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Fresh -istas
ADS-L discussion has recently taken up two recent formations in -ista: normalista on the tv show Veep and structuralista in Paul Krugman’s NYT column today. Both have the derogatory tone of English...
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Generalized word rage
A new comment on “Dubious portmanteaus” (from last July): I know this is an older article but I was just thinking today how much I hate portmanteaus. I hate ‘fandom’ and ‘cosplay’. I also hate the word...
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The upcoming storm
As Hurricane Sandy advances on the East Coast of the U.S., a storm of playful morphology has developed in its wake, unleashing gales of the portmanteaus snowicane and frankenstorm. (Hat tip to Victor...
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Taco sauce
Today’s Zippy: The strip is a lead-in to a pun so dreadful — the Holy Grill for the Holy Grail — that it’s wonderful. Then there’s the taco sauce theme and the snowlone let the X commence in the title....
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Zippymorphs
Today’s Zippy, with morphological play from Dingburgers: One attested derived nominalization, contemplation from the verb contemplate; one over-extended derived nominalization, ingestation (rather that...
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Tacolicious
On Wednesday the Stanford QUEST group (queer staff and faculty) had our monthly happy hour, this time at Tacolicious in Palo Alto, a Mexican restaurant that not long ago replaced the Indian fusion...
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Departments: There’ll always be an England
In the NYT on the 21st, this entertaining story by Sarah Lyall: “Common Gnomes Pop Up at Rarefied Flower Show, to Horror of Many”, where it is reported that: it was not surprising that the staid Royal...
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Arnie Levin
This fine New Yorker cartoon by Arnie Levin, sent to me by Sally Page Byers and Amanda Walker (along with an X-rated composition by Pierre et Gilles and an X-rated photograph by Wolfgang Tillmans;...
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Playing with French morphology
From Benita Bendon Campbell, this reminiscence of a moment during her time in Paris with Ann Daingerfield Zwicky, many years ago: Ann and I and aother friend were having afternoon tea at our local café...
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Zippifixation
Today’s Zippy, on the origin of humor: (#1) Bill Griffith is fond of playful morphology: here, humorology ‘the study of humor’ and humorologist, plus humorosity ‘humorousness’. Humorology has sometimes...
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Zippy nonsense
Today’s Zippy, which incorporates the comic-within-the-comic, Fletcher and Tanya: F&T is a recurrent feature in Zippy. It’s a masterpiece of (Gricean) irrelevance, in which the conversational...
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Eleganza
Today’s goofy Zippy: A grab-bag of stuff here, beyond the 60s clothes: the playful coolth (which has been around for some time) and Clauditude (certainly special to Zippy); the punning allusion to...
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dorkage
Today’s Zits, with jocular morphology and some (Wurst-style) phallicity as well: Jeremy for Weenie World! Then there’s dorkage. Quinion’s affixes site on the noun-forming suffix -age: [Old French,...
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More Zippy playful morphology
Yesterday’s Zippy: Another chapter in Zippy’s playful morphology, notably with -ity: seriosity and goofiosity. (The names Mrs. Decaf and Mr. Groundnuts are a bonus.) The laughter uh-hyuk is true...
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Commercial playful morphology
In television commercials that recently came past me: yummify (and more) in a 5-hour ENERGY commercial; and waffulicious in an IHOP commercial. yummify etc. On this site, a commercial exhorting us to...
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Coffeenyms and reservation names
From Andras Kornai, a link on my Facebook timeline, tagged as “for Mr. Alexander Adams”: a Schwa Fire piece, “The Name on the Cup: Brewing the Perfect Coffeenym” by Greg Uyeno. About choosing a name...
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cartoonosity
Today’s Zippy, with a cartoon transformation: The three Dingburgers admiring Little Zippy (already cartoon characters) become more and more like cartoon characters, more cartoonish, more cartoony:...
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The clean-gasm
Friday’s Zits: (#1) The playful libfix –gasm, extracted from orgasm and suggesting great satisfaction (akin to orgasm). Here attached to clean (either Adj or V, probably Adj), Not apparently taken up...
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More Zippy-O-Rama
Today’s Zippy takes us through three commercial establishments with (variants) of –orama names, while fretting ambivalently about American patriotism: (#1) Wein-O-Rama (Cranston RI), Billy’s...
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Revisiting 9: ¡-ola!
A comment on the vulgar noun crapola in yesterday’s posting “A portmantriple”, from David Preston: [cited by AZ] “-ola, a suffix used humorously to extend standard words.” Wasn’t the original ‘ola’ the...
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