A Variation on a Homonym

It's not a homonym; it is a drawmonym.

From one of my favorite cartoonists, John Atkinson at Wrong Hands.

A visual homonym: drawings that look the same but have different meanings.

Wordplay in the Nick of Time

Cartoon by Chris Yoder.

Language Fun with Savage Chickens

Love these Useless Mutants.

CSI Phonetics Humor

Thank you lesserjoke.

The Summation of Bodily Idioms

Thank you Grea.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Naming Rights

From 22 Words

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites: I Think I Feel an Onomatopoeia Coming On

I absolutely love this cartoon that a reader recently shared with me.

Thank you again CK.

An Animated Steven Pinker

After seeing the Steven Pinker lecture I posted a few weeks ago, a reader shared this RSA Animate version of Pinker's "Language as a Window into Human Nature".

RSA is the Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce and they have been taking portions of lectures by well-known professionals in various fields and animating them with cartoon drawings to accompany the speakers.

Entertaining, informative, and well worth the watch.



Thank you Licia from Terminologia etc. for bringing this video and the series to my attention.

Stretching Snowmen

Spotted this on Arnold Zwicky's Blog a week or so ago and I couldn't resist sharing.



Zwicky points out that, "human and snowman aren’t really parallel, historically, morphologically, or prosodically", but I still thoroughly enjoyed the analogy even if it was a linguistic stretch.

Oddly related: I just returned from a walk on which I saw a croquet game set up in the snow on a neighbor's front yard. I wonder if they enjoyed their snoquet match?

Comparing Annual Word Lists (Michigan Edition)

A topic of mention on many blogs and websites recently has been the publication of Lake Superior State University's 2011 Banished Words List. For those who do not know, Lake Superior State University is located in Sault Ste Marie, Michigan.

Interestingly, a magazine with offices located in Detroit, Michigan also published a list of taboo words. The December issue of Hour Detroit Magazine includes an article titled 40 Different Words and Phrases Not to Use.

I thought it might be fun to compare LSSU's list with that of Hour Detroit's.

LSSU's list includes 14 words and phrases and Hour Detroit's list includes 40.

The only no-no word that the two lists share is back story. Following is the back story commentary from each list.

Hour Detroit - "BACK STORY. What’s wrong with background?"

LSSU - BACK STORY
"This should be on the list of words that don't need to exist because a perfectly good word has been used for years. In this case, the word is 'history,' or, for those who must be weaned, 'story.'" Jeff Williams, Sherwood, Ariz.

Here are a few more of the words and phrases from each list.

LSSU

Wow factor

Epic

BFF

Viral

I'm just sayin'

Hour Detroit

End result

Begs the question

Icon, iconic

Male nurse

Trust me

Skill set

For the full lists and descriptions please click on the above links.

Click here for a post about Lake Superior State's 2010 Banished Words List and here for the 2010 Filipino Word of the Year.

Image from Rob Balder's PartiallyClips via Language Log.

Holiday Homonym Humor

Image from butlerwebs.com

Linguistics Quotation Favorites

"Change your language and you change your thoughts"

-Karl Albrecht

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Hyperbole

Wondermark - a newly discovered favorite (I am not exaggerating).

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Correction Versus Transgression

One of my new favorites Wondermark.

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Your Own Words

An oldie but a goodie.






Thanks for the laugh Bill Watterson.

Linguistic Cartoon Favorites - Evolving Language

From American Hell

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Poultry Poetry

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Parts of Speech

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Flying with Homophones

Here's to a Punny Summer

In keeping with Monday's theme, here is another one from So Much Pun.

Enjoy a fall into a lake or pool and have a great summer.