’ — that appears not to be covered in standard general or slang dictionaries (up to and including OED2, though that’s in sore need of updating).

I think Flag Day should be left as it is, but today, June 15th, midway through Gay Pride Month, would be a good moment for (Gay) Flagging Day, using conventions that grew up in the mid-20th century.

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Posted in Clothing, Flags, Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Signs and symbols | Leave a Comment »

The jaws of June

June 13, 2022

They are deadly, those jaws. Deadly sins. Gay deadly sins. Decked out in Red …… Orange ….. Yellow …. Green … Blue .. Purple . Omigod Gay Pride!

From Jeff Shaumeyer on Facebook today: the Life of Sharks cartoon for 6/1/22, to inaugurate Gay Pride Month:


(#1) The current menu of Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Greed, Lust, Envy, Gluttony, Wrath, Sloth; waiter, I’ll have Gay Gluttony for starters , Gay Lust for the main course, and Gay Sloth for afters

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Posted in Gender and sexuality, Holidays, Homosexuality, Language and religion, Linguistics in the comics, Penguins, Rainbow | Leave a Comment »

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