WAY FUИИY

My first thought upon seeing this plate from a distance was, "underway, cute and appropriate."
As I got closer, I noticed I had mixed up the order of the letters initially. When I realized what it was intended to say, I had a good laugh. However, it would be much more appropriate on the front of a vehicle, though the letters would have to be mirrored for the plate to be effective.

 UЯИᗡWAY 

I might have to have one of these made for my freeway drives to tell the drivers in the left lane who aren't passing that they are ИᗡWAY.

Pragmatics - Down to the Wire

Or wireless, in this case.

Via the Unschool Bus brought to my attention by Simon Taylor.

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "P"

pandialectal A term used primarily in dialectology and sociolinguistics to characterize any linguistic feature, rule, etc., which is applicable to all the dialects of a language.

paronymy A term sometimes used in semantic analysis to refer to the relationship between words derived from the same root. It is especially applied to a word formed from a word in another language with only a slight change: French pont and Latin pons are paronyms and the relationship between them is one of paronymy.

politeness phenomena in sociolinguistics and pragmatics, a term which characterizes linguistics features mediating norms of social behavior, in relation to such notions as courtesy, rapport, deference and distance. Such features include the use of special discourse markers (please), appropriate tones of voice and acceptable forms of address (e.g. the choice of intimate v. distant pronouns or of first v. last names).

Definitions from: A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth edition, 2008
Image credits: Wikipedia - Greek Pi

Pragmatics Cracks

Where is the crack?

It's all in the context.

From David Soames Advertising

Advertising with Articulatory Phonetics

Love these LG advertisements from David Soames Advertising.

Unfortunately, I couldn't enlarge the image enough to make it readable, so here is the copy from each ad.

Top: Grab me a beer.

Left: Pass the chips.

Right: Where's the remote?

The mouth positions in the ads illustrate the place of articulation for bilabial and dental phonemes quite well.






Pragmatics plays a role in the advertisements as well. Viewers of the ads are put into a context where they have to read lips because the music from LG speakers is so loud that people can't hear each other.

Demetri Martin, Linguist???

One of my sons recently purchased comedian Demetri Martin's book, "This is a Book". As I was flipping through it, I noticed that Demetri Martin appears to have a true appreciation for the many aspects of language and how they can be manipulated to humorous effects. Much of his humor involves morphology, syntax, semantics, semiotics, pragmatics and orthography.

Here are some examples from the book.

Pragmatics

Syntax

"Nearly 1/2 of all people in the United States are torsos."


Semantics

"The boomerang is Australia's chief export (and then import)."


Semiotics

Morphology

A Palindrome

A DIALOGUE BETWEEN A MAN AND HIS YOUNG SON. THE MAN IS TRYING TO TEACH THE YOUNG BOY THE NAME OF A PIECE OF FRUIT AND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN SINGULAR AND PLURAL:

-Son, say a papaya.
-Papayas.
-No "s."

Orthography

A Rational Discussion Flowchart for Paul Grice

This flowchart spotted on 22 Words is designed to help individuals determine whether or not they are exchanging ideas rationally.

It immediately brought to mind the cooperative principle proposed by linguist Paul Grice. This principle is based on the fact that the success of any communication depends on the cooperation of both speaker and listener. Grice's Conversational Maxims, which include maxims of quality, quantity, relevance and manner, play a large role in the cooperative principle.

It seems to me that cooperative conversation participants should be capable of having a rational discussion.

Snowclones in Media are Frequent(*er) than they Seem

Who would ever think that the following phrase would be turned into a snowclone.

Image from here.

I wouldn't have...until I saw a Taco Bell billboard on I-75 in Michigan with a large taco and the caption "Objects on billboard are closer than they appear."

I was not able to get a picture of the actual billboard so this image of tacos from Taco Bell will have to suffice.

At any rate, I will be honest and say that, pragmatically, the message on the billboard caption confuses me a bit. The image of the taco is unrealistically large, so of course it appears closer than it ever actually could be. This in turn makes me think that the location of the restaurant where I (the famished traveller) could get the taco is not that close. As far as billboard advertising goes, this seems counterproductive.

By the way, when looking for images of the actual billboard on the web, I came across this image that further reinforces the snowclone-ability of the phrase "Objects on billboard are closer than they appear."

Image from here.

The Semiotics of Automobiles

I recently ran across a post titled "I don't get it" on the blog Because I Amuse Myself. The reason I ended up at this particular blog post was that I passed a Nissan Cube with a windshield decal that read "The Brave Little Toaster". When I saw the car and its decal I couldn't help but laugh because the car does look rather boxy and I remember Disney's Brave Little Toaster from my children's toddler years. I always wondered if other people thought boxy cars resembled toasters. I got my answer after a few brief moments on the internet. Here is the post:

I don't get it




What's the appeal of the toaster-on-wheels vehicle?As if the Scion xB wasn't enough, now Nissan has joined the box-shaped car club with the not-so-cleverly-named "Cube".



Why? Who goes to a car dealership and thinks, "I want a car that looks like it could toast a giant slice of bread"?

