Semantic Choices

Pick one or the other.

A recent Wrong Hands comic that I enjoyed.

Stinky Portmanteaus

A semantically spot-on portmanteau -

Spotted on If Companies Had Realistic Slogans at BuzzFeed.

Semantic Swapping

A semantic phenomenon, similar to the phonetic one I wrote about in Phonetic Typing Errors, occurred recently while I was writing a freelance article about flamingos.

When I write, I often toss ideas around in my head while I am doing other things like walking the dog or making dinner. For a reason I can't explain, I kept thinking "penguin" instead of "flamingo" as I was coming up with ideas for the article.

How bizarre ... one bird is associated with warm climates and the other with cold (not to mention the numerous other differences).

Here is a French idiom from Grammar Party to go with this post just for the heck of it -

French idiom: Faire le pied de grue
Literal translation: To make like a flamingo stands
Idiomatic meaning: To wait
.
Image credits

The Semiotics of Logos II - More Lookalikes

I happened to have seen these two logos within an hour or so of each other yesterday and I was struck by the similarity between them. While I had seen them both before and am familiar with them, I had never noticed how alike they are.

It reminded me of the similarities between the Obama and Pepsi logos which I previously wrote about in The Semiotics of Logos - Obama and Pepsi are Lookalikes.

Has anyone else ever noticed the resemblance?

It is interesting that for how alike they are, what they represent are quite different endeavors.

Though, I suppose if you get right down to it, they are both about exercising (albeit different parts of the body).

You can read more about semiotics here.

Pairs Well With Hexads

pair
v. paired, pair·ing, pairs v.tr. 1. To arrange in sets of two; couple. 2. To join in a pair; mate. 3. To provide a partner for.
v. pair - bring two objects, ideas, or people together

Unless the definition of the verb pair has changed recently, shouldn't the copy on this bag of lettuce read "Hexads well with ... "

I do believe I can make out at least six different ingredient suggestions on the bag and they are listed with an and not an or.

hex·ad
 n. A group or series of six

Definitions via freedictionary.com
Image from a Facebook photo

Vowel Be Darned

I stopped at the bank today and noticed round stickers all over the branch that asked the following question:

Of course there is something missing ... vowels. But what do missing vowels have to do with banking? I asked the teller and she directed me to a brochure about an identity alert benefit that the bank offers.

The brochure is titled as shown above and goes on to read:

Imagine having your identity stolen without even knowing it happened. Help safeguard you and your family with _____ _____Identity Alert Premium.

I get the correlation between stolen and missing items; however, I do not see any relation between missing vowels and stolen identity. Furthermore, I'm sure that an individual could have his or her identity stolen without knowing it happened; however, I have a hard time believing that any individual would read this copy and not know that the vowels are missing.

The semantic/pragmatic theme of this campaign is a stretch in my opinion.

As long as I am nitpicking, there is something else amiss with the copy too. The second sentence is a command with the implied subject "you" so it should really read "help safeguard 'yourself' and your family..."

Tim Hortons Gets Brownie Points for Word Play

Tim Hortons is advertising a limited-time Caramel Chocolate Brownie Iced Capp Supreme. The tagline for the campaign is "Brownie Points for Caramel".

The above image is from the Tim Hortons website which includes this description of the beverage: "It's our famous Iced Capp made with creamy caramel flavor, rich chocolate whipped topping and a decadent brownie crumble."

I noticed one of the campaign billboards a week or so ago and, I must say, the tagline is one of the best I have seen in quite a while.  I absolutely love the fact that Brownie points is open to both the figurative and literal interpretation.

Brownie points: a notional mark of achievement, or kudos for performing some creditable act.

toast points: triangular pieces of toast, often without the crust, used as the base of hors d'oeuvres and canapés.

Okay, so the brownies may not actually be points, but I can certainly imagine that some of the crumbles are in the shape of triangles.

Always Your Flavorite

Burnett's Flavored Vodkas may have launched the "Always Your Flavorite" advertising campaign over a year ago, but I just saw one of the billboards for the first time last week. Perhaps the campaign is new to Michigan.

The company's press release stated that "the campaign includes a large scale consumer and trade advertising and outdoor campaign." This makes me wonder why, even if the campaign is new to Michigan, I couldn't find one image from the campaign on the internet.

Either way, something about the slogan didn't sit right with me.

I get the portmanteau of  flavor + favorite; that doesn't bother me, though it is nothing spectacular. So, it must be something to do with the adverb always or the possessive determiner your.

I will start with the possessive determiner your. Flavored or not, I have never had Burnett's vodka so nothing about it has to do with me. The same idea applies to the adverb always. Having never had Burnett's, it could not always be anything to me. Even if I had had the vodka, the history on Heaven Hill's website indicates that they did not launch Burnett's Vodka until 1991. I was of the legal drinking age before then and I have always preferred Absolut or Stoli (both of which have long made flavored vodkas).

