From Petey's mouth to God's ear

October 16, 2010 @ 7:42 pm · Filed by under Linguistics in the comics

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The latest Cul de Sac:

[Hat tip to Helen Stickney]

October 16, 2010 @ 7:42 pm · Filed by under Linguistics in the comics


9 Comments

  1. Twitter Trackbacks for Language Log » From Petey’s mouth to God’s ear [upenn.edu] on Topsy.com said,

    October 16, 2010 @ 8:48 pm

    […] Language Log » From Petey’s mouth to God’s ear languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2713 – view page – cached October 16, 2010 @ 7:42 pm · Filed by Mark Liberman under Linguistics in the Tweets about this link […]

  2. Lucy Kemnitzer said,

    October 17, 2010 @ 2:54 am

    I do it!

    Probably most preschool teachers do. Very young children often use words in ways that leave the people around them puzzled, and the conversations that ensue are often semantics lessons in their way.

  3. Skullturf Q. Beavispants said,

    October 17, 2010 @ 8:06 am

    I remember my mother being confused by my younger brother: if something "kicks ass", it's good, but if something "licks ass", it's bad.

  4. Robert Coren said,

    October 17, 2010 @ 12:03 pm

    I loved this one, but I rarely fail to love Cul de Sac.

  5. Tim said,

    October 17, 2010 @ 8:20 pm

    Well, I tried twice last night to post this, but it never appeared, so maybe I'll have better luck if the link is just plain text. Here's another comic from the same day with a linguistic theme : http://nonadventures.com/2010/10/16/quote-of-arms/

  6. J. Goard said,

    October 18, 2010 @ 1:13 am

    @SQB:

    So your mother had a problem with basic bodily metaphor, eh? Couldn't identify the affective difference between literally kicking another person's ass and literally licking it?

  7. fs said,

    October 18, 2010 @ 9:17 am

    I've never heard "big duh" (as someone currently in their 20s). Learned something new today, I guess…

  8. Will said,

    October 18, 2010 @ 2:17 pm

    @fs, I'm with new. Never heard that expression before (in my mid-twenties). Wonder if it's new, or regional, or if both of us somehow just managed to miss it.

  9. Will said,

    October 18, 2010 @ 2:19 pm

    That should have started "@fs, I'm with you". Long-range anticipation error?

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