###

Here is a picture from The Brave Little Toaster:



I also discovered some bumper stickers for sale at various internet sites:

And then I passed a Ford Flex.

It even has a slot for regular slices of bread and a slot for an extra-wide slice of bread.

Pragmatically Appropriate Letter Deletion

Regular readers may know that I am a major proponent of the Slower Traffic Keep Right campaign. I actually have the windshield decal pictured below (though I have decided not to use it as I do not want to draw undue attention from our friendly state troopers).





The following photo is from Vanity Plates: Creepiness in 8 Characters or Less and while the plate is somewhat humorous it is the modified decal that I find most amusing. For a truck this size, removing the "S" from the decal makes the message more pragmatically effective.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Empty Bookshelf

For the love of technology.

P.S. I have searched high and low and can not remember where I got this cartoon, but it is too good not to share. If you created it or know the creator, please take credit.

P.P.S. Thanks to reader Ravantra - the artist is Frederick Deligne.

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Happy April Fool's Day (Pragmatically Speaking)

Linguistics Cartoon Favorites - Happy New Year (Pragmatically Speaking)

Fortune Cookie as a Magic Eight Ball

It's all in the context.

If your cookie is in 3 pieces, the answer is no.

Linguistics Quotation Favorites - Metaphorically Speaking

Failure is the condiment that gives success its flavor.

-Truman Capote

McDonald's Advertising - Less is More

What a great way to advertise a product without even showing the product.

I have to believe that there is not a person on this planet who doesn't know that the above photo is that of a McDonald's french fries box. And the fact that the box is empty is meant to send the symbolic message that the fries were so tasty, "you didn't save me any".

Awwww. How sad.

Another Driving Lesson - Sign Semantics - DO NOT PASS WHEN OPPOSING TRAFFIC PRESENT

In Michigan two lane roads often have alternating passing lanes as shown in this illustration.

The side of the road with the single lane is always marked with this road sign.

I have been in a car many a times with different people and upon seeing this sign have heard the comment, "Well, duh, isn't that obvious." And I always find myself explaining the following:

The sign means that if you are in the single lane and the opposing lane has the extra passing lane, you may only pass if there are no cars in either of the opposing lanes. In other words, if there is a car in the far left opposing lane but the opposing lane closest to you is open, you may not use the open lane to pass because there is still opposing traffic present.

In sum, the context of where the sign appears is what makes the message on the sign not quite as obvious as one would think.

Bad Advertising - Billboard Semiotics and Pragmatics Fail

Take a close look at the bottom billboard and think about what each symbol might represent and what the sum of these symbols is intended to communicate.

Now, picture driving at 80 miles an hour and trying to figure out not only what each symbol might represent but also what the sum of these symbols is meant to communicate.

As mentioned in a previous post about a billboard pragmatics fail, the context in which a communication occurs plays an important role in a reader's ability to interpret a writer's intended meaning. The context here is the side of an expressway. Any reader in a car going 80 miles an hour or more is going to have an awfully hard time interpreting the writer's intended meaning because at that speed the reader will have a very short time to view the symbols. Not to mention that this doesn't even take into account the possibility of a semi truck obstructing a reader's view.

As for the semiotics fail, the symbols were so poorly executed that my first guess was:

beak + carrot ('s) + rake + "in" + rolling pin

Oh...how wrong I was and and oh...what bad advertising.

Upon seeing the billboard a third time I realized - the bird is a duck and the arrow is pointing to its bill, the carrot is supposed to be a surfboard and the last arrow is pointing to a blob of dough, not the rolling pin.

bill + board ('s) + rake + "in" + dough

So the writer's intended meaning was, "billboards rake in dough."

Okay, maybe I should have realized that was a duck the first time but I was driving and reprimanding kids at the same time. Plus I still think the second symbol looks like a carrot everytime I pass it.

Did I mention the apostrophe error? Does the billboard own the rake? The writer should have used a "+ s" not a "'s"

Related posts:

semiotics definition

additional semiotics posts

additional billboard posts

billboards advertising billboard advertising

Grice's Conversational Maxims

In the study of pragmatics it is well known that the success of any communication is dependant upon the cooperation of both the speaker and the listener. Paul Grice was a linguist and philosopher who made many contributions in this area of pragmatics. He suggested that there is, what he called, a cooperative principle that dictates how people behave and interact with each other during a conversation. Included as part of this cooperative principle are what are known as Grice's Conversation Maxims.

Maxim of Quantity:
-Make your contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary.

-Do not make your contribution to the conversation more informative than necessary.

Maxim of Quality:
-Do not say what you believe to be false.

-Do not say that for which you lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of Relevance:
-Be relevant (i.e., say things related to the current topic of the conversation).

Maxim of Manner:
-Avoid obscurity of expression.

-Avoid ambiguity.

-Be brief (avoid unnecessary wordiness).

-Be orderly.

If only every speaker would remember to cooperate. I know quite a few people that don't seem to follow these maxims, especially the Maxims of Quantity and Relevance.

P.S. In pragmatics writer and reader are equivalent to speaker and listener.

Pragmatics Experience Required