Aphorisms – Arnold Zwicky's Blog (original) (raw)
Archive for the ‘Aphorisms’ Category
The discovery of smoke
May 8, 2022
A Mick Stevens cartoon from the New Yorker of 4/18:
(#1) The giant black cloud of smoke, largely obscuring its discoverer, made me laugh out loud when this issue arrived last month
But I didn’t post about the cartoon because it seemed to have neither a linguistics point nor a gender & sexuality point (nor to engage with other of my passions — music, art, food, plants, animals, mathematics, men’s bodies, shapenote singing, Switzerland, my medical conditions, and so on).
Ah, man of little faith. There is almost always a linguistics point to be found; and, if I’m willing to exercise some ingenuity, a gay point too. And so it is here.
Posted in Ambiguity, Aphorisms, Books, Formulaic language, Gender and sexuality, Language play, Lexical semantics, Linguistics in the comics | Leave a Comment »
Roses now, or roses later
January 29, 2020
On Sunday at the Palo Alto shapenote singing, we came to #340 in the 1991 Denson Sacred Harp, Odem (Second), with the chorus “Give me the roses while I live”. Counterbalanced, as it turns out, on the preceding page by #339, When I Am Gone, with the second verse “Plant you a rose that shall bloom o’er my grave, / When I am gone”.
Roses now, or roses later.
Posted in Aphorisms, Death notices, Language and religion, Music, My life, Proverbs | Leave a Comment »
Tea-tag aphorisms
November 25, 2018
You’re familiar with cookie fortunes, and possibly with coffee-cup bible verses, now there are tea-tag aphorisms:
(#1) A cup of inspiration from the Yogi company
Posted in Aphorisms, Language and food | 2 Comments »