Archive for Linguistics in the comics

Prospective aspect

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"AP (lambda) calculus" in the comics

Blondie for 10/3/2013:

I believe that this is the first time that the lambda calculus has ever been featured in a popular comic strip.

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One-syllable differences

What the hell kind of language has a one-syllable difference between "Gracious welcome to our honored guests" and "Your king ingests every possible secretion from all the mammals of our world"?

Seldom in the history of intergalactic travel have there been worse translation screw-ups. But I've been thinking…

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Snagglepuss: early avatar of emphatic even

In the face of some readers' scepticism, I'll have more to say about merely-emphatic even in a future post. Meanwhile, I'd like to suggest that current even trends may have been influenced to some extent by a 1960s pop-culture avatar of even as a wide-scope emphatic particle, namely  Snagglepuss:

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Heavens to Murgatroyd! Somebody has terribly large knuckles! To knock with, even!

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Parental opacity

The most recent SMBC gives a neat illustration of some issues in the philosophy of language. Here's the set-up:

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X combines the P of Q with the R of Q

The most recent xkcd:

The mouseover title: "Functional programming combines the flexibility and power of abstract mathematics with the intuitive clarity of abstract mathematics."

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Free range jobs

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Naughty meanings and naughty words

Piraro makes the point that he is allowed to publish a cartoon showing a street prostitute holding up a sign saying "GLUTEN FREE" (see it here), but he was censored when he came out with a cartoon showing a deadbeat vampire loiterer holding up a sign saying "WILL SUCK FOR BLOOD". Both clearly suggest the possibilty that oral sex is being referred to, if you have a dirty mind, but the second explicitly contains a word (suck) commonly recognized by the relevant prudish authorities as colloquial sex talk, wheras the first doesn't. The prostitute cartoon would doubtless also have been banned if it had incorporated the word eat, instead of just implying it through the reference to a potentially allergenic food ingredient. Piraro's comment on the situation is: "Americans (and maybe all humans, I'm not sure) are more obsessed with words than with their meanings."

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Theory of Mind Hacks

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There is wisdom that is like, whoa

From today's SMBC (click on the image for the full panel):

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Who's REALLY the coolest?

Dinosaur Comics for 8/26/2013:

Click on the image for a larger version that lacks some mouseover text helpfully glossing what is expressed by “*sigh*”.

Hat tip: Bonnie Krejci

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Not… until just now

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"It wasn't" in English and Chinese

From "Zits" for August 30, 2013 — the episode just before the one featured in "Earworms and white bears":

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