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gypsum weed etc.
A few days ago the ADS-Lers were discussing the initially puzzling expression gypsum weed for a plant mentioned in the Gene Autry faux-cowboy song “Back in the Saddle Again” (and elsewhere). Gypsum...
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Please remove your cats
I posted on Facebook yesterday during World Series game 2: Seventh inning stretch, and the customary musical interlude. What I *heard* was that we were instructed to take off our cats for the singing...
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Odds and ends
Four brief items in familiar categories: (1) a malapropism; (2) a mishearing; (3) a silly pun; and (4) a bit of folk categorization. 1. Malaprop on the hoof. From a young voter in Austin TX,...
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The gay underwear anthem
[Mostly about queer sexiness and gay sex, but with comments on poetic form.] Heard dimly across the room, a song with an insistent chorus that was apparently about bluesy underwear (or, just possibly,...
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Mondegreen stuff
Yesterday’s A.Word.A.Day was our old friend mondegreen: MEANING: noun: A word or phrase resulting from mishearing a word or phrase, especially in song lyrics. For example: “The girl with colitis goes...
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The Telephone game
Yesterday’s Zippy continues a series on the game of Telephone in Dingburg: What makes this sequence so entertaining is the complexity and prepostereous nature of the seed message, which pretty much...
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perils of wisdom
Reported this morning by Mike Jankulak from a mailing list he’s subscribed to: Also Ryan, I had sent you a question on the other group in hope you might have some perils of wisdom to share there....
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One Big Happy roundup
Four recent language-related cartoons from Rick Detorie’s strip One Big Happy (information on the strip here): two with mishearings/eggcorns, one on consonant clusters, and one on ambiguity. (Hat tip...
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Correction time
From the NYT Magazine 4/7/13: A March 24 article on preparing a holiday feast misidentified the state from which Cheerwine, a cherry-red soft drink, originates. It is North Carolina, not South...
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An unfortunate mishearing
From Victor Steinbok on ADS-L, a link to a HuffPost Comedy posting with this photograph: HuffPo’s comment: OOPS: Little Kid Celebrates Dad With Unintentionally Racist Cake We love hilarious...
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The 12-inch pianist
Today’s Scenes From a Multiverse: Size doesn’t matter. Or: Size matters. In any case, an allusion to an old joke. Wikipedia on the bar joke, with the relevant part boldfaced: A bar joke is a very...
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Another OBH roundup
From Benita Bendon Campbell, three more One Big Happy strips: on questions, compound nouns, and tense in nouns. And then, as a bonus, four strips on Ruthie’s interpretations of words. The strips Bonnie...
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On the mistakes patrol
Three recent mistakes on my part: a writing error; a mishearing; and a misinterpretation of what I heard. The writing error. Back on the 25th, I intended to write big fuss, but started by producing...
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take it as a given
In today’s Pearls Before Swine, Pig misunderstands yet another English expression: Ok, it’s take it as a given ‘assume that it is true’, a partly transparent idiom. Which Pig apparently hadn’t heard...
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Ruthie v. English
A set of One Big Happy strips in which little Ruthie confronts the language: a spectacular mondegreen, some other misunderstandings based on phonological similarity (with more familiar words replacing...
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After Cinco de Mayo
The 5th was (surprise!) Cinco de Mayo and also National Cartoonists Day, as I reported yesterday. So yesterday was the day after. Cartoonist Lalo Alvarez considers that day: (#1) One too many Dos XXs!...
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Ruthie’s readings
Two recent One Big Happys: (#1) (#2) Ruthie misunderstands a number of things here: in #1, the full cultural context of what she’s seeing on television, plus the interpretation of self-esteem issues...
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Ruthie (mis)interprets
Two recent One Big Happy cartoons with Ruthie’s misinterpretations of what she’s heard: a simple one today, and a very complex one a little while back: (#1) (#2) In #1, we have the simple...
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Musical mishearing
(briefly noted) On the fairy tale beat. Heard on WQXR last night, Humperdinck’s Sleeping Beauty Suite (Dornröschen, 1902). Except that what I heard as the title was Sweeping Beauty Suite — suitable for...
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Ask AMZ: two queries
… from Karen Schaffer: on trickle treat, and on gangbang and gangbanger. Trickle treat. Karen wondered about this Mumsnet posting: To take my kids out tonight – not trickle treating, just out? with...
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