Odds and ends 8/14/13
An assortment of short notes that have come my way recently, on errors, back-formations, penguins, gender roles, and more. 1. Spelling woes. Writing about ukuleles (here) was quite a trial for me. The...
View ArticleBullshido, bullshtein, and cork soakers
(All sorts of taboo language and sexual references.) So I posted a brief notice of Mark Peters’s recently published bullshit lexicon, noting in passing the euphemism bullshine, which wasn’t among the...
View ArticleWrestling with gay porn
This is a follow-up to something I just posted on AZBlogX, “Wrestling match”, about a piece of gay porn from the C1R studio, more specifically about the first scene (of three) in the new...
View ArticleOh, the *Heimlich* maneuver!
A Bloom County cartoon from 6/25/06, with a malapropistic Opus: Hind-lick maneuver as an error for Heimlich maneuver has made the net rounds as a joke about two hillbillies. I prefer Breathed’s...
View ArticleWord exchange/reversal or what?
Back on December 27th, Doug Harris sent me this example (crucial bit boldfaced), from that day’s Daily Beast, in the article “U.S. Health Care Is Failing My Patients: From chronic conditions to mental...
View ArticleRuthie and Joe work with what they know
Two recent One Big Happy strips show Ruthie and Joe coping as best they can with unfamiliar words: thoroughfare and boycott: (#1) (#2) thoroughfare. In #1, both kids understand the /fer/ part of...
View ArticleOdds 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,...
View ArticleBrief mention: F/C malapropism
Yesterday, I said, in answer to a question about the acceptability of some tea: I don’t know. I just took my first steps. A word substitution, clearly (steps for intended sips (of tea)) — involving two...
View ArticleThe news for penises, St. Lucy’s Eve edition
Tomorrow’s the day to set your hair on fire, especially if you’re a young Scandinavian girl. But while you’re waiting for Advent to culminate in Christmas, you can savor the lights of the season: (#1)...
View ArticleJoke malaprops
The 6/13 One Big Happy, in my comics feed yesterday: Philatelist as a (classical) malapropism (CM) for fatalist — an error that might on some occasion have occurred in actual speech (though I have no...
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