You should really look at the text

June 10, 2016

… or maybe you think that any publicity is good publicity — if you are the author of this e-mail that came to me yesterday:

Dear Arnold Zwicky, We would humbly request that you consider adding [site X] as a dating site link on your page [1/20/12, “Christians”]:

We are the largest free Christian dating site in the world and have been around since 2007. We are currently working hard on our memberships and have marketed the latest versions of our Google Play Android app and iOS app to the Christian community. Thank you for your consideration. God Bless, David

Snarl.

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Posted in Categorization and Labeling, Language and religion, Lexical semantics, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Another dubious name

June 10, 2016

Passed on from Facebook posters by way of Chris Waigl, this storefront, with comments from readers about the store name Kum & Go:

(Note the use of rhyme and alliteration in the follow-ups.)

Another chapter in the annals of dubious and unfortunate names on this blog. In this case, you might have thought that a double entendre was intentional, a bit of playful naming to catch your eye and stick in your memory. But the company’s official story maintains otherwise, so (apparently)  it’s only accidentally risible.

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Posted in Alliteration, Double entendres, Language of advertising, Names, Rhyme | Leave a Comment »

The literalist on Fathers Day

June 9, 2016

Fathers Day comes on the 19th. For the occasion, a Tom Toro cartoon that didn’t get into my earlier posting about him:

Well, there can be literally only one greatest dad in the world, but then not all language is literal — as in this case, where the sentiment on the mug is a piece of hyperbole, exaggeration for effect.

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Posted in Comparison, Figurative language, Holidays, Hyperbole, Linguistics in the comics, Semantics | Leave a Comment »

What the wind says

June 9, 2016

Today’s Doonesbury, with a musical allusion:

(#1)

Every little breeze seems to whisper “Louise.”
Birds in the trees seem to twitter “Louise.”
Each little rose
Tells me it knows I love you, love you.

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Movies and tv, Music | Leave a Comment »

Tom Toro

June 9, 2016

Caught in the May 9th New Yorker, this Tom Toro cartoon:

(#1)

A little slideshow on time adverbials and the times they refer to, understood figuratively.

Toro hasn’t appeared on this blog before, but he’s a prolific cartoonist with an ear for language and an inclination to play with classic cartoon memes (like the desert island or, as below, penguins and their discriminability).

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Posted in Adverbs, Comic conventions, Inflection, Linguistics in the comics, Names, Penguins, Singular & plural, Time, Words and things | Leave a Comment »

Still solid, after 20 years

June 8, 2016

(Warning: heavy technical linguistics.)

This morning a linguist working on auxiliary reduction in Scots dialects wrote to ask me about the 1997 Pullum & Zwicky LSA paper “Licensing of prosodic features by syntactic rules: The key to auxiliary reduction” (a paper Geoff and I are still proud of). The abstract is available on this blog, but the handout is not (though other handouts are there). A significant problem with word processing formats was the culprit, but (spurred by my correspondent’s query) Geoff managed to unearth a clean copy of the reading script for the paper, which includes everything from the handout and more. Now available for public consumption here.

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Posted in Clitics, Morphology and syntax, My life | 2 Comments »

Paleolithic reporting

June 6, 2016

… and cartooning —  telling a story through pictures in sequence — and story inflation.

Today’s Bizarro, with another variant of the caveman cartoon meme:

(If you’re puzzled by the odd symbols in the cartoon — Dan Piraro says there are 3 in this strip — see this Page.)

In panel 1, at the top, Caveman 1 tells Caveman 2 the story of a hunt, exhibiting a trophy (which looks a lot like a squirrel). In panel 2, Caveman 2 reports the story in a painting that, um, expands some on the original account, now involving large horned mammals (well, if it’s not true, it’s a good story).

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Posted in Comic conventions, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

A Chomsky caricature

June 6, 2016

Will Leben commenting in Facebook yesterday about the June 9th issue of the New York Review of Books, with a drawing of Noam Chomsky on the cover:

This meaty review [“A Case Against America” by Kenneth Roth, review of Noam Chomsky’s “Who Rules the World?”] rightly takes Chomsky to task for cherry-picking facts and for sometimes getting them wrong. Also included, the most hideous, cartoonish drawing of him in print.

(#1)

The review is critical of Chomsky, but (as several commenters have observed) not as critical as it might have been. As for the drawing, as I noted on Facebook:

The drawing is indeed cartoonish; it’s a caricature, by the NYRB‘s current resident caricarturist, James Ferguson (succeeding David Levine, who did many thousands of caricatures over the years), Caricatures aren’t portraits in any ordinary sense; they’re intentionally exaggerated and mean to evoke character or highlight notable characteristics of their subjects. Many are affectionate, like Al Hirschfield’s theatrical caricatures in the NYT; on the other hand, some political caricatures (like Thonas Nast’s) are savage. In the NYRB, getting a caricature, rather than a photo, is a sign that you’re a Person of Significance.

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Posted in Art, Linguistics in the comics | 2 Comments »

More participial urgency

June 5, 2016

In today’s Doonesbury, a new (and younger) audience confronts a stylistic quirk of some television hews reporting:

This time the participles (PRP, PSP) are pretty much a side issue, though their sense of urgency — I would say, rather, “immediacy” — appears right away, in panel 2.

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Style and register | Leave a Comment »

Jeff Hobbs

June 4, 2016

In the June 2016 issue of Funny Times, a bit of language play, portmanteauing Oreos (referring to the brand of creme-filled chocolate cookie sandwiches) and areolas (referring to the rings of pigmented skin surrounding nipples):

(#1)

The artist, Jeff Hobbs, is new to this blog; he’s given to plays on words, however.

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

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