Literally

"The face of a child can say it all. 

Especially the mouth part of the face."

- Jack Handey

I want to pass you and URNDWAY

While the contradiction itself is humorous, this photo also would have been a perfect photo to go with last Friday's post.

Image via 22 Words.

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.

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.

SpecGram Essential Guide to Linguistics - A Book Review

No ... Click here.

I recently had the excruciating pleasure of reading an advance copy of The Speculative Grammarian's Essential Guide to Linguistics. For the rare few who are unfamiliar with Speculative Grammarian, it is, and I quote, "the premier scholarly journal featuring research in the neglected field of satirical linguistics." 

While I don't know that I would call the book "essential", I will tell you that it is essentially absurd and all-encompassing. At a brief 360 pages, it conquers such important topics as cartoon theories of linguistics, linguistic love poetry and mytholingual creatures, not to mention the standard fare of syntax, semantics, phonetics, phonology and morphology. There are many impressive diagrams and illustrations that really shed light on the more difficult topics (they also add to the aesthetically pleasing nature of the book). I do believe that his book is an overwhelming indulgence that should not be avoided.

Apostroph'

The Wall Street Journal recently published an article by Barry Newman titled Theres a Question Mark Hanging Over the Apostrophes Future. My aunt sent me an email copy of the article as she knew I would enjoy it. And I did enjoy the article; however, my favorite part of the email was her subject line which read: Apostroph'. Thanks for creatively amusing me. I am also still chuckling over the intentionally humorous aspect of the title.*  

* In case anyone didn't notice, there are missing apostrophes.

Comic via Funny-Fun-Fun by Scott Hilburn.

More Fun with Anaphora

This humorous image reminded me of the recent post, 6 Cartons of Anaphora.

In this instance, the pronoun it is meant to refer to the noun poo, the semantically logical antecedent. Syntactically, it is also more logical to start the process of anaphora resolution by looking to the noun phrase in the sentence which is closest to the pronoun.

Note: I received the above image in an email and was unable to determine where it originated as it has made its way all around the internet.

Pronouns Playing with Plurals

I couldn't resist throwing a bit of alliteration into the title for the added wordplay effect.

Thank you, Steve, for bringing this comic to my attention.

Comic by Jesse Tahirali.

Restroom Legalese

From a restaurant in northern Michigan.

6 Cartons of Anaphora

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6."

A short time later the husband comes back with 6 cartons of milk.

The wife asks him, "Why did you buy 6 cartons of milk?"

He replies, "They had avocados."

What makes the above joke humorous is actually called zero anaphora or gapping.

The Summer Institute of Linguistics defines anaphora as the "coreference of one expression with its antecedent. The antecedent provides the information necessary for the expression’s interpretation. This is often understood as an expression 'referring' back to the antecedent."

For example, in the sentence, "John rode his bike to town so he wouldn't have to worry about finding a parking spot", "he" is an anaphoric expression that refers back to the subject "John".

Zero anaphora is defined by SIL as "the use of a gap, in a phrase or clause, that has an anaphoric function similar to a pro-form*. It is often described as “referring back” to an expression that supplies the information necessary for interpreting the gap."

*A pro-form is a word, substituting for other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context.

Now, look at the first line of the joke again:

A wife asks her husband, "Could you please go shopping for me and buy one carton of milk, and if they have avocados, get 6 [gap]."

The gap leaves open the possibility of referring back to either noun phrase, "avocados" or "one carton of milk". However, it makes more sense to start the anaphora resolution process by looking at the nearest antecedent first.

Now go return those five cartons of milk and bring me my six avocados, silly man.

Avocado image via.

Chomsky Comics

The Adventures of Noam Chomsky by Jeffrey Weston is a series of comics based on Chomsky's political views. While I don't follow Chomsky for his political views and I prefer not to state mine, he is a brilliant linguist and I found this particular comic from the series rather chuckle-worthy.

Mondegreen Singing Kittens

I would never normally post something like this but it was just too cute. I mean the kitten really looks like it is singing.

Found in Translation

My cousin recently sent me a link to this UK DailyMailOnline post titled "Lost in translation: Hilarious advice signs from foreign airports... where their English leaves a little to be desired." 

I prefer to label posts like this "found in translation" because I always find myself laughing and I'm sure the intended messages not humorous in the least.

Following are some images from the post.

Thank you, Kristin.

The Wonderful Wondermark Linguistics Major

Click on images to enlarge.

The rollover: "How often does somebody actually WONDER ABOUT ETYMOLOGY in my PRESENCE?? You GOTTA give me this!!"

http://wondermark.com/829/ 

The rollover: Kidding! Of course it means 'a statement with a one in ten chance of being true.' OR DOES IT???

http://wondermark.com/887/ 

The rollover: 'Prove the rule' actually comes from the idea that a king or queen had the legal right to punish criminal offenders -- thus coming down hard on 'exceptions' to the law was proving the power of their rulership. Either that or it's an obscure ELO lyric that became a proto-meme on Laugh-In.

http://wondermark.com/920/ 

Golden Grammar

I wish I could give credit where it is due but I received this as an email and I don't know who created it. I sure do love it though.

Pardon me ... but this video is hilarious and I'm not mistaken.

From the Grey Poupon YouTube page:
"GREY POUPON began in 1777 in Dijon, France, when Maurice Grey met his associate, Auguste Poupon. The duo paired as exquisitely as champagne and caviar, and soon they would create the world's finest Dijon."

I threw in the etymology to make this post more relevant to a linguistics blog.

Thank you to Tastefully Offensive for bringing this video to my attention.

Happy Valentine's Day, Then and Than

I received the following image as Valentine's Day text message from a friend who loves Fireball. I'm not sure where it originated and I have been unable to find the image on line but it does provide the perfect set up for a review of the difference between then and than.

For example:

He drank some whisky and then he had dinner. He like the whisky better than the dinner.

Than is a subordinating conjunction used to relate a sense of comparison.

Then is an adverb which conjoins two acts by order of time of occurrence.

Which reminded me of this meme that was popular a while back.

Meme image via

Second Verse, Same as the First

Just read it in reverse:

First let me say that I’m cursed. 
I’m a poet who gets time reversed. 
Reversed time, 
Gets who poet a I’m, 
Cursed I’m that say me let first.

Spotted this at Futility Closet

I couldn't resist sharing.
Sharing resist, couldn't I.

Typography Terms

I was trying to figure out how to adjust the kerning in an an MS Word document when I came across this wonderfully appropriate newer term that is related to kerning.

Keming
In 2008, photographer David Friedman coined the term "keming" on his blog, defining it as improper use of kerning. Keming is a visual reference to bad kerning which causes the letter pair "rn" to appear as "m".

Definition via Wikipedia
Comic via XKCD Forum

Electronic Reading

I asked my friend to hand me a newspaper. "Don't be silly," she replied, "use my iPad." 
That spider never knew what hit it.