Off the top of my head, I came up with a couple of alternatives (mind you, I have not done any trademark research).

Retaining the deictic nature of the message but adding an appropriately suggestive spin  -

Your New Flavorite 

And another playful, idiom-based suggestion -

Play Flavorites

Which can easily incorporate a positive reminder -

And Play Safe; Don't Drink and Drive.

Phrasal Templates in Advertising

Driving on the expressway recently, I passed a truck bearing a particular phrase. Most drivers would probably write it off as an eponymous company name and not give it any more thought. My language-loving, word-playing brain wouldn't let it go so quickly however. 

Image from: Rich Logistics

Above is what I saw, below is what I thought: 


Rich logistics, poor genetics
Rich logistics, poor athletics
Rich logistics, poor statistics
Rich logistics, poor aesthetics
Rich logistics, poor didactics
Rich logistics, poor schematics


And the list could go on and on.


These phrasal coordinations are based on the well-known and snowclone-able phrase "often imitated, never duplicated".


According to the Phrase Finder, "often imitated (but) never duplicated" has been "used in a lot of different ad copy back to the 1920's but it doesn't seem to have been a trademarked slogan exclusive to one product or company."


Snowclones of "often imitated, never duplicated" that I have seen include "big taste, small budget" and "cold beer, hot food". I'm sure there are many more too; so, please feel free to share additional examples in comments.


A semantic analysis of the snowclone: "desriptor + descriptee, desriptor + descriptee" 
Note: Descriptors in the coordinations must be antonyms


A syntactic analysis of the snowclone: "Adj + Noun, Adj + Noun" or "Adverb + Verb, Adverb + Verb"


My apologies to Rich Logistics; it is all in good fun. 

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "Z"

zeugma Traditionally of cases of coordination in which one element would not form a construction on its own. E.g. one cannot say They said that so what; there fore there is a zeugma in They said that [[they were coming] and [so what]]. Often extended to include syllepsis.

zoonym A word for a kind of animal. e.g. fox.

Zuni A genetically unclassified language of New Mexico in the USA.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: "Z" signal flag from Wikipedia

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "Y"

'yes-no question' One which has a simple positive or negative answer. CF. closed interrogative, polar interrogative.

yod The sound[j] written as y e.g. in English yet [jɛt]. Hence yodization (also 'yoticization' etc.) is a sound change or other process resulting in [j].

Yurok California language related to Algonquian within Algic.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: sharelike.me

Playing With Polysemy

Polysemy differs from homonymy because polysemes are etymologically related words. Homonyms are words that have unrelated meanings.

The very talented Christian Yoder has had a lot of fun playing with polysemy.

ORDER IN THE COURT - When you are ready, here are some examples from his tumblr blog:

WORDPLAY

Polyseme “Order”

ORDER #2
A Soldier
orders in
orders out
orders with
orders without
orders for
orders from
and through
when ordering
from a composite order
of all orders.

ORDER #3
A judge abided by
his order stating that
with order and
for order are
under order
within order and
amid order
according to order.



ORDER #4
The orderly sergeant
calls to order
the order of battle
or the order of arms.

ORDER #5
The ordained order
take holy orders
in the order of worship
which is orderly ordered.
from the ordered mass.

ORDER #6
The order losers
buy order ware
from the order board
or order bill.

ORDER #7
The ordered class
keep order
in ordering orders
by the order paper.

Order numbers 2 -3 Copyright © 9/10/1983 by Christian M. Yoder

Order numbers 4 -7 Copyright © 7/22/1983 by Christian M. Yoder

Just out of curiosity, did anyone else notice that ORDER #1 is missing and that the copyright dates are not in order? I wonder if his blog is out of order.

Fun With Tautologies

I love xkcd because xkcd is loved by me.

Speaking of tautologies...

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "W"

'wanna-contraction' The reduction in American English of forms like want to or going to in I want to (wanna) do it or I'm going to (gonna) do it.

wh-form Any of a class of words in English that typically begin with wh-: e.g. who, which, why. Also of phrases that begin with such words: e.g. which book, what people.

Thence extended, by linguists whose native language is English, to forms that play similar syntactic roles in other languages.

'whimperative' Coined in the 1970s for a sentence that has the form of an interrogative but the force of an order or instruction: e.g. Why don't you shut up?, meaning 'Shut up!'.

Definitions from: The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Linguistics, Second edition, 2007
Image credits: Carolita Johnson

Corpus Linguistics: A Slim Figure of Speech Graph

Is it "slim to none" or "slim and none"?

I grew up with the phrase "slim to none", which means that the chances of an event occurring fall somewhere between slim and none. In other words, there is a scale with multiple options (admittedly the options are slim from the get go).

<---->

SLIM | | | | | | NONE

In a book I am reading currently, I encountered the phrase "slim and none". I initially thought there was either an unintentional conjunction error or that the author grew up mishearing the phrase.

