Language Log

Today's Dilbert:

This is a different — and I think more interesting — take on the issues discussed here and here.

The Nov. 10 Subnormality , featuring a tour of the Museum of the Theoretical, has a nice example of dude used as an interjection:

Tim Leonard sent along the Nov. 2 User Friendly strip, with a question:

Today's Zits:

The latest Cul de Sac:

[Hat tip to Helen Stickney]

EMH sent along a pointer to the 10/14/2010 Yourmometer strip:

To forestall secondary ninja incursions, let me point out that some additional background on the whole Eskimo snow words issue can be found here.  [I also need to point out that this cartoon ninja linguist, though perhaps unexpected and sometimes unwanted, is much less aggressive than the last one we featured, in "How to defend yourself from bad advice about writing", 11/01/2006.]

Ray Dillinger sent a link to the latest Skin Horse strip, in which he observes that

The word "Dude" is used here as an interjection, followed by a (feminine) noun in direct address. The "person" directly addressed is a sentient hive of bees, who is (are? We lack grammatical categories for singular intelligences with plural bodies…) apparently getting divorce papers from a sentient cypress tree.

In the latest xkcd cartoon you can see a graph on which the frequency of intensificatory adverbs (fucking ____ in red, and ____ as shit in blue) accompanying a selection of adjectives, from annoying and pissed down through broadly decreasing frequencies to fungible and peristeronic. (The latter really does exist, and really does mean "of or pertaining to pigeons".)

Nina Paley's Mimi and Eunice for 8/20/2010:

Nina's comment on the strip: "I love my Libertarian friends! So it is with love I poke gentle fun at them."

[Hat tip to William Benzon.]

Today's Tank McNamara features an idiom with two very different meanings:

Some Language Log readers have long suspected me of secret prescriptivist sympathies, and I'm about to add fuel to the fire by standing up for John Dryden. Sort of.

It all starts with today's SMBC. A student asks "Can I end my sentence with a preposition?", and the teacher responds "Good question! Let's see what a group of Latin-obsessed 17th century introverts decided!"  The introverts' cartooned answer:

A Zits on modern menaces:

I've been getting reports of texting while bicycling / bicycling while texting, too.

From the August 30 New Yorker: