Language Log

From HappySad at Kartoen.be:

Josh Fruhlinger was morpho-syntactically unhappy about Shoe for 9/21/2011 ("Josh puts the 'long' in 'long-winded'", The Comics Curmudgeon 9/21/2011):

The most recent xkcd:

Mouseover title: "Funding was quickly restored to the NHC and the APA was taken back off hurricane forecast duty."

We've had several posts recently (here and here) showcasing the humorous consequences of interpreting quantifiers overly literally, with a blind eye to the usual contextual limits on their domain of interpretation. The following comic illustrates another possible pragmatic failure when it comes to quantifiers:

Today's Dilbert picks up the theme of obtuse interpretation of quantifier domain restrictions, recently featured (less succinctly) here in "Shel Silverstein's hot dog and the domain of 'everything'" and "Dogless in Albion".

In a great use of comic art, Roy Boney Jr. has created a graphic feature for the magazine Indian Country Today about the history of the Cherokee syllabary developed by Sequoyah in the early 19th century. Boney begins with the syllabary's inception and early use, and continues all the way through technological developments like the Selectric typewriter and Unicode standardization. Check it out here.

9 Chickweed Lane for 9/20/2011:

Reader AB asks:

As a non-native speaker, I find the use of both 15-foot and 15 feet within the same text balloon puzzling (third panel). Is there an explanation?

Today's Zits:

After several days, I'm still thinking about the very funny Dilbert strip of September 1, at http://www.dilbert.com/fast/2011-09-01/, which made me laugh out loud. Alice is asked by her boss to simplify the wording on a slide so that it can be explained to the company's executives. She does not suffer fools gladly and her immediate suggestion for the simplified wording is: "MONEY BE GOOD. THIS MAKE MORE. OOGAH!". What I'm thinking about is the nature of the stereotype Alice has concerning the sort of language that would be understandable to people like company executives who are (in Alice's jaundiced opinion) virtually brainless.

By lexicographical synchronicity, the latest Widgetitis illustrates the developing distinction between alpha and beta nerds, while Ben Zimmer discusses the history of the word and the concept ("Birth of the nerd: The mysterious origins of a familiar character", Boston Globe 8/28/2011.)

The most recent SMBC presents an updated chemical version of the classic "Who's on first" skit. I think that Zach Weiner does a better job of setting the joke up than Abbott and Costello did:

A root haughtiness constraint in English derivational morphology? The latest PartiallyClips strip:

An old argument, in today's Get Fuzzy: