December 09, 2006
Linguistic cartoon update
Frazz for 12/9/2006:
I'm always glad to see phonetics featured in the funny papers. But Frazz should have said "Espresso has only one plosive!" Or maybe better, "There is no velar plosive in espresso!" Because the [p] is a plosive, after all. And the comics should be the last bastion of truthfulness in this ever-truthier world.
Dilbert for 12/8/2006:
Taboo words -- which Scott Adams has been thinking about recently -- are a common topic for analysis here, and some of our posts have been picked up in the comments on the Dilbert blog. [The origins of "frack" on Battlestar Galactica are discussed at length in the Dilbert Blog entry, but Erin O'Connor suggests linking to the wikipedia entry as well.]
Cathy for 12/8/2006:
A nice example of "the him" used as a perfectly grammatical noun phrase.
Posted by Mark Liberman at December 9, 2006 03:16 PM