Language Log

In today's SMBC:

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "The Romeo and Butt-Head film actually got two thumbs up from Siskel and Oates."

A less satisfactory alternative method would yield Romiette and Julio, or Abelise and Heloard, or Antopatra and Cleony.

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "Platonic solids for my real friends and real solids for my platonic friends!"

Nick Anderson's cartoon for 2/11/2016:

Today's xkcd:

The first panel from today's Girl Genius refers to Traubhünd's Universal Apocrypha of Linguistics and Verbal Ordnance:

…better known these days as the Oxford English Dictionary…

Dinosaur Comics for 2/3/2016:

Mouseover title: "oh wow a comic in which ryan argues the technology that gave us the word "bonertastic" is really important, WHAT A SURPRISE"

Non Sequitur from 1/13/2016:

From the Speculative Grammarian:

Listen to what the Chinese scout in this video says at :43.  My first impression was that it sounds like he is speaking Cantonese, not Mandarin.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRIdJCzCpOg

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title:  "Researchers just found the gene responsible for mistakenly thinking we've found the gene for specific things. It's the region between the start and the end of every chromosome, plus a few segments in our mitochondria."

For background, see "The hunt for the Hat Gene", 11/15/2009.

From Wrong Hands (here and here):

Today's xkcd:

Mouseover title: "If that's too easy, you could try joining Tautology Club, which meets on the date of the Tautology Club meeting."