June 3, 2014
Now at the Jewish Museum in New York (through September 21st), an exhibition of Mel Bochner‘s recent conceptual art. From the NYT on May 2nd, in “Secret Power of Synonyms: Mel Bochner Turns Up the Volume in ‘Strong Language’ ” by Ken Johnson:
Words have been the subjects and primary constituents of the enigmatic yet acerbically provocative paintings Mel Bochner has been creating over the past 12 years. “Mel Bochner: Strong Language,” an elegantly produced exhibition at the Jewish Museum, gives them their due and traces their roots back to text-based works that Mr. Bochner created in the ’60s and early ’70s, when he was one of New York’s pre-eminent Conceptual artists.
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Posted in Art/lit/music/film, Obscenicons, Synonyms, Taboo language and slurs | 1 Comment »
June 2, 2014
An abstract for a talk by Erez Levon (Queen Mary, University of London) this coming Friday (1:30-3) at Stanford. I won’t be able to be there, but obviously the topic is of great interest to me.
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Posted in Events, Gender and sexuality, Language and religion, Language and sexuality, Phonology, Style and register | Leave a Comment »
June 2, 2014
In today’s One Big Happy, Ruthie and Joe are back on the track of trying to make sense of things they haven’t heard before:
(#1)
Lots of knowledge needed here — about the words of English and about sociocultural conventions:
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Posted in Abbreviation, Argument structure, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics, Metaphor, Nouning, Sociocultural conventions, Truncation, Words | Leave a Comment »
June 1, 2014
A One Big Happy from yesterday (May 25), on conversational organization; and then three from this morning’s (June 1st) crop: a Bizarro with an ambiguity introduced by truncation; yet another meta-Zippy, this time on reports of Zippy’s death; and a Rhymes With Orange with a pun from the Black Lagoon.
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Posted in Ambiguity, Conversation, Figurative language, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Movies, Nouning, Pop culture, Truncation | 1 Comment »
May 31, 2014
Anthony Lane, reviewing The Amazing Spider-Man 2 in the May 5th New Yorker:
I lost count of the scenes in which Gwen and Peter thrash out the question of whether they should be a couple, and there is a sigh of relief in the cinema when she, deploying what philosophers would call a performative utterance, says simply, “I break up with you,” leaving us to wonder if she pulls the same trick in bed: “And now we approach the orgasm.”
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Posted in Language in advertising, Pragmatics, Semantics, Speech acts | Leave a Comment »
May 31, 2014
[An art posting. Warning for the modest: a cast-iron penis will eventually appear, though in a Serious Work of Art in a public place in the UK.]
On a recent postcard, from Chris Ambidge, an image of a Gormley outdoor sculpture in the surf by Liverpool. A more panoramic view than the one on the card:
(#1)
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Posted in Art/lit/music/film, Gender and sexuality, Phallicity | 1 Comment »
May 30, 2014
Two recent items that challenge the borders of categories in the world of art, literature, and humor: another Jane Austen quote (yes, Chris Ambidge keeps sending them on); and an e-card (passed on by Victor Steinbok because of the entertaining portmanteau on it).
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Posted in Art/lit/music/film, Categorization and Labeling, Humor, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Portmanteaus | 2 Comments »
May 29, 2014
Self-aware cartoon characters come up here every so often — most recently, in a Scenes From a Multiverse strip (#2 here). Today’s Zippy brings us to self-aware diners:
With this posting, we reach a milestone: this is the 4000th posting in this blog. No wonder I have trouble remembering what I’ve posted on here!
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Posted in Linguistics in the comics, Pop culture, This blogging life | 2 Comments »
May 29, 2014
From Bob Mankoff’s How About Never … (see here), p. 255, on Mankoff’s effort to give “aspiring cartoonists feedback” by “developing a mini course in cartoon fundamentals and the psychology of humor.” One course topic: “things are funnier in threes”.
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Posted in Comic conventions, Formulaic language, Linguistics in the comics, Snowclones | 1 Comment »
May 29, 2014
On Tuesday, Ned Deily and I were investigating the workings of my scanner, after it had behaved oddly for me on several occasions (garbage on scanning some black-and-white images, very odd colors when scanning some Jane Austen colored cards). The problem was traced back to some scanner settings I hadn’t known were there, so we re-set those and tried scanning one card of each type, using items I’d gotten in the mail (from Chris Ambidge). Herewith the results.
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Posted in Language in advertising, Languages, Quotations, Translation | Leave a Comment »
