I stumbled across this comic today, from the creative artist over at XKCD. As I’ve noted in the past, the artist certainly has an eye for language and linguistics humor, and I just wanted to share the latest such comic I’ve stumbled across:

Here’s a link to the full comic.

Perhaps I find this comic so funny because I know people who use the [adjective]-ass [noun] construction pretty frequently (as in “that’s a huge-ass building”). I’ve even been known to do it myself (I feel dirty). I eagerly look forward to mentally switching the hyphen as soon as I next hear the expression, even if it means I start snickering uncontrollably.

The fascinating part is that in speech, the (vast) difference between a “sweet-ass car” and a “sweet ass-car” is only expressed by timing and intonation (varying the pitch of one’s voice). Using Praat to tweak the intonation, you can fairly reliably change one into the other, and alter the meaning completely.

Think about it: at a completely subconscious level, we are able to understand complex changes in meaning expressed solely by a minor variations in the speed of vibration of a speaker’s vocal folds. The complexity, subtlety, and grace of human speech is truly amazing, and this phenomenon provides a wonderful ass-demonstration. Err, that’s not quite right…

Hello everybody, and Happy Valentines Day to everybody that celebrates it.

Valentine’s Day is a holiday celebrated in some Western cultures which is generally dedicated to love, romance, and relationships. Likely adapted from the Roman spring fertility ritual and Christianized with the namedropping of St. Valentine, it’s frequently considered to be a good day to go on dates, to exchange gifts (thanks to concerted marketing efforts), and to spend time with your significant other.

Of course, Valentine’s Day has its share of fascinating words and language use associated with it.

Frequently, people refer to Valentine’s Day as a “Hallmark Holiday”. This refers to the Hallmark Card company, and thus, by metonymy, to the greeting card and gift industry. The term itself reflects the somewhat popular belief that Valentine’s Day is as hyped as it is largely due to marketing, and that the real reason it exists is so that gift card companies, candy makers, and florists can sell their goods at inflated prices after the Christmas Rush.

Another popular (albeit bitter) alternate name for Valentine’s Day is “Singles Awareness Day”, evoking the sadness of being single on the day that people are expected to be celebrating romance.

Some people have been known to refer to Valentine’s Day as “Make-Up Day”, because in some relationships (apparently), showering your significant other with gifts on Valentine’s Day can make up for your past failings or infidelities.

As you can see (from the host of alternate definitions and perspectives), Valentine’s day is controversial even in the places where it’s celebrated, perhaps moreso than any other holiday. However, the fact remains, it’s a darned good time to get a date in a Western Culture.

A quick (and related) link for the OS X users in the crowd:

The Love Translator Widget is a dashboard widget which translates the phrase “I love you” into more than 100 languages, all transliterated for easy reading. Install it today, woo her tonight. Remember, nothing’s sexier than a vow of love that she can’t understand.

Hello everybody!

This post really has two reasons for existence. The first, a linguistic reason, is to pose a question to the readers about our use and perception of language. The second is to post a series of pictures (not my own) that will assuredly make the reader smile and/or laugh. Hopefully you’ll enjoy both.

Caturday

From what I gather, the phenomenon of funny cat pictures began on one particular web image board. I’m not going to give the name of the board as it’s an board where people can post anonymously, so there’s frequently content there I don’t want to endorse. Regardless, a tradition called Caturday arose. On Saturdays, people would find pictures of cats with interesting expressions, then caption them in humorous ways. These have been posted in various places on the internet, and it’s not uncommon for them to show up in random discussions on all sorts of sites. Recently, I went looking for more of them (as I find them quite funny), and found a treasure trove of cats, strangely enough, posted on a BodyBuilding forum. Based on these images, I’ve been able to make a Linguistic observation:

Cats have bad grammar, and it’s funnier that way

In many of the pictures I found, I’ve noted pretty significant deviations from conventional English Grammar. Ranging from the incorrect application of language rules (”eated”), to internet style contractions (”plz” for “Please”), to out and out incorrect verb agreement (”I are serious cat”), many of these captions use blatantly bad grammar. Here are some examples:

The fact of the matter, though, is that the bad grammar somehow makes it funnier. Somehow, saying “I am a Serious Cat, and this is a Serious Thread” doesn’t have the same ring to it. The best explanation I’ve come up with is that the grammatical errors remind English speakers of the speech of children, and thus, come up with more cuteness. If you have any ideas, I’d like to hear them.

A meme is born

Before I go, I’d like to talk a bit more about the “im in ur ____, ____ing your ____” construction. I’m not sure what the original version was, but since its inception, it has truly become an internet meme, a sort of internet in-joke that’s become a cliché due to frequent posting. There are lots of different variations on this construction (”im in your fridge, eating ur foodz”), and it has even been applied outside of cats. This past November, when the Democrats gained control of the US Congress, this picture promptly popped up online featuring the new Speaker of the House:

Just to think, from such humble roots, Caturday has spawned a new internet sensation reaching as far as the US Congress. Oh, the glory of the internet.

Followup: I’ve discussed the LOLCat dialect a bit more recently, so if you’re interested in this phenomenon and the heights it has reached, you might want to read “im in ur programmz, codin in ur dialect”