Arnold Zwicky's Blog (original) (raw)
Zippy half-rhymes
May 14, 2026
Briefly noted: today’s Zippy strip has our Pinhead rowing to a half-rhyme:
Zippy is keen on spleen (‘bad temper; spite’ (NOAD)) and is happy to vent his in a half-rhyme. In particular, the feature rhyme of /strim/ with /splin/, m – n being the most common feature rhyme for consonants in English. On a lake, he could have displayed his hate (k – t).
Posted in Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Rhyme | Leave a Comment »
Hang free or peter out
May 14, 2026
Today’s adventure in analyzing the jokey allusions in my postings. The target allusion is the one boldfaced in this passage from my posting yesterday (5/13), “The pocket bulge”:
[The DJX bulge booster] provides a soft but protective pocket in which a man’s package (of whatever size) can be unconstrained (hang free or peter out, as the slogan goes)
I explained half of the joke in a comment about my raw materials for this posting:
“Live Free or Die”, the official state motto of New Hampshire
But then there’s peter out, a verb of fading (before coming to an end), so ‘fade to death’ here, framed with a pun on peter, with a covert allusion to the penis hanging unconstrained within the bulge booster.
Posted in Aktionsart, Allusion, Language and the body, Lexical semantics, Puns, Slogans, Taboo language and slurs | 2 Comments »
“Internal” and “External” Evidence in Linguistics
May 13, 2026
From a symposium on “The Problem of Data in Linguistics”, Proceedings of the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association, Vol. 1980, Volume Two: Symposia and Invited Papers (1980), pp. 598-604
Posted in Philosophy, Reference | Leave a Comment »
The pocket bulge
May 13, 2026
Fresh news for male genitalia, in a Daily Jocks e-mail ad today (5/13): DJX Prime Enhancing Underwear: an instant bulge booster. Provides the illusion of great size, thereby addressing the American male obsession with genital size as an indicator of solid masculinity, power, and consequence (one big dick to rule them all, as the saying goes). Also provides a soft but protective pocket in which a man’s package (of whatever size) can be unconstrained (hang free or peter out, as the slogan goes). And of course it comes in fabulous colors, for the fashion-minded; the ads revel in pink.
Posted in Clothing, Color, Language and the body, Language of sex, Music, Parody, Quotations, Underwear | 4 Comments »
The gift of your body
May 12, 2026
(tales of man-man sex, some of it in very plain street language, so not for kids or the sexually modest)
A story from my times at the gay baths, this one not previously reported on. From 1980, at the Club Baths of Toronto, a night out during the Biennial Meeting of the Philosophy of Science Association in Toronto, at which I gave a paper (“Internal” and “External” Evidence in Linguistics) in a symposium on “The Problem of Data in Linguistics”, now viewable on-line here.
The story has a poignant sequel in my current life as a solitary 85-year-old gay man with a lifelong high sex drive, which I’ll put off for a later posting because this one will be lengthy.
Posted in Gender and sexuality, Homosexuality, Language and the body, Language of sex, Masculinity, My life | Leave a Comment »
Two for May
May 11, 2026
Two cartoons from the May 2026 Funny Times, both with variants of familiar theme. Some Bizarro word play exploiting and extending on the similarity between names of diseases and names of flowers (commented on long ago by James Thurber); and a bob twist on Husband in Bed With Oh My God! (aka Honey, This is Not What It Looks Like).
Posted in Comic conventions, Gender and sexuality, Language play, Linguistics in the comics, Understanding comics | 3 Comments »
Latino meat baskets
May 10, 2026
Yesterday’s dinner order (big enough for that meal and today’s lunch): the Meat Basket Salad from Tacos El Grullense #1, in Redwood City:
(#1) The meat basket at El Grullense #1 (the Tacos El Grullense Grill in Redwood City is the first in a Bay Area family-owned chain of taquerias): beans, choice of meat (grilled chicken for me), rice, onions, cilantro, salsa, lettuce, tomatoes, guacamole, cheese, and sour cream in a crispy tortilla basket
Posted in Gender and sexuality, Language and food, Language and the body, Language of sex, My life, Names, Race and ethnicity, Spanish | Leave a Comment »
The chopped / shot reference
May 9, 2026
From Bethany “Bitty” Ramirez on Facebook on 5/8:
I chopped the rhubarb
But I did not chop the strawberry
— (#1) Ramirez
BR often writes (mouth-wateringly) about food and its preparation, but not lined out like this, and not with what looks like a reference to the song “I Shot the Sheriff” (in either of its two most famous recordings). Depending on your knowledge of popular music (which probably depends on your age), this is either an ostentatiously playful allusion — pretty much everybody of a certain age knows the song, so it leaps right out as the model for #1 — or an Easter egg quotation — a kind of hidden bonus for those younger listeners who happen to be familiar with the model. (More on OPAs and EEQs below.)
Posted in Allusion, Music, Quotation | Leave a Comment »
African iris
May 9, 2026
(To the memory of Ann Daingerfield Zwicky, who was born Ann Walcutt Daingerfield on 5/9/1937. Her favorite flower was the Japanese iris and her least favorite holiday was (US) Mother’s Day, the second Sunday in May.)
Found almost everywhere in today’s walk with my helper Isaac around a few blocks south of my house: a pretty plant growing in clumps, with narrow leaves, and at the tips of stalks, modest yellow (occasionally white) iris-like (but flat) flowers, with three petals and three sepals:
(#1) The flower of the month
Some digging around got it identified as the (yellow) African iris, Dietes bicolor. An excellent plant.
Posted in Events and occasions, Language and plants, My life | Leave a Comment »
REX&M graphic art
May 8, 2026
Spurred by Max Vasilatos’s show-n-tell at the most recent (5/3) soc.motss get-together on Zoom, some material on the S&M graphic artist REX, assembled from material in his Wikipedia entry; the summary paragraph:
REX (1943 – March 2024) was an American visual artist and illustrator closely associated with gay fetish art of 1970s and 1980s New York and San Francisco. He avoided photographs and did not discuss his personal life. His drawings influenced gay culture through graphics made for nightclubs including the Mineshaft and his influence on artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe. Much censored, he remained a shadowy figure, saying that his drawings “defined who I became” and that there are “no other ‘truths’ out there”. REX died in Amsterdam in late March 2024.
Posted in Art, Clothing, Gay porn, Homosexuality, Hyperbole, Language and the body, Language of sex, Masculinity, My life | Leave a Comment »