Bulking up for Thor

March 20, 2016

(Not much about language. Mostly about actors and the male body, focused on Chris Hemsworth.)

Caught last night, a Saturday Night Live re-run of the December 15th show (season 41, episode 8), with actor Chris Hemsworth as host, sometimes being charming, also doing a long bit as an aggressive practical joker (exposing the malicious display of dominance in much practical joking, which is not just playful “kidding around”); in a skit with a bunch of men hired as male strippers who instead do a Broadway show-tune revue, inciting the fury of the women who had come to see their ding-dongs (nice inventive euphemism); in another skit masquerading as a woman singing the praises of CH as Thor; and more. So: surely not by accident, a lot of material putting a spotlight on masculinity, gender displays, and gender politics.

(Yes, I’ll get to CH wielding his phallic hammer as Thor, and of course to a shirtless shot of a carefully developed, muscular CH.)

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Posted in Actors, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body, Masculinity, Movies and tv | 1 Comment »

Morning name: catarrh

March 20, 2016

For the 19th, the affliction (part of a nasty cold also featuring paroxysmal coughing) and the name, reproducing bits of Ancient Greek spelling carried through to Latin, French, and then English. From NOAD2:

excessive discharge or buildup of mucus in the nose or throat, associated with inflammation of the mucous membrane. ORIGIN early 16th cent.: from French catarrhe, from late Latin catarrhus, from Greek katarrhous, from katarrhein ‘flow down,’ from kata– ‘down’ + rhein ‘flow.’

(The name catarrh obviously has nothing to do with the Gulf country name Qatar, though the latter is sometimes pronounced the same as the former, /kǝtár/.)

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Posted in Language and medicine, Language and plants, Morning names, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

Smooth operator

March 19, 2016

From Daily Jocks yesterday (with my caption):

(#1)

Joey Jockstrap was a cheap con man who
Preyed on gullible gay men, luring them through his
Intriguing slicked-back retro look and his
Intense, urgent sexual presence – but he couldn’t
Restrain himself from ripping off his clothes to
Parade the jutting package in the jockstrap.that
Gave him his alliterative street name.

Lift! Support! Enhance!

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Posted in Captions, Gender and sexuality, Movies and tv, Underwear | Leave a Comment »

Cheech

March 19, 2016

On the 14th on this blog, the posting “Unnerving Chicano art: Vincent Valdez”, which looked at Valdez’s powerful and sometimes unsettling art, with digressions into other artists and musicians, and a passing mention of Cheech Marin, who’s nurturing a Chicano art movement (one of Valdez’s works was featured in an exhibition set up by Marin).

As background, I note that both Valdez and Marin proudly identify themselves as Chicanos, from Chicano neighborhoods (for Valdez, in San Antonio TX; for Marin, in Los Angeles).

After a note on the label Chicano/chicano, I’ll turn to Cheech Marin, with a digression on that nickname Cheech.

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Posted in Art, Language and food, Movies and tv, Names, Race and ethnicity, Taboo language and slurs | Leave a Comment »

Cheese Barrel Polka

March 19, 2016

Today’s Zippy, with one of his celebrated song burlesques:

Though the parody words are sometimes quite distant from the original, the accordion, the title “Cheese Barrel Polka”, and the meter and rhyme scheme of the song should work together to get you almost immediately to “Beer Barrel Polka”, with the verse

Roll out the barrel, we’ll have a barrel of fun
Roll out the barrel, we’ve got the blues on the run
Zing boom tararrel, ring out a song of good cheer
Now’s the time to roll the barrel, for the gang’s all here

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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Music, Parody | Leave a Comment »

Sugar bombs

March 19, 2016

Today’s Calvin and Hobbes (as usual, a re-play of a strip from some time ago):

Ah, the world of high-sugar breakfast cereals marketed to (sweets-loving) kids, visited here a week ago in a posting “Sweet nothings: candy, cereal, advertising”, with a One Big Happy cartoon on candy advertising to kids  and a report on an Observer article “Selling Sweet Nothings”, about cereal advertisements to children and to their parents.

I doubt that any cereal company would market a product so blatantly named “Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs” (however appropriate that name might be). Maybe “Chocolate Frosted Fuzzies” (suggesting girlish cuteness) or “Chocolate Frosted Torpedoes” (suggesting boyish aggressiveness).

Posted in Language and food, Language in advertising, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »

Han Dynasty again

March 19, 2016

Yesterday I wrote:

On Facebook recently, Robert Coren reported on a possible problem with the website for a Han Dynasty restaurant — handynasty — because it was subject to misparsing as handy + nasty.

And then the new issue (March 31st) of the New Yorker arrived, with a restaurant review (by Sylvia Killingsworth) of the Han Dynasty at 215 W. 85th St. in Manhattan — a review that even gets in a note about problems with its web address.

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Posted in Language and food, Technology | 2 Comments »

Perils of: unspacedalllowercase

March 18, 2016

An annoyance of references to sites on the net is that

spacingiseliminatedandeverythingisconvertedtolowercase

If your site is named Mouse Envy or mouse envy or MouseEnvy or mouseEnvy, your helpful hints to the parsing of the name are totally erased in the name

mouseenvy

which could represent all sorts of things, like the joint project name

Mo. U. See & N. Vy

Normally this is just an annoyance, but sometimes the transformation could induce serious misreadings.

On Facebook recently, Robert Coren reported on a possible problem with the website for a Han Dynasty restaurant — handynasty — because it was subject to misparsing as handy + nasty. Others followed with other possibilities:

Pen Island — penisland — penis + land

Experts Exchange — expertsexchange — expert + sex change

[from Italy] Powergen Italiana — powergenitalia — power + genitalia

I don’t know anything about the purported originals (except for Han Dynasty) or about whether there’s been an actual issue over net access for the potentially ambiguous unspacedlowercase versions. But they’re still good stories, se non è vero, è ben trovato.

 

Posted in Ambiguity, This blogging life | 6 Comments »

Late for St. Patrick’s

March 18, 2016

… but then he’s not Irish, but English.

(Note: mostly about men’s bodies and gay porn. Not in plain street talk, but still you might want to exercise your judgment.)

Below the fold, an ad from the gay porn studio Channel 1 Releasing, with an image of gay pornstar Harley Everett under the header

I’m not Irish! But you can still GET LUCKY.

(by taking advantage of sale items and getting off to them).

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Posted in Gay porn, Gender and sexuality, Language and the body | Leave a Comment »

Morning name: Roll Over, Beethoven

March 18, 2016

This was one of two morning names on 2/13/16; I assume it popped up because some of the music that played while I slept was Beethoven. But of course Chuck Berry is something else again:

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Posted in Morning names, Music, Poetic form, Race and ethnicity | Leave a Comment »

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