Just caught, a Swiffer commercial in which a mother wields her Swiffer to good effect, starts taking a Cool Mom Test, and asks her two kids,
Do you guys think I’m mom-tacular or mom-trocious?
(they roll their eyes pityingly).
Modest number of hits for mom-tacular, with the libfix -tacular (recorded by Grant Barrett in 2005, with some forms going back to 1958). But mom-trocious looks unique, still at the portmanteau stage, but set up by mom-tacular.
Today some U.S. churches engaged in a type of civil disobedience; see “Pulpit Freedom Sunday: Pastors Challenge IRS Ban On Political Endorsements” (HuffPo piece by Lily Fowler on the 5th):
As part of “Pulpit Freedom Sunday,” on Oct. 7, religious leaders across the country will endorse political candidates — an act that flies in the face of Internal Revenue Service rules about what tax-exempt organizations, such as churches, can and cannot do.
Also on the 5th, the NYT reported on a school story, in “Cheerleaders With Bible Verses Set Off a Debate” by Manny Fernandez, which begins:
Kountze, Tex. — The hand-painted red banner created by high school cheerleaders here for Friday night’s football game against Woodville was finished days ago. It contains a passage from the Bible — Hebrews 12:1 — that reads: “And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us.”
That banner, and other religious-themed signs made by the high school and middle school cheerleading squads in recent weeks, have embroiled this East Texas town in a heated debate over God, football and cheerleaders’ rights.
The two episodes illustrate the tensions in the first amendment to the U.S. Constitution:
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or …
Mentioned in passing on the public radio show Sez You! today, the punning Thesaurus rex. Often played with, as in this children’s book:
Follow this mischievous dinosaur as he frolics, rollicks, frisks and romps. Each colorful page introduces simple synonyms and a fun-filled way to build vocabulary and word recognition. (Ages 3 to 7 years)
And in this cartoon:
From the materials for Dr. James Hartford’s presentation in a seminar on hip (and knee) replacement at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation on Thursday (an information-packed two hours), in a set of slides on “Common Questions?”, slide 4:
How long do I maintain hip precautions? [things like not crossing your legs] 6 weeks
When can I play golf again? As soon as you’re comfortable (3-8 wks; Dr. Hartford had more detailed imstructions)
When can I drive? 4 weeks
When can I have relations? 4 weeks
That’s relations, a modesty truncation of sexual relations. My daughter and I did wonder if non-native speakers would understand the euphemism.
No one asked about it, though I’m curious here, as in many other contexts, about what counts as sexual relations. I can see why intercourse would be problematic. But what what about masturbation? I’ll have to check with the doc.
Yesterday’s posting on ambiguity in headlines looked at:
Racing star could prove Einstein’s theory
which for a moment I didn’t interpret correctly (with racing star‘ (astronomical) star that is racing’), since I was hung up on racing star ‘a (figurative) star in/of/for racing’. The puzzle is about my mental processes: why didn’t I see the intended interpretation, when it was so clearly signaled by the content of the headline and by the accompanying photo? (Most people probably got the inteded interpretation right off.)
Then in the NYT yesterday, a teaser headline on p. 1:
Fraud Claims Dog Operative
which I read, at first, as having the subject fraud, the verb claims, and the direct object dog operative (a N + N compound: ‘operative that is a dog’), while the intended interpretation has the subject fraud claims, the verb dog, and the direct object operative. Again, many people will have zoomed right in on the intended interpretation, but apparently I was reluctant to posit the verb dog ‘follow closely and persistently’ (which does occur in ordinary text, but finds its natural home in headlines, because of its brevity).
That poor dog operative, done in by fraud. With the assistance of my mental processes.
A piece of Facebook usage that has long puzzled me, clearly illustrated in “Wilson Gray via PoliticusUSA” yesterday: a posting by Wilson Gray that linked directly to a PoliticusUSA story (on Romney and the economy). I would have labeled this “Wilson Gray from PoliticusUSA”, since the standard use of via ‘by way of’ would have “Wilson Gray via PoliticusUSA” implying that the story started with Wilson Gray and came to us with PoliticusUSA as an intermediary: Wilson Gray in the SOURCE role and PolicusUSA in the INTERMEDIARY role. So the Facebook usage of via seems to have the participant roles reversed: PoliticusUSA in the SOURCE role and Wilson Gray in the INTERMEDIATE role.
(Similarly for other X via Y Facebook headers.)
In today’s New York Times, in Michael Wilson’s “Living on His Own, Far From the Box”:
[Homeless man John Cornelius Foley] was an early benefactor of gentrification. Construction workers let him sleep in the new luxury buildings they were erecting. Just be gone in the morning, they told him. Police officers looked the other way when he slept in an alley off Houston Street. Just be gone in the morning.
That’s benefactor where its converse beneficiary would be expected: a semantic reversal for benefactor, which has picked up the meaning ‘one who gets benefits’ in addition to the meaning ‘one who gives benefits’.
From Ryan Tamares on Google+ yesterday, this headline from ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) news:
Racing star could prove Einstein’s theory
You would have thought that “Einstein’s theory” and an astronomical photo would be enough to eliminate the first reading I got for racing star — as a N + N compound (with primary accent on the first N) in which racing is a N of the form Ving (a N derived from the V race): ‘a star in/of/for racing’ (with metaphorical star much more likely than astronomical star, though both are possible).
Today’s Rhymes With Orange:
Two things: the phrasal portmateau L. Ron Mother Hubbard; and the Scientology references.