A quick Google search told me that there really are two semantically-sensible versions.

The alternate version, "slim and none", simply eliminates the scalar aspect of the phrase; thus the chances of an event occurring are either slim or none.

SLIM [ ] NONE [ ]

I can't believe that I had never heard this alternate version. Now I am wondering if it is a regional variation. Please help me by commenting below with your preferred version and your region of origin.

I did feel a bit better about my lack of familiarity with the non-scalar version when I graphed the two versions on Google Ngram.

Click on chart to enlarge.

slim to none slim and none

From Google Books Ngram Viewer

Random Linguistics Definitions Beginning with the Letter "T"

there-insertion A term used in transformational grammar for a transformation which relates pairs of sentences by inserting a there-element, such as A baby is in the bath -> There is a baby in the bath. The latter type of sentence is often referred to as existential.

tip The end-point of the tongue, also known as the apex; used in the articulation of a few speech sounds, such as the trilled [r].

truth conditions A term used in logic and semantics for the conditions under which a sentence is true. For example, Snow is white is true if and only if snow is white.

Definitions from: A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics, Sixth edition, 2008
Image credits here.

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

Further/Farther on up the Road

Lord knows the difference between further and farther has been covered on the internet too many times to count, but if a ballpark number helps to illustrate, consider the following google results:

"difference between further and farther" About 14,900,000 results (0.23 seconds)
"difference between farther and further" About 1,510,000 results (0.22 seconds)

Traditionally (and prescriptively), farther is used when referring to a distance of literal, physical movement and further is used when referring to a metaphorical distance or a degree.

I walked farther into the forest to delve further into the wonders of flora and fauna.

But Eric Clapton was not incorrect when he sang "Further on up the road, baby, just you wait and see."

Many consider the two words to be interchangeable in most uses. See here, here and here.

The reason I bring this up is that I saw the following brochure at the bank today.

Though I grew up instilled with the traditional differences in meaning, I have recently noticed that I am becoming more accustomed to the interchangeability of farther and further when referencing distances involving actual physical movement. I barely noticed the phrasing in the brochure.

There was also a poster at the bank from the "Go further" campaign that showed a couple behind the wheel of a boat. So the brochure and the poster both illustrated physical movement while using the word further.

Look how far fur has come in its non-figurative use.

Though I will say that I have quite a hard time with the reverse interchangeability. Using farther for metaphorical distances or degrees still sounds unnatural to me.

Clipping Cartoons (It's Much More Fun Than Clipping Coupons)

Clipping, back-formation, and affixing, that is.

Clipping is a word creation process that takes a historically, multi-syllabic word and removes one or more syllables to form a smaller word. Some examples are: ad from advertisement, gas from gasoline, phone from telephone, and flu from influenza.

Because clipping does not change the lexical category or semantic interpretation of a word, the above cartoon actually illustrates a word creation process called back-formation.

Back-formation is similar to clipping but it can change the lexical category and/or semantic interpretation of a word. Examples include: couth from uncouth, and the verb burgle from the noun burglar.

Affixing is the process of creating words by adding prefixes, suffixes or infixes.

Image credits here.

Comma: the MacGyver of Punctuation - ComMacGyver

The comma is not truly the only punctuation tool you will ever need, but it sure does do a lot.

The Purdue Online Writing Guide lists the following uses in its Quick Guide to Commas:

1. Use commas to separate independent clauses when they are joined by any of these seven coordinating conjunctions: and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet.

2. Use commas after introductory a) clauses, b) phrases, or c) words that come before the main clause.

3. Use a pair of commas in the middle of a sentence to set off clauses, phrases, and words that are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. Use one comma before to indicate the beginning of the pause and one at the end to indicate the end of the pause.

4. Do not use commas to set off essential elements of the sentence, such as clauses beginning with that (relative clauses). That clauses after nouns are always essential. That clauses following a verb expressing mental action are always essential.

5. Use commas to separate three or more words, phrases, or clauses written in a series.

6. Use commas to separate two or more coordinate adjectives that describe the same noun. Be sure never to add an extra comma between the final adjective and the noun itself or to use commas with non-coordinate adjectives.

7. Use a comma near the end of a sentence to separate contrasted coordinate elements or to indicate a distinct pause or shift.

8. Use commas to set off phrases at the end of the sentence that refer back to the beginning or middle of the sentence. Such phrases are free modifiers that can be placed anywhere in the sentence without causing confusion.

9. Use commas to set off all geographical names, items in dates (except the month and day), addresses (except the street number and name), and titles in names.

10. Use a comma to shift between the main discourse and a quotation.

11. Use commas wherever necessary to prevent possible confusion or misreading.

Help save the comma; take the "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" Comma IQ Test.

Here are some commas to get you started -

Image credits here and here.