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Strained Xmas portmanteau
Today’s Bizarro: A somewhat strained portmanteau of Frankenstein and Santa Claus — metrically similar two-part names. But an odd image.
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Brief morphological notes
Three recent items: robophobic, fungineering, fracktacular. Three sightinga, among many for each of these. robophobic. From Maureen Dowd in the NYT, “Mommy, the Drone’s Here”, 12/4/13: Law enforcement...
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Headline news
Two headline items, one definitely linguistic, the other entertaining mostly because of the content. Garden path. From Barbara Partee on the 16th, this garden path construction, about which Barbara...
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Two cartoons
Two recent cartoons, a Bizarro and a Dilbert: (#1) Either a portmanteau of pseudo and sudoku, or just a pun on sudoku, (#2) Comic-strip etymology.
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-gate news
The libfix -gate seems to be irresistible, trotted out for all sorts of public fusses; discussion here. Recent example, reported by Victor Steinbok on ADS-L: According to MediaBistro, there’s now yet...
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Four cartoons
A sudden avalanche of linuistically interesting cartoons, on a variety of topics. Word confusion. On Facebook, via David Preston, this Rubes cartoon: (#1) rapture / raptor: near-homonyms, so open for...
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Canine portmanteaus
From Kim Darnell, a link to this HuffPo piece,”These 19 Adorably Awkward Mixed Breed Dogs Will Make You Love Mutts Even More” by Amanda Scherker on 1/29/14. In the tradition of established mixed breeds...
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Hybrids and portmanteaus
A Wondermark cartoon (of 2/3/14), passed on by Roey Gafter: Zoological crosses, with inventive names.
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Slang change
Yesterday Mark Liberman posted on this Doonesbury cartoon: Rich in material. The main thing I want to note (as Mark did) is a sense development in the slang verb rock, from an older sense, around at...
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The comics in the rural South
One topic touched on in the Stanford Freshman Seminar 63N (Linguistics in the Comics) was the representation of dialect, especially regional, rural, and non-standard varieties. We chose to look at...
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Minimumble
From Benjamin Slade, pointers to Chris Hallbeck’s webcomic site Minimumble, with three recent language-related cartoons: From 2/12/14, treating procrastinator as pro + castinator, with pro treated as a...
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More cultural allusions
Today’s Rhymes With Orange, packed with cultural allusions: First, the setting: From the title (“The matinee”) and the visual (an audience, in raked seating, all viewing something on the wall in front...
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Comics and music
A Get Fuzzy cartoon, passed on by Billy Green on Facebook: Two forms of name play here: a POP (phrasal overlap portmanteau) combining the artist formerly known as Prince (the musician) and Prince...
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A Zippy portmanteau
Today’s Zippy: A rush of verbs, and then blaundry (bowling + laundry).
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Annals of hybridity
Passed on by Jonathan Lighter, this story of the 4th from Herald Scotland:, “Meet Farmer Murphy’s geep (or shoat): now what will he call it?” An Irish farmer who claims to have bred a cross between a...
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A (B + C)
Today’s Rhymes With Orange: Phrasal overlap portmanteaus (POPs) come up on this blog again and again; they are expressions of the form A B C, where the three parts are all words or combining forms and...
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Three for the day (Easter)
Today’s crop of cartoons includes a Bizarro, a Zippy, and a Mother Goose and Grimm: (#1) (#2) (#3) In #1, the kid is obviously a cartoon character, while his parents are represented as what count as...
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Schadenfreudian slip
Today’s Zippy: Griffy and Zippy contemplate the end of the world, and Griffy wonders if Schadenfreude would be appropriate in the situation. Zippy then takes it one step further with the POp (phrasal...
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Party of five
Five cartoons from recent days. Not one of them seems to have anything to do with (US) Mothers Day (but maybe tomorrow, on the day itself, Mom will surface). A daydreaming Jeremy in Zits; a Calvin and...
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Four at midweek
Four recent cartoons, on varied subjects: two One Big Happy strips; a Bizarro with a portmanteau; and an ecard-like strip. The first OBH, on invented words and lying: (#1) The second OBH, on words...